Overview
Lune's croissants are the stuff of culinary legend, spoken about with such breathless reverence that it's little wonder on its opening weekend, the bakery's first Sydney outpost was inundated by hundreds of Sydneysiders, who stood in line for hours to get their hands on one of the eight signature and four seasonal treats on offer.
Be warned, however, after patiently queuing for your chance to bite into one of the world's most coveted baked goods, you may be stricken by choice paralysis. Sure, you could go HAM (and gruyere) and buy one of everything, but with a cost of living crisis still clutching at our collective purse strings, this pastry-palooza is likely beyond most budgets.
To help you navigate the delights that Lune has finally gifted Sydney, we visited the new Rosebery croissanterie to taste and rate all its wares. Here's what we made of Lune's eight always-on classic pastries — ranked.
8: The Croissant
It takes a team of chefs — who train for a year to be worthy of entering Lune's trademark temperature-controlled, glass-enclosed kitchens — three days to prepare the butter-enriched puff that is the foundation of all Lune's pastries. While a plain scroll may not offer much variety of flavour, the interplay of textures found in Lune's OG bake is what makes it the king of croissants. A delicate, paper-thin shell, glossy and lightly glazed, offers a pleasing crunch that immediately gives way to a pillow-soft interior with just the right balance of density and lightness. The all-important butter, sourced from Northern French dairy Isigny Saint-Mère, is painstakingly laminated between each layer of pastry to give this croissant a rich creaminess that's hard to fault. However, we suggest you enjoy it with a good-quality jam or preserve, rather than au naturale.
7: The Morning Bun
Ostensibly a cinnamon scroll, albeit made from puff pastry, the addition of brown sugar and orange zest offers a hint of breakfast to this otherwise decadent bun. The outer layers of pastry become coated in crystalised sugar in the oven, while the cinnamon and spice within retain a delightful fudginess. A word of caution: this is one for the sweet tooths. If you'd rather not start your day with dessert, the Morning Bun may not be the best addition to your breakfast table.
6: Lemon Curd Cruffin
Perhaps the most impressive feat of Lune's various bakes is the judicious restraint and careful balance of flavours, always hitting the bullseye between too much and not enough. The Lemon Curd Cruffin, however, is an outlier in this respect. An almost too-generous dollop of house-made lemon curd bursts from within with the first bite. A liberal dusting of caster sugar sands down the edges of this cheek-tightening tartness, creating a satisfying tug-o-war between the sweet and sour, but this bold sucker punch of flavours may be more than some breakfast-seekers bargain for.
5: Ham and Gruyere Croissant
As mentioned above, balance is a hallmark of Lune's creations and this is certainly true of the first savoury bake in these rankings. Unlike the sandwich-style ham and cheese croissants you'll find in most high street cafes, Lune bakes the eponymous ingredients into the scroll, allowing the fat and salt of the ham and cheese to infuse the pastry with even greater depth of flavour. Because a croissant is already laden with fat from butter, the amount of Swiss gruyere and shaved leg ham used at Lune, both sourced from Melbourne's Hagens Organics, could seem a little on the stingy side. However, those fears are quickly assuaged once you take a bite, and the salty edge of the molten gruyere and tinge of sweetness from the ham meld with the rich, rounded finish of the puff.
4: Pain au Chocolat
Another key to Lune's success is the uncompromising calibre of the ingredients used. One of just 15 official partners worldwide, Lune's pain au chocolat features Valrhona chocolate, sourced from France. Given its higher than average sugar content, not much chocolate is needed to flavour Lune's take on this popular breakfast treat. Whereas some lesser versions lean too heavily on the filling, creating more of a chocolat au pain, Lune is careful to keep the spotlight firmly fixed on its extraordinary pastry, with a subtler yet still essential use of chocolate.
3: Vegemite and Cheese Scroll
Full disclosure: I am not a fan of Vegemite. So it was quite a surprise to not only tolerate this pastry but really love it. Again, this all comes down to the precision of flavour, which given the pungent extremes of Australia's national spread is no mean feat. Rather than slathering it on straight from the jar, Lune goes to the trouble of mellowing it with a béchamel sauce. The addition of the Swiss gruyere creates a flawless combination of saltiness, sweetness and umami that even the most ardent Vegemite hater will gladly gobble up.
2: Almond Croissant
Twice baked to ensure the croissant isn't overly saturated by the almond frangipane, Lune's virtuosic take on the original Croissant aux Amandes uses the addition of almond meal and a punky mohawk of flaked almond slices to amp up the earthy, rich nuttiness that is so often overwhelmed by sweetness. The richness of the dough, the rustic quality of the frangipane and the expert balance of flavours make this, by quite some margin, the best almond croissant I've ever tasted.
1: Kouign Amann
There's a good chance that you've never heard of this traditional pastry from the Bretagne region of France: a puff pastry wheel laminated with sugar and baked in a mould lined with butter, sugar and salt, until saturated and caramelised. I'll admit, before my trip to Lune, I hadn't either. However, this sticky, syrupy, disk of golden, glazed joy will be living rent-free in my mind for the foreseeable future. This is an example of how the simplest list of ingredients can be turned into something truly transformative in the right hands. It's sweet, but not overly saccharine, chewy but with a crème brûlée-esque outer shell, delicate yet rich — a magic trick that is far greater than the sum of its parts.
Pro tips for visiting Lune Rosebery
Expect to queue — no matter what day it is
Even at 7.30am on a Wednesday, I had to wait in line for 45 minutes before reaching the counter, and that wait time considerably increases at the weekend peak. Almost as impressive as the pastries themselves is the rapid-fire yet always friendly service of the Lune team, who take turns taking orders in quick succession to keep things moving as swiftly as possible. It's a well-oiled machine, but lines at Lune are inevitable — sure, the Lune-acy in Sydney may be at its maximum right now, given how recently the bakery opened, but the lines that continue to snake down the street at Lune's Fitzroy outpost in Melbourne are a good indication that the Harbour City's croissant craze is unlikely to wane any time soon.
Don't set your heart on anything
While Lune produces croissants in their thousands every day, there is no guarantee that after your lengthy wait in line, the exact bake you're craving will be available. Fortunately, there isn't a dud among them so even if your first preference is sold out, you'll still be leaving with a world-class pastry in hand.
Check out the seasonal bakes
While the classics are a must-try collection, Lune's rotating seasonal varieties are some of their most creative, intriguing and delicious bakes. So be sure to save some room for them after you're done scoffing the signatures.
If you need help choosing, just ask the staff
The Lune service team are impressively well-versed in the provenance of the produce, the details of the cooking techniques and the history of the business, so if you have any burning questions, you'll find answers quickly and with a smile.
Come for croissants, stay for the coffee
With beans roasted by Marrickville's Ona, Lune brews a mean cup of joe. And nothing goes better with a freshly baked breakfast pastry than a good coffee.
Find Lune Croissanterie at 115/151 Dunning Ave, Rosebery, open from December 7. For more details visit the Lune Rosebery website.