Within two days, Sydney went from a years-long era of anticipating Lune Croissanterie’s arrival to having two stores. Hundreds queued (in the rain) from the early hours of Saturday 7 December to welcome the Rosebery store, with the second location, in Martin Place, launched on Monday 9 December.
The flagship store and production kitchen in Rosebery’s Engine Yards precinct features Lune’s signature temperature-controlled glass cube, with up to eight pastry chefs working away. It’s an immersive, spaceship-like fit-out, with a dramatic entry portal showcasing the goods on offer, heritage concrete and brass elements, and banquette seating wrapping around the venue.
“When we saw the site,” says Lune Croissanterie founder Kate Reid, “it was just so reminiscent of the shell that Fitzroy [in Melbourne] was when we first saw it that it was easy to envisage being able to create the Lune experience in that space.”
“We have the pastry kitchen—pretty much like a pastry theatre—on show to everyone, so you can see the humans in there working. Although Lune is getting big, I still want the public to be able to connect it back to individual humans.”
The Sydney CBD store, at the rear of the Martin Place Metro station on Castlereagh Street, is a scaled-down version—still with pastries baked on site—anchored around two bars of folded bronze slabs resting on sandstone plinths for smashing pastries and coffees.
“It was a complete no-brainer,” says Kate of locking in Martin Place. “We are very confident that it is going to be Lune’s busiest store in Australia.”
With past creations including “school fete” cruffins, everything bagel-inspired croissants, lasagne escargots, and buttercream-topped, twice-baked birthday cake croissants, it’d be easy to think that product development includes an “anything goes” approach—not so.
Lune pastries adhere to a playbook that Kate (a former Formula One aerodynamicist) describes as “the equivalent to the FIA regulations for Formula One”, and dictates rules and guidelines like heroing the croissant pastry itself, simplicity of ingredients, and drawing on childhood nostalgia.
While Lune now operates in three cities, the development of the joy-laced creations that drop on bakery counters monthly is intentionally decentralised.
“When a pastry is developed in Brisbane, a Brisbane chef flies down to Melbourne and trains the Melbourne team, which is super cool for a young pastry chef who might have created a pastry to get to go on the road,” says Kate.
“And [now] obviously, Sydney will do a third of the development, so it'll be split across the states, and it's all big one, happy pastry family.”
Ultimately, Lune’s guiding light is the pure quality of its offering.
“It takes three days to make a Lune croissant, and dozens of complicated, highly technical processes,” explains Kate.
The popular Lune Lab events—which serve multi-course, croissant-based meals to a few lucky diners each season—are eventually bound for Sydney too, with collaborations with local chefs on the horizon in a nod to Lune’s respect for Sydney’s dining scene.
“Sydney's hospitality scene is red hot,” Kate says. “Apart from the bakeries up here, which are great, I adore the wine bars… and I'm excited every time I come up here to dine.”
“Although the hospitality community can be a very competitive space, ultimately we're all working towards the same goal: just to make people happy.”
As for her favourite spots for sweet treats in Sydney?
“I’ve got one that stands out—it has to be Flour and Stone. When you walk into that little store, it's like you're walking into Nadine Ingram’s heart. There's so much of her in that little space and when you walk in, you feel happy, and safe, and comfortable… and like you're looking after yourself just by doing yourself this little treat or a favour.”
“What she's created in that is my dream of a bakery—that's what I want to do with people.”
She also shouts out Surry Hills bakery Humble’s beloved take on the pink iced finger bun: “I'm so obsessed. They give zero fucks…and have exactly the right amount of butter—even the consideration of the fact that the butter is cold.”
12 years on from its creation, Lune Croissanterie remains a venue that treat-seekers in Melbourne, Brisbane and now Sydney queue up for on the daily.
"It's hard to process that people still line up for it—I don't think I'll ever get used to it,” says Kate.
Now, check out more of the best bakeries in Sydney.
Image credit: Lune Croissanterie | Supplied