Brot & Wurst, North Narrabeen

Bread and sausages. What's the wurst that could happen? This family-run bakery and café looks like a surprise find in the suburbs, but there’s no shortage of locals queuing at the counter for snags or stopping in for coffee and cake. The display cabinet at the back is packed with a dizzying array of kransky, weisswurst, bockwurst, chorizo and up to nine kinds of bratwurst, including a tasty roast pork version with pear cider.


Grieben schmalz $5

Then there are the deli meats. German ex-pat Dean Stockburger has been a master butcher for 25 years, starting up Brot and Wurst in 2009. They make all their small goods onsite with no gluten, wheat, dairy or soy added. Much of the meat is free-range too. There are smoked hams, salamis and an offal-lover’s paradise of black pudding, liverwurst, tongue wurst and suelze, made from pig's head. They even have tubs of grieben schmalz: clarified chicken fat with bits of caramelised chicken skin.


Inhouse baked German breads and pastries

Behind all that is a wall of breads – everything from organic dark sourdough ryes to German pretzels to wheels of organic carrot bread. There's also an aisle of European groceries running the length of the bakery/butchery/café with more variaties of mustard than you can poke a hot dog at.


German pretzel $2.40


German hot dog with sauerkraut and mustard $7.50


Smoked chorizo with sauerkraut and mustard $7.50


Smoked kranksy with sauerkraut and mustard $7.50


Cheese chilli kranksy with sauerkraut and mustard $7.50

If you can’t wait to go home to cook up your snags, pull up a chair and have them eat-in instead. There’s a small dining area within the shop or sit on the shaded balcony outside. Choose from a giant German hot dog, smoked chorizo or smoked kransky or go for gold and get the chilli kransky stuffed with globs of melted cheese. They’re served on a house-made roll with sauerkraut and mustard for $7.50.


Hot leberkase roll and mustard $7

The hot leberkase roll is a surprise winner. It’s a baked sausage loaf made from corned beef, pork, bacon and onions. Here it’s sliced in thick slabs, pan-fried and jammed into a Kaiser roll with a slick of mustard. It tastes like an awesome version of devon – no tomato sauce required.



Smoked currywurst Berlin-style $7.50

The smoked currywurst sausage is served Berlin-style. That means it’s cut into slices, drizzled with tomato sauce, a few shakes of curry powder and a set of fondue forks for easy stabbing. They’ve got a Swiss fondue too, all boozed up and bubbly.


Swiss cheese fondue for one $12.50

For dessert there are fat fluffy jam donuts and German bee stings with vanilla cream custard, but our pick is the impossibly flaky country cherry strudel.








Brot and Wurst
1442 Pittwater Road, North Narrabeen, Sydney
Tel: +61 (02) 9970 6151

Opening hours:
Cafe
Monday to Friday 6am-2.30pm
Saturday and Sunday 7.30am-2.30pm

Shop
Monday 9am-2.30pm
Tuesday to Friday 9am-5pm
Saturday and Sunday 8am-3pm


This article appeared in the April 2014 issue of Time Out Sydney in my monthly Food & Drink column Eat This! [Read online] 

Read more of my Time Out Sydney reviews