By Helen Greenwood
It's week two after Paddy the Baker opened and the luck of the Irish is holding for Dublin-born Gerard ''Paddy'' Winston. Customers are flowing in, takings are good and the traditional Irish soda bread is a winner. Better still, the weary head baker, Wade Younger, finally has another pair of hands to do the afternoon shift.
Afternoons are dedicated to wholesale production of Irish soda bread, potato bread and the Seriously Seedy multigrain loaf. These are baked, packed and sent out to half-a-dozen retail outlets and five Irish pubs in Sydney.
On a roll ... Wade Younger, with Sarah-Jane and Gerard Winston at Paddy the Baker.Credit: Janie Barrett
In the pre-dawn and morning hours, Winston and Younger bake these three breads plus a baker's dozen of other loaves, rolls, pastries and pies for the leprechaun-size shop, just off the busy Kingsway in Miranda. It's a tight squeeze to fit display stands, a counter and the three-deck oven but the breads and pastries definitely have pride of place.
Baskets slot into the DIY wooden pine stands that hold sourdoughs, farmers' batch loaves, soda farls, buttermilk scones and spotted dick. Always good for a giggle, spotted dick is a soda bread speckled with sultanas and its name, Winston says, has a twisted etymology, from spotted dough, to dog, duff and dick, all meaning dotted with dried fruit.
Guinness and rye sourdough.Credit: Janie Barrett
Soda farls are airy buns baked with little proving and baking soda to make them rise, a quick bread traditionally cooked in a skillet above the fire.
Farmers' batch loaves have a top crust and soft sides, and Winston demonstrates how folk in Ireland buy it and start pulling pieces out to eat on their way home.
Even more intriguing is Waterford Blaa, a soft, white bun specific to the oldest city in Ireland. Winston uses this bap-style bun for his ''tradies' lunch'', filled with smashed egg, a pork and fennel sausage from The Irish Butcher in Penrith, and home-made relish. Home-made means cooked by Winston's wife, Sarah-Jane, who also does four different pie fillings, daily soups and sandwich toppings such as a heavenly, old-fashioned carnation chicken. A peek at her cookbook collection reveals titles from Roly's Restaurant & Cafe in Dublin, Darina Allen's Ballymaloe Cookery School and Dublin-based food, fashion and homewares retailer Avoca.
This high-end Irish chain and its food hall was a main influence on Winston, who has no background in the food industry but spent three weeks working at Avoca. Any plans he had for taking advantage of that experience were put on hold after the collapse of the Irish economy derailed their investments and their businesses - he was in marketing, Sarah-Jane had the flower concession at Harvey Nichols.
They packed up and left within months, just after their fifth child was born. ''We migrated to Australia in 2009 with seven suitcases, five kids and a few cuddly toys,'' Sarah-Jane says.
In more moneyed times, the couple had taken many family holidays in Australia, so they slotted comfortably into a house near the water in Bundeena.
Winston began baking soda bread in the kitchen and, for a laugh, he took some batches to the neighbourhood market. He sold out, 60 loaves in an hour. ''I did them eight at a time in the oven,'' he says. ''The bottoms were burnt and I scraped them off and I still sold out. I thought, 'There's something in this.'''
He went to other markets at Pyrmont, North Sydney, Camden, Manly and Bondi Junction, and Paddy the Baker was born in 2010.
Winston moved to a kitchen in Marrickville and Younger came on board part-time. His baking background includes stints in London at Clarke's Bakery and Exeter Street Bakery and, more recently, at St Malo in Crows Nest, Sydney.
Younger helped Winston open this shop and now works full-time, putting his stamp on the subtle sourdoughs: sweet potato and honey, Guinness and rye, and traditional batards, baguettes and ciabatta. He also makes danishes, croissants and pie pastry.
Meanwhile, Winston works on his Irish baking and his ideas.
''I'm not a pie'' is a sourdough cob, hollowed out and filled with a choice of pie fillings. He's installing a coffee cart run by the Jack of Harts and Jude, an Engadine cafe and roaster. And he's keeping the soda bread streaming out of the ovens.
Paddy the Baker
567 Kingsway, Miranda, enter from Kiora Road, 0424 997 552.
Mon-Wed and Fri, 6am-4pm, Thu 6am-6pm, Sat 7am-3pm, Sun 8am-noon.
Best buys Irish soda bread $6.50, 700g, Sweet potato and honey sourdough $10, 850g.
Guinness and rye sourdough $6.50 600g/$10 1.1kg.