My lone visit to Bacco Pasticceria

Bacco Pasticceria is located in the foyer of Chifley Plaza (cnr Elizabeth St and Hunter St in Sydney CBD). So amidst shopping at the swish shops there, you can fortify yourself with a coffee and cake at this Italian-inspired café. And, as there’s an office tower above, you can line up with the office workers for the privilege.

Bacco has been open for a while, but I was prompted to visit only when I bumped into some work colleagues, each carrying one of its cake boxes. “Ooh, what have you got in there? Where did you get them? Why didn’t you ask me to come with?”. After being bombarded with questions like this, they were probably glad they didn’t ask me along to what was a spur of the moment visit (so they said). I immediately made a beeline (alone) for the Chifley building.

There is a wine bar alongside the café that serves food and drink and is very popular at lunchtimes and after work. The café is staffed by a little team of baristas who churn out the lattes and dish out the cakes. The selection of cakes is impressive – lots of cream-based gateaux and some macarons.

I ended up with a ‘Zuppe Anglais’ (shouldn’t that be 'zuppa Inglese'?) which was layers of orange jelly, strawberries, sponge and sweetened cream in a plastic cup. Tastes better than it sounds. It was moist and flavoursome and just enough to push me through an afternoon’s workload.

I also got two macarons (strawberry with caramel ganache, and blue with chilli chocolate ganache). These definitely tasted better than their lopsided shapes suggest. The chilli chocolate was a surprise and a nice one, too.


There’s plenty more where these came from, so I’m going to plan a weekly visit to try the different offerings. And maybe my colleagues can be convinced to come along – if they’re lucky, haha!