Tag Archives: Darren Purchese

The first post in our new section, Specialty Stores, where we aim to share our favourite and most interesting places to get your foodie fix in Melbourne and beyond, is fittingly dedicated to the masterstroke that is Burch & Purchese Sweet Studio!

It’s located on Chapel Street, South Yarra, next to the funky Olsen hotel, and across the road from the new Vogue shopping center / apartment complex. Among the fabulous looking cake displays, it also houses the semi-open kitchen where you can see Ian Burch and Darren Purchese (and their helpers) showing off their sweet-making techniques from the early hours of the morning through to the late hours of the evening.

I first visited B&P Sweet Studio back when it was a pop-up studio on Flinders Street in March this year, and was thoroughly impressed with just how beautiful and thoughtful the cakes and other sweet treats they were making looked. Given that both Ian Burch and Darren Purchese are veteran pastry chefs – Ian was most recently stationed at No 35 (incidentally, we hated the desserts we had there – sorry Ian!!), while Darren has recently been working at The Press Club – the quality is not surprising.