Oven-roasted chicken breast, french vanilla crème brulée and bottles of Peroni beer were on the menu as business leaders packed inside Doltone House to hear from Anthony Albanese on Thursday afternoon.
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The swanky venue in Sydney's Pyrmont is far from the Labor leader's natural habitat.
Earlier in the day, some 20 kilometres west, it was pastries being served up for a smiling Scott Morrison at a Lebanese bakery in Parramatta.
This part of Sydney has long been Labor heartland. It's far from a Liberal Prime Minister's natural habitat.
No single campaign stop, nor even an entire day's campaigning, can tell the story of how and where a leader hopes to win an election.
But as Anthony Albanese and Scott Morrison's campaigns collided in Sydney on Thursday, while staying very much apart, a narrative which is beginning to define the 2022 election again emerged.
Let's start with Morrison.
His visit to Abla's Pastries in Granville marked his fifth visit to the seat of Parramatta in the first 25 days of the federal election campaign.
It's popular for a reason. The Liberals believe the retirement of Labor's long-serving member, Julie Owens, has made the seat more than winnable.
Morrison uses every opportunity to remind voters and the media that his candidate Maria Kovacic is a local and that Labor's choice is not.
The Prime Minister was handed extra ammunition when Labor's Andrew Charlton, the former Kevin Rudd staffer who has been parachuted in from Sydney's eastern suburbs, was this week caught out unable to name three restaurants in his new surrounds.
But while Morrison keeps returning to Sydney's west, he's conspicuously absent from other parts of the city.
It's not as though those areas are safe Liberal territory. They were once. But not any more.
The Liberal-held seats under threat from so-called teal independents - Wentworth, North Sydney and MacKellar - have been snubbed by the Prime Minister in the first four weeks of the campaign.
Asked on Wednesday if he would campaign in Dave Sharma's seat of Wentworth, Morrison joked about his mother living in the electorate.
Asked again on Thursday, his response was more terse.
"Forget about the independents, that's a vote for chaos," he said.
What's clear now is that the narrow path the Prime Minister is charting toward a second "miracle" election win doesn't run through Liberal heartland.
Instead, it runs through outer suburbia, in Labor-held seats like Parramatta or McEwen in Victoria.
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Liberals such as Sharma, Trent Zimmerman, even Josh Frydenberg, are being left to fend for themselves.
One view is that Morrison's brand is so toxic in the inner cities, where climate and political integrity are voter-winning issues, that his presence would be a drag rather than a boost.
Another view is that the Prime Minister believes he can afford to lose blue-ribbon seats, confident he can make up for it with gains in the suburbs and regions.
If he does secure victory that way, he won't have just held onto power, he would've changed Robert Menzies' party.
Now back to Albanese, and his address to the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry luncheon on Thursday afternoon.
Business types can be sceptical of Albanese, the Labor left-winger who once spoke of his love for fighting Tories.
Morrison has done all he can to paint his opponent as an economic novice, and thus a risk to the nation. He's repeated over and over that Albanese never held an economic portfolio or handed down a budget during his time in government.
Albanese's opening day stumbles on the unemployment rate and cash rate opened the door to further attack.
Against this backdrop, these are important image-defining events for a leader whose image remains not yet fully defined.
So what image did Albanese attempt to paint?
He pitched himself as a reformer, but also a consensus-builder. A man who wants to leave a legacy, not for himself but the country.
"We are the greatest country on earth. And with a better government and real reform, Australia can have a better future," he said.
Albanese might have delivered the speech inside a posh Pyrmont venue, but he's hoping the message will be ringing in the ears of Australians across the country when they cast their vote on May 21.