Wellington Cake Shop

Leslie Brull looks like the stereotype of a pastry chef; a white apron, a chef’s hat and more chocolate and butter on him than covers the bench where he makes cheese and cherry strudels, biscuits and sponge cakes.

Hungarian-born Brull and his wife Georgina opened Wellington Cake Shop in 1979. At first it was a standard Australian bakery – selling pies, finger buns and bread rolls – with one exception. It also had a cabinet dedicated to Hungarian treats – things such as sour cherry and cheese strudels, jam biscuits and dobos (sponge cake layered with chocolate buttercream). Now he concentrates on the Hungarian stuff. Such as a range of strudels, exquisitely layered cakes, bejgli (a bitter-sweet poppy seed roll), a range of bagels, and a chocolate kuglóf (a hollow, bell-shaped bready cake layered with gooey chocolate). The recipe for that came from a woman who worked with Brull at Wellington who got it from a famous pastry shop in Hungary.