Pioik Bakery

Pioik, pronounced "pee-oyk", means "bread" in Coptic Egyptian. It also means a bustling bakery and clubby cafe, nimbly producing a lip-smacking array of baked goods from ancient grains and modern expertise.

Run by Shady and Rose Wasef, Pioik has a smart street frontage, reminiscent of a modern New York diner. There are footpath tables with dinky wooden stools and a large front window for bar-like seating, and people-watching, inside.

The darkish interior, with a big wooden communal table, has bare brick walls, shelves full of Sicilian olive oil, balsamic vinegar from Modena, bags of Mulino Marino flour and house-made Arabic granola packed with pistachio, honey, cinnamon, almonds, sunflower kernels and sesame seeds. The air is warm with a breakfasty smell. Fresh daffodils in dinky vases are on every table.

More shelves on one side feature beautiful ceramics and elegant metal cooking implements. Water is available from a ceramic urn. But the eyes turn immediately to the glass-fronted display cabinets bearing egg sandwiches, flatbread pizzas, orange and currant twists, orange cake, banana bread, bronzed and pistachio-sprinkled pastries and croissants so buoyant they look like sun-tanned clouds.

Immediately behind, cooling from the oven, are racks of bread. Not a crowd but a coterie of golden and rich-looking loaves.

We order at the counter and take a seat on the footpath. The Sultan breakfast arrives; roasted broccoli, sweet potato, zucchini and sweet corn served with a salad of spinach, walnuts, currants and labneh cheese. Everything tastes melty, the vegetables lightly charred and perfectly matched with the tart cheese.

The marvellous Egyptian breakfast is a boiled egg half-way between hard and soft served with a salad of parsley, coriander, tomato and shanklish cheese, and your choice of simit or manoush bread.

My highlight is the egg sandwich – perfectly toasted bread holding an egg frittata and delicious relish.

Meals are served in cardboard boxes which, presumably, makes life in the kitchen more about baking than dishwashing. When you encounter the quality of the bread being served, it is a smart idea.

Pioik's breads are all are made from Australian certified organic flour and it is a treat to sit inside with one of Rose's creamy flat whites and watch Shady, who began his career as an apprentice to Stefano Manfredi, and staff working in the open kitchen.

Choosing a bread is almost an education. There is Aftoni, a moist and beautifully fluffy sourdough batard, a black-seed rye loaf called the Kemu, and the Etyoo has five kinds of grain: polenta, oats, linseeds, pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds. Enkir bread is made with Enkir flour from the oldest cereal (12,000 years) in the world. 

Anyone wanting the Epooro, or the King, may need to order ahead. This whole-wheat boule weighs two kilograms, although it can bought in quarters. The gluten-free bread, my gluten-averse friends assure me, is also worth ordering ahead.

I return the following week to drink more excellent coffee and to try what may be the best orange cake in Sydney. Dense, dewy with orange, and sweet without blowing the taste buds, this square of bright copper-coloured cake makes everything in the world feel perfect. Or Pioifect.

THE PICKS

Pioik egg sandwich; Sultan lunch; Egyptian breakfast; orange cake

THE LOOK

New York diner crossed with bustling bakery

THE SERVICE

Super friendly, knowledgeable and fast