Adriano Zumbo - need we say more?

Balmain. Funky, trendy, classy, and I'm referring only to the good cuisine available here. This suburb, and I've only scratched the surface (of Darling Street), has some of the most decadent desserts you will find in Sydney. Lenôtre, Créateur de Haute Gourmandise, boasts the best desserts and rightfully so - each combination of flavour and design structure second to none. And it's in Balmain - Adriano Zumbo's Patisserie is our main destination of today's dessert tour, because this one location would hold enough heavenly delicious parcels to last us the entire day (and more). Good things come to those who wait - we will start elsewhere, warm up with some light breakfast first, then attack Adriano with full force.

We started at Circle Cafe, sitting out in the lovely courtyard overlooking the hustle and bustle of Darling St. Our coffees arrived first - bowl of coffee - I've had better - at least it was good to have some warm milk to start my day. Then our sweet crepes came - they looked good, but upon closer inspection it was too thick to be crepes, and it was soft and too moist. The lemon crepes were somewhat "undressed" - it was bland, had nothing but lemon and a touch of syrup... not sweet, nor tangy, until I scraped the lemon slices for more pulp and juice. Banana maple crepes were better - drenched in organic maple syrup sweetness and fragrance. The major disappointment was in the ricotta hotcakes - they were heavy and dense, a thick and pasty pancake, rather than a fluffy light hotcake like that of Bill's, or at Hoochie Mama's in Newtown. Extremely disappointing so we didn't bother finishing it as this would have simply filled our stomachs, hence preventing us from enjoying Adriano Zumbo's work.

We had a pit stop along the way - spotted Pat and Stick ice cream sandwiches, and could not resist. The coffee ice cream was more intensely coffee flavoured than my bowl of milk. Go figure.

Moving on - there are two Adriano Zumbo's shops, one is a chocolate cafe, the other is the take away patisserie. We were told to simply bring our box of goodies to the chocolate cafe and the lovely waitresses would serve the desserts for us. Walking into the patisserie was like walking into a dream. Each parcel beautifully stacked, each an immaculate piece of art. Each had to eventually be dismembered and consumed (sadly, but someone had to do it). And there were an assortment of bakery goods - croissants, breads, baguettes, banana loaves etc. After much agonising, we finally decided on (only) six things for the day, walked out of the shop vowing to return.

In fact we are currently contemplating on moving to Balmain.

Returning to the chocolate cafe, we found more photo opportunities - rows and rows of chocolates which we didn't sample as we anticipated the goods from the patisserie. The dark hot chocolate was divine - velvety, thick, and nutty (must have something other than chocolates). Chai latte was unusual, it was almost white (was there any spices in the cup??) but it was subtly spicy and mellow, very easy to drink. We then started sampling the goods: starting with the licorice macaron (for the non-licorice fans, this is actually surprisingly tasty!), choc-hazelnut bread (very morish, would love to have this for breakfast every day, with a good cafe au lait); delightfully light and refreshing Dr Apple (pistachio dacquoise, apple cider jelly and vanilla chantilly creme, calvados cooked apples and green apple mousse), fairytale-like luscious castle of Charlotte Full (olive oil mousse with rhubarb ripple, passion fruit creme, biscuit macaroons and fresh berries), tangy sunset "goo" of Tart aux fruits de la passion (pate sable, passionfruit creme) and a decadent chocolatey Craigie Bam (chocolate sponge, chocolate coated rice puff center and chocolate mousse).

Oh heaven.
Dr Apple was so light and fresh, I could eat it all day. Every spoonful melted in my mouth. The Charlotte puts sweet romance into our hearts - sweet mousse and macaron biscuits, tangy smooth passionfruit creme. The passionfruit tart continued our love affair with anything gooey - creamy passionfruit "goo" oozed out of its crispy tart base when cut - reminded us of the goo experience at Newtown last month. The chocolate Cragie Bam was a lush chocolate-lover's delight - chocolate coated rice puffs was quite hard so we had to dismantle the beautifully constructed dessert in order to break the chocolate apart... sacrilege.

We left Adriano Zumbo's cafe fat and happy.... so happy we neglected a large piece of choc-hazelnut bread on the table! :'(

Moving on we headed towards Victoire for their famous creme brulee.... which doesn't exist anymore! Apparently they don't make it anymore because no one buys them... sniff sniff. And one woman there didn't show interest in being friendly to customers so I wasn't so keen on spending money there.... (In saying that - the other lady was sweet and lovely) So we left with just a palmier and a bag of citrusy fragrant madeleines. We enjoyed these with a potent coffee from The Little Marionette and ended our beautiful day in the park.

This would be one of the most memorable dessert days simply because of Adriano's artwork. And also because we had a new participant Susan - what a classy way to start her dessert appreciation!!
CS
KT: Adriano, will you marry me? (Marriage proposal No.2689)