Marcel Aucar
Top croissanterie: bigger than ever.
They’re the Melbourne croissants that are so good they draw a queue before dawn. Now comes news the sibling team behind Lune Croissanterie are moving in October from their tiny Elwood digs to a warehouse in Fitzroy. “We’re going to be dancing the line between making people happy we’ve moved to Fitzroy and making them angry we’ve sold out too soon,” says co-owner Kate Reid, who kickstarted the croissant cult after serving an apprenticeship at Paris bakery Du Pain et des Idées.
A partnership with local café proprietor Nathan Toleman helped procure the Rose Street warehouse. But the man behind Top Paddock and Kettle Black is not about to be the Svengali who sends an artisanal product into mass production. “Logistically we’re going to do it quite slowly,” says Kate. “In fact, initially we’re going to pull back to Saturday and Sunday only and not trade on Friday.”
Lune currently sells 1200 croissants over three days, which means the pair prepare pastry by hand six days a week. The new space, more than 10 times the size of Lune’s previous home, will feel as much like a working bakery as possible. On offer will be 12 to 15 varieties of pastry, each based on Kate’s own croissant-pastry recipe. But she doesn’t want it to be thought of as a café. “There’ll be the option to eat in and have pastry and a coffee,” she says, “but nothing else.”
Lune Croissanterie, 113 Rose St, Fitzroy, from 31 October.
