Five Trailblazing Specialty Food Stores to Visit When You Want to Skip the Supermarket

Walk into Penny’s Cheese Shop, and you’d think you’d died and gone to cheese heaven. With two fridges stocked to the brim with creamy, stinky, funky and hard cheeses, this little unassuming fromagerie is one of the best in Sydney. Why, you ask? Because of Penny.

While the beauty of the fit-out is only outdone by the cheeses on show, Penny Lawson is the reason you should come to Penny’s Cheese Shop. Whatever you’re looking for, or even if you’re not looking for anything at all, you’ll leave with a cheese that is your new favourite. Almost everything, like nearby Whole Beast Butchery, mentioned below, is cut to order. Little tasters are on offer most days, too, which should make it even easier to find a cheese you like. With a passion for education and service, Lawson, a self-professed ‘curd-nerd’, will guide you through her selection of local and international cheeses with humour and excitement.

Lawson’s commitment to local produce doesn’t end with cheese, either — the shop also showcases honey from the Blue Mountains, Papanui eggs and bread from Pyrmont’s Pioik Bakery to accompany your cheese. Aside from the service and the cheese, Lawson’s toasties, which quickly achieved cult status, are another reason you’ll return to the shop again and again and again. With cheese both on the inside and the outside of the Pioik bread, as well as a rotating range of fillings — from kimchi to smoked wagyu and jalapeños — we think they might just be the best in the city.

Images: Kimberley Low.

Marcus Papadopoulo of Whole Beast Butchery won’t just cut a steak for you. He’ll tell you where the animal came from, what it ate, how long it lived and how to cook it. Everything but what the animal’s name was.

Papadopoulo’s philosophy is simple: treat the meat with respect, know the animal and its origin, and only use produce of the highest quality. Bucking tradition, there are no meat cabinets to be found in the butchery; instead, its open plan encourages guests to interact and ask questions. Whole Beast focuses on just that, using every element of the beast — including Papadopoulo’s favourite cut: tongue. If you’re looking for a specific cut, Papadopoulo will retrieve the body of the beast and cut the meat in front of your eyes, instead of merely picking a pre-cut slice from a cabinet.

He also dry ages his meat, which allows the enzymes to break down the muscle fibre and for an increase in naturally occurring bacteria. These both influence the flavour of the meat, bringing the cut to what Papadopoulo refers to as its “highest potential”. Whole Beast also makes and sells terrines, black pudding, pickles and, arguably, the best handmade pâté in Sydney.

Images: Kimberley Low.

From the fishy genius of Josh Niland, owner of Paddington restaurant Saint Peter, comes the innovative Fish Butchery. It is like nothing else in Sydney — or even Australia. Informative and exciting, the Fish Butchery takes fish mongering to a new level of sophistication. But without the snobbery.

Walk into the Butchery and you won’t see mountains of colourful fish over ice — in fact, there’s no ice to be seen in the shop. Everything is kept in temperature-controlled dry rooms, to ensure no moisture spoils the fish.

Similarly to Whole Beast and Penny’s — it’s a theme that runs through all of these shops — everything is cut to order. A production team of ‘butchers’ is visible behind the counter, gutting, deboning and filleting, so every cut is pan-ready. After the fish is packed and ready to go, they’ll chat to you about how to cook the cut for the best result. This, Niland hopes, will encourage his clients to return for different, lesser-known fish varieties and cuts.

Like P&V, below, the Fish Butchery also runs small workshops for customers to learn how to cut and cook different fish, while serving up drinks from other local businesses, including from CBD bar and soda maker PS40. On top of all this, Niland runs a stall at the Carriageworks Farmers Market, selling small snacks such as prawn toast, fish sausages and pies and a limited lineup of fresh fish.

How often do you find yourself lost in Dan Murphy’s, helplessly picking up wines and putting them back down again, in the hope that someone will swoop in and save you? If the answer is often, then take yourself to P&V Wine and Liquor. Not only does it have an impressive selection of local beers and natural wines, but the team is truly invested in helping its guests.

P&V (that’s piss and vinegar) is a “bottleshop for the neighbourhood by the neighbourhood”. The team will take the time to chat to you, and make sure you leave with something delicious — whether that something is traditional and light, structural and bold or new and funky.

You won’t find any beer nuts or jerky at P&V. Instead, it offers fresh Wapengo rock oysters, pickles, cured meats, and cheeses, all locally sourced, to accompany your wine or beer. For wine enthusiasts or people who’d like to know a bit more about what their drinking, P&V hosts masterclasses with co-owner and natural wine aficionado Mike Bennie.

What differentiates P&V from other bottle shops in Newtown — and greater Sydney — is the team’s passion for what it sells, their expertise, and their love for the community, which is evident every night when thirsty customers line up to purchase their weeknight wine.

Image: James Adams.

Just a few minutes from Bronte Beach, Iggy’s Bread is always surrounded by a crowd of bread-hungry customers. And it’s not hard to see why. The naturally leavened bread is hand kneaded, crisp on the outside and soft and sour in the centre. If you want to snag yourself a loaf, you’ll need to head in early — the bakery’s specialties, rye, wholewheat and sourdough, often sell-out well before 11am. 

Luckily, you can find Iggy’s in two locations — just down the road from each other. In 2015, Iggy’s took over a second, larger, location on Belgrave Street. The second space allowed them to be more environmentally friendly, by implementing an energy-recovery system and adding solar panels on the roof.

While the bread is next-level, it’s Igor and Ludmilla Ivanovic’s, Iggy’s founders, commitment to community that sets the bakery apart from the others. All food scraps are fed to its worm farms or taken to community gardens and the bakery sells locally made ceramics and Indigenous Australian art.