Dougal Muffet, Mat Lindsay and Russell Beard

In a city with no shortage of bakeries, it takes something special to gain cult status before it even opens. But AP (All Purpose) Bakery – which started selling its goods at Paramount Coffee Project and Reuben Hills during lockdown last year – has achieved just that. AP and its carb-tastic masterpieces have found success at Carriageworks markets and at a kiosk on Paramount House’s rooftop. Now it’s opened AP Town, a four-walls-and-a-roof space in a quiet Newtown backstreet.

AP Town occupies a tiny former corner store just behind King Street, and is serving up the pillowy pastries, rustic loaves and layered potato ciabatta that have been sending Sydney into a buttery frenzy.

The success isn’t surprising – the team behind AP is hospo-star-studded. Alongside head baker Dougal Muffet (ex-Ester and Moonacres Kitchen in Robertson, Southern Highlands), the AP team includes Ping Jin Ng (owner and founder of Golden Age Cinema & Bar and Paramount House Hotel), Russell Beard (owner and founder of Reuben Hills and Paramount Coffee Project) and Mat Lindsay (owner and chef at Poly and Ester; and co-owner of Shwarmama with Beard and Ng).

The team initially planned to open a bakery in a heritage sandstone space in Darlinghurst in 2021, but the pandemic and building issues diverted them.

“The roadblocks put us in a pressure cooker – we’ve ducked and dived and pivoted a few times just to keep the ball rolling,” Muffet tells Broadsheet. “Most of the concepts that we’ve taken on weren’t part of our original plan, so the evolution has been free-footed in that sense. The business that we designed isn’t the business that’s since developed, but we’re really proud of what it’s naturally evolved into.”

Pies and toasties are winter-friendly highlights at the Newtown venue. Pick up pies filled with LP’s smoked beef brisket and gravy, or warrigal greens and ricotta, as well as a three-cheese toastie melted between hunks of dark fermented potato bread. The popular Aleppo pepper and asiago cheese scroll also makes a return here. And sweet options include a buckwheat pain au chocolat, citrus-infused almond tebirkes (Danish poppy seed pastries) and bomboloni (Italian doughnuts) filled with seasonal fruit. But it’s the excellent quality of the classics that the AP team remains most proud of.

“My favourites are still our buttermilk croissants and our fenugreek bread – I take a loaf home every day,” Muffet says. In fact, if AP were sticking to bread alone, it’d no doubt be just as popular. The bakery pumps out a range of rye, spelt, and barley loaves, baguettes, tartines and bagels, and its grains are milled locally or in-house. While the bakery’s mill was imported from Vermont in the USA, ingredients are sourced nearby where possible. Fruit comes from Block 11 Organics, buttermilk and ricotta are sourced from Marrickville’s Vannella Cheese, and the grains are largely grown in NSW – with some straight from Muffet’s family farm in Forbes.

Its Newtown space – formerly home to Atomic Coffee Roasters – is stripped back, with exposed brickwork, dark, moody interiors and a sign by a metal fabricator from Muffet’s hometown.

“We didn’t want to do anything too ground-breaking with the design, we just wanted to create a true neighbourhood pastry shop. We’re not looking to bring people from all ends of Sydney to that store, we want it to be a part of Newtown – it’s there for the neighbours,” Muffet explains.

And despite having already experienced huge success, Muffet is keeping mum on any future expansion. “There’s probably a lot of potential for growth, but right now we just want to focus on making good food and keeping people happy.”

AP Town by AP Bakery 1A Bucknell Street, Newtown

Hours: Wed to Sun 8am–2.30pm

apbakery.com.au @a.p.bread