Crafty Dining in Potts Point

We are proud to announce our fourth Crafty Dining experience as part of Good Food Month and Sydney Craft Week. Showcasing the rich variety of vintage & contemporary fashion, design and dining options on the elegant streets of Potts Point.

Mon Petit Chou

Mon Petit Chou Boutique is an established ladies fashion boutique,  who recently made the move further up Macleay Street to a new and bigger location opposite the famous landmark the El Alamein Fountain.

Owner/operator Robyn Mann sources most of her brands on regular trips to Europe, specialising in designer clothing including Israeli label Alembika, local labels Foil and Banana Blue, Parisian label Crea Concept, Lounge the Label, Moyuru, Studio B3, Studio Runholdz Black Label and Verge.  They also have labels exclusive to the store such as MPC and Line Twelve.

Mon Petit Chou has a loyal following in the hood. Potts Point ladies can be seen on a daily basis parading along Macleay street dressed head-to-toe in layered, contemporary shapes of tactile fibres in a distinct colour palette that is recognizably the Mon Petit Chou style.

There is also a sister store in Hunters Hill frequented by the lower North Shore Sydney crowd.

Penny’s Cheese Shop

Imagine that, you’re at a cheese shop, and whenever you try something new a friendly and entirely unpretentious cheese-nerd tells you what it is, who made it and how smelly it is. This is the experience at Penny’s Cheese Shop, a tiny cheese and cheese accoutrement shop in the backstreets of Potts Point.

That friendly, unpretentious server is the owner, Penny Lawson – a former cheesemaker, cheese judge and ex-executive officer of the Australian Specialist Cheesemakers' Association – has an encyclopedic knowledge of the stuff. She refined it at Kings Cross Markets, at London’s Borough Markets and in her kitchen, before opening her cheese and cheese-accoutrement shop just off Darlinghurst Road.

Her goal at Penny’s Cheese Shop is to make cheese accessible and fun, regardless of how expensive, boutique or commercial it is. Penny is extremely eager to guide you to your future favourite.  If you’re after Australia’s best, Lawson is likely to point you towards Victoria’s Holy Goat La Luna, Section 28’s alpine cheeses from the Adelaide Hills, and buttermilk ricotta by Sydney’s Kristen Allan. There’s also a good selection of exceptional overseas goods.

Lawson can also order anything you need, although she’s pulled together a best-of-the-best selection of things you’re likely to want with your cheese so you’re unlikely to need much more. There’s Tim Malfroy’s Blue Mountains’ honey, Papanui pasture-fed eggs, Alto olive oil and Pioik bread.

Whatever cheesy off-cuts she has are stuffed into and toasted between slices of Pioik bread, making a molten-centred, cheese-encrusted toastie masterpiece which has become the talk of the Cross since the shop opened in mid-2018. The toastie is the only consume-on-site item, but if you do want a coffee to go with it, Lawson will give you a takeaway mug and arrange a brew to be made at nearby Piccolo Bar Cafe.

Yes, Penny Lawson really is a fromage virtuoso.

*Part of this article first appeared in Broadsheet Sydney

On the menu for Crafty Dining:

Jannei Buche Noir (Goats Cheese) on PiOik Bread

Pecora Dairy Cheese

Wine Match: Sylvia Spielman Riesling