A former pizza shop in south-west Sydney has been transformed into a gallery-like space that focuses all the attention on cakes, tarts, chocolates and choux buns.
There’s an other-worldly portal feeling about encountering the object d’art creations behind glass at patisserie Arta Atelier. One minute you’re on a brick-paved footpath in Camden’s shopping streets in south-west Sydney, the next you’re in a gleaming white cake chamber eyeing an architecturally balanced vanilla and salted caramel choux bun.
Nearby, in a display case fit for jewellery, is a hazelnut, chocolate and orange teacake, its slender length shot-through with hazelnut cremeux and topped with voluptuous balls of dark chocolate. There’s a strawberry and cream tart that, above a vanilla sable base and a strawberry centre, bears a vanilla mousse dome decorated with strawberry slices so thin they could be a glossy photograph. To its side is a small coconut, yuzu and chocolate cake, its delicate, palest-yellow coating adorned with whipped coconut yoghurt and a chocolate sliver.
Standing behind all these creations is Armin Begovic, a Bosnian-born pastry chef, and Harley-Davidson-devotee, who learnt his skills at TAFE before becoming head pastry chef at the Fullerton Hotel, Ovolo, The Grounds of Alexandria and the Shangri-La Group (with stints at Aria, Rockpool Bar & Grill and Guillaume at Bennelong along the way).
Begovic opened Arta Atelier with his wife, Tayla, in 2024. The couple stripped the former pizza shop’s blood-red decor to create a sparklingly workshop kitchen and gallery-like space that focuses all attention on the pastries.
“Pastry is a luxury,” says Begovic. “People don’t need it. So it’s all about beauty and creativity, the detail, the colours, the ideas. You want to draw people to them so nothing stops you from imagining what you can make.” To that end, biting into the vanilla choux bun swings between a massacre of meticulously wrought art and a joyous cream-on-your-nose jamboree.
The sweetness is not overwhelming here. My favourite, the hazelnut cake, might be an unequivocally opulent layering of hazelnut-imbued mousse, creme, genoise and shortbread (Armin is devoted to hazelnut) but its lush texture and taste is not icky or cloying.
Begovic, who rides his beloved Harley-Davidson to work when he can, also whips up buttermilk scones, frangipane tarts, madeleines and two kinds of chocolate-chip biscuit and larger-scale celebration cakes to order. He creates chocolates with flavours ranging from raspberry pistachio to lime and toasted coconut, and bakes limited runs of excellent meat pies, sausage rolls and burek.
The burek, which Begovic makes within 10 minutes of ordering, is outstanding – its rolled and coiled spinach and cheese-filled pastry is buttery and pull-apart soft. He says it’s inspired by his grandmother’s recipe.
Camden has plenty of pastry shops and bakeries (the best bakery is B85 Artisan Bakery over the road) but Arta Atelier’s cakes, tarts and desserts are pure art. Ponder their beauty and restrained sweetness, then wolf them.
Three other French-style patisseries to try
Originally helmed by Irish chef Aoife Noonan, Dear Florence’s range of brooch- and cloud-like cakes and tarts – including coffee, pecan and Japanese whisky, and citrus, yoghurt and orange-blossom honey varieties – are treasures in a hushed haute couture-like space.
Prefecture 48, 230 Sussex Street, Sydney, p48.com.au/venues-dear-florence
La Renaissance
Known as La Ren, this bastion of French baking (established in 1974 and in its location in The Rocks for 33 years) traverses pastry’s big guns, from millefeuille to croquembouche, eclairs, Saint Honore and opera cake. Beaut sausage rolls and quiche Lorraine too.
47 Argyle Street, The Rocks, larenaissance.com.au
Pastry chef Yves Scherrer loves eclairs – most recently a salted caramel custard-filled, chocolate-covered number daubed with vanilla mascarpone cream, chocolate ganache and Belgian chocolate-chunk biscuit – but his passion extends to cut-above French cakes, tarts and croissants, too.
343-345 Clovelly Road, Clovelly, madameandyves.com.au
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