Pastry shops are displaying their buns uncovered – just don’t bite the merchandise

Pastries on display at Cafe Lewi in Lewishham, Sydney. ‘People’s T-shirts go into it,’ says chef and co-owner Isabella Leva Laureti. Photograph: Jessica Hromas/The Guardian

Buns that bare all, and eclairs exposed to air: in Australia, a new wave of pastry shops are doing more than baking and selling their creations – they’re displaying them, in single units, completely uncovered. You’ll find them on counters, risers, concrete slabs, shiny surfaces, and mini podiums, minus glass or Perspex barriers, like mini art exhibits. This is pastries en plein air.

But if the cardinal rule of art galleries is “do not touch the exhibits”, for baked goods, it’s “don’t eat them either”.