What do you get when you cross a milk bun with brioche and top it with cheese? An ensaymada. It’s a classic bun in Filipino bakeries and diets.

“I used to have it with Milo for breakfast,” Rom Ursua, the founder and owner of Sugar Artist tells Broadsheet. “It’s like a doughnut, kind of. Traditionally it’s got cheese in it. In the Philippines, we put margarine, sugar and cheese [on it] and then eat it.”

It was this sweet-savoury nostalgia that inspired Ursua to start Sugar Artist, a specialist ensaymada stall in Fremantle Markets. Ursua recalls waking up to the repetitive thudding of his mum, who made everything by hand without a mixer, slapping the ensaymada dough on the countertop in the karinderya (canteen) and restaurant attached to their family home in Davao in the Philippines. “The door from our house went straight to the main kitchen of the restaurant, so every time I opened the door there was the smell of bulalo [beef soup] and [other] Filipino food.”

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When the family moved from Davao to Harvey (140 kilometres south of Perth), his mother quickly became renowned in the local community and the auntie network – the ad hoc, word-of-mouth community forged through Whatsapp chats – for her Filipino baked goods. According to Ursua, Harvey has a large Filipino population who work at the local beef and dairy company.

Ursua shares his mother’s entrepreneurial spirit and opened Sugar Artist in 2022 with both online orders and a small stall. Then after a brief hiatus, he re-opened it with a physical stall in Fremantle Markets in early 2025.

His ensaymadas are flavoured with more than just nostalgia. Ursua travelled to Japan, Thailand, Malaysia and more to absorb the baking techniques and business acumen of international bakers to bring back to Sweet Artist. The result is ensaymadas that are equal parts modern and traditional: think ube, red velvet and mango float. Each ensaymada is individually wrapped and packed into a gift box with an instruction card emblazoned with a smiling mascot that Ursua designed himself.

For Ursua, choosing to open a stall in Fremantle Markets came down to a love for community. “Community is about treating people right,” he says. It’s this sense of community that saw lines stretch outside his family’s karinderya in the Philippines and has locals in Harvey fiercely supporting his mother’s baking endeavours. And it is community that has him excited about Sugar Artist’s potential to expand Filipino food in Perth.

Sugar Artist
Shop Y125, Fremantle Markets, Corner of Parry Street and William Street, Fremantle
0403 007 538

Hours:
Fri to Sun 9:30am–5:30pm

@sugarartistperth
sugarartistperth.com