Reverence Sourdough & Cafe — Restaurant in Gunnedah

05/2025: “A good breakfast is important,” I say to my dining companion to justify driving more than a hundred kilometres from Coonabarabran to Gunnedah before our first coffee. Reverence Sourdough captured my attention on our last trip to Tamworth. A conversation with owner, Renee Neale, uncovered that flour from her husband’s Wholegrain Milling, is the through-line in all Sydney the bakeries I love. And what better way to explore it than with breakfast, where bread plays such a central role?

The house-made sourdough makes the ham toastie ($15) a formidable handful of food. But the sourdough isn’t punishingly crusty, allowing the ham, spinach, cheese and peri peri mayo. interior to speak. Locally-made corned beef is also presented as a plump golden toastie ($15) with the same spinach and cheese and a gentle, breakfast-friendly relish. If we’d been smart enough to share just one of them, we’d have had room to try more than banana bread ($9.50) with our coffees. Taken as strong flat whites ($5.30/each), they were made on Floozy Coffee beans roasted in Newcastle for a blend called Lucky Stars.

Reverence isn’t a cheap place for breakfast, but the offerings are all made in-house, substantially proportioned, and easily shared. Everything we ate was excellent (it’s in the flour, I tell you). We left bearing a bag of Berkelo sourdough pasta, and we finally tried the ancient grain khorasan macaroni last night. The sourdough fermentation makes the pasta feel light on the stomach—even against a heavy, meat-based Korean-inspired pasta sauce—and ensures it’s easy to digest!

03/2024: The sourdough ($11/loaf) at Reverence Sourdough is excellent. Lucky, as I drove nearly eighty kilometres out of my way to Gunnedah to get my hands on some, after eating it for breakfast at The Workshop in the Powerhouse Hotel in Tamworth. Greeted at the counter by proprietor and baker, Renee Neale, an important piece of the sourdough puzzle fell into place. You see I only love the bread from three sourdough bakers: Penny Fours, Iggy’s and Honorbread, and when I said as much, the counter-hand smiled and said: “They all buy their flour from us.” Ditto my beloved Silver Creek sourdough crumpets, I’m told.

So Wholegrain Milling Co flours are the link: a family-owned business run by Renee and her husband Craig Neale producing certified organic and sustainable flours that are locally milled in Gunnedah. Here they’re hand-moulded and fermented for more than 24-hours, and they sold as fast as Renee can bake them (our loaves were...

We went for breakfast, 7 of us. 6 of us had Bacon and Egg Rolls. Now you would expect a bacon and egg roll be freshly prepared but not here. They were already cooked and wrapped up probably from a supplier.( had I realised this beforehand I would not have ordered it). They were reheated in a sandwich press. Consequently they were probably one the worst bacon and egg rolls we’ve eaten, all 6 of us agreed. They were made on a huge focaccia bread roll and because they were tasteless all you could taste was the bread, was one comment. The bacon wasn’t hot and crackly and the eggs were like rubber. I took my egg out and poked it with my finger and it bounced back. Definitely not the place for a bacon and egg roll. The coffee was nice so a good place for coffee, hence the...

The best toasted sandwich I've had in a long while.. they make Sourdough bread for alot of nice restaurants in Tamworth and supply many business in the neighbouring towns with some of the best Sourdough bread so they must be doing something right.. great selection of pastries and great coffee.. they are a paddock to plate business using local grain milled and processed in Gunnedah.. You can also buy Bakers flour both white and wholegrain in up to 5kg bags but they may sell larger bags if you ask.. the flour is amazing to...