There's a relatively new doughnut queen in town, and she's doing things decidedly differently. After developing a gluten and dairy allergy back in 2017, Yu Ozone refused to give up on her love of food. Instead, she created Comeco, which is serving up gluten (and dairy) free sourdough doughnuts and vegan sushi to the Newtown masses.
"One thing I could not give up was eating delicious food [with my husband]," Ozone told Concrete Playground. "We love eating, and we used to go out together to have delicious meals, or cook for ourselves...and we treasured these moments. However, since my allergy developed, we could not eat the same meals together. Since then, our life work became to cook delicious foods."
And Comeco really does take gluten free and vegan eating to the next level. While many gluten free alternatives are packed with additives, Comeco's products are made using organic everything — and no processed or unpronounceable ingredients.
Starting off in the market circuit, Comeco finally opened its brick-and-mortar storefront down the southside of King Street in July 2020.
"King Street is also known as Vegan Street," says Ozone, who took a survey from her Instagram followers and found Newtown was the place to be. "There are many vegan stores but there is only one vegan dessert store, so we thought our doughnuts would be in demand."
Cassandra Hannagan
And boy, was she right. Since opening, Comeco has steadily garnered a cult following. All doughies are made using an organic brown rice sourdough starter, which gives the doughnuts a crisp exterior and a wonderfully chewy inside. Ozone's favourite is the sweet-and-sour passionfruit custard, drizzled with fresh passionfruit pulp.
You'll see plenty of Japanese influence on the menu too, including flavours like red bean, black sesame custard (made with house-roasted seeds) and matcha custard, which uses high-grade organic matcha imported from Japan. The organic strawberry jam sourdough is our pick.
Once the weekend rolls around, the cafe serves up platters of vegan sushi, with varieties including chilli shiitake tempura, seven-spice tofu and aburi eggplant teriyaki rolls — that last one convincingly replicates grilled eel sushi.
Comeco is also slinging Single O coffees and Japanese specialties like organic matcha and black sesame lattes. While it's primarily a takeaway joint, there are seats for up to ten. Either way, be sure to have a look behind the open kitchen — a design choice which Ozone says was necessary to make sure the ingredients and cooking processes remain as transparent as possible.
No need to wait in the inevitable queue, either — just order online and your doughies will be ready for pick up in 40 minutes.
Images: Cassandra Hannagan