Where the sourdough also rises at Fiore Bread

Anyone sampling the transcendent loaf offerings of new McMahons Point bakery Fiore Bread may also find themselves eyeing passersby with a piercing, detective-like stare.

For, Samantha Dean and Alberto dal Bosco's small-scale bread and sandwich outfit, five weeks old and filled with Italian-inspired goods, is set in the sort of cute, English village-like street beloved of British TV mystery series Midsomer Murders. Post office, bookstore, pharmacy, bakery. An idyllic setting.

Is that DCI Tom Barnaby eating Fiore's house staple brioche with raspberry jam and mascarpone while nobly probing a hotbed of bucolic intrigue? No, it is not. 

But, like me, he is revelling in Dal Bosco's pillowy, sweet and comforting bun, served on a doily-lined metal plate and dusted with icing sugar. Paired with a rich Mecca Coffee long black, and supped in the winter sun on one of Fiore's bright orange angular outdoor stools, we could sleuth or simply keep eating.

Fiore Bread, which opened on the day of the federal election, bolsters the area's bakery options after recent French bistro and bakery arrival Loulou up the road in Milsons Point.

Dean and Dal Bosco originally searched for premises in eastern Sydney, concentrating on Surry Hills and Darlinghurst, and the inner west. But, during the lockdown of 2021, on a 10-kilometre radius drive they saw a lease sign on this pretty duck egg-blue edged, two-storey terrace building.

Fiore's business has boomed since opening in May, with locals and office workers strolling in for the brioche (also available with hazelnut spread), daily biscuits or salami, mortadella or egg salad-filled sourdough paninis, pulled from daily baked tearable bread "wheels".

Dal Bosco's sourdough loaves, made using heritage and ancient grain flours from Wholegrain Milling in Gunnedah, are nestled on funky orange metal shelves behind the till.

They range from daily staples, white, and spelt and kamut grain, to a rotating menu of seeded, olive, wholemeal and walnut, and fruit and nut. Focaccia is made regularly and chocolate and hazelnut loaves pop up on Sundays.

"Bread is the hero," Dean says. "The sandwiches, biscuits and coffee are there but freshly baked sourdough bread is the passion and the product we want to shine the most."

The pair's other aim is to keep things simple. The menu is small and designed for takeaway or pit-stops on the benches and stools outside. The shop's fit-out, created with Dean's sister-in-law Dani Dean of the Makehaus, and graphic designer Elliot Shields, merges a terrazzo floor, pale green tiling, deep-blue counters, orange shelving and linen curtains.

Dean says Dal Bosco, formerly a pizza chef at Love Supreme in Paddington, where the pair met, and a baker at Iggy's in Bronte, is happiest tinkering with dough and new recipes in the bakery's kitchen between peak-hour baking periods.

"We're finding we're selling out before midday on weekends," Dean says. "So we'll increase our bread accordingly to make enough for all the people."

They also have plans to expand Fiore into a deli grocer with cheeses and meats in the fridge and buckets of seasonal fresh flowers at the door.

Shop shelves currently carry products including housemade granola, Hunted and Gathered hazelnut and chocolate spread, classic Italian citrus drink Cedrata Tassoni Soda, raw honey from Black Hill on Wonnarua Country in NSW and Jam Lady Jam from Healesville in Victoria. 

Many of the spreads and jams are use in the food. Today's biscuit, cooling on the counter on a wire rack, is a "choc drop" sable, an enjoyably grainy French shortbread dolloped with Hunted and Gathered's organic chocolate. Piled nearby on a gingham paper-lined pastry stand, the brioches' blushingly red raspberry jam is from Jam Lady Jam.

Drop-in anytime to sample Dal Bosco's daily baking experiments - today it's chunks of fruity loaf to try - pocket a filled panini or take-home a whole wheel of freshly baked panini for a meal or party.

"It's been our little project, Alberto and I," Dean says. "It feels a bit like a dream come true because we wanted it for a while and it's the next step for our life to do this together."

The low-down

Fiore Bread

Vibe Italian-tinged small-scale bakery offering fresh sourdough loaves, sandwiches and pantry goods.

Go-to dish Raspberry jam and mascarpone-filled brioche and a kamut and spelt sourdough loaf

Insta-worthy dish Sable biscuits dolloped with chocolate or jam