As a child, I loved family day-trips to Sassafras because despite the long drive, it was the location of my favourite lolly shop.
It was a quaint, tiny store that had enormous rainbow lollipops, liquorice, toffee, chocolate bars and my absolute favourite – jars of boiled lollies that I would beg my mother to buy for me to eat on the car ride home.
The ten year old me enjoyed the sickly, overpowering scent of sugar that assaulted my nose in this lolly shop. It takes a lot more than sugar to impress the 22 year old me and Adriano Zumbo’s new cafe in South Yarra, Melbourne delivered on all fronts.
Zumbo’s window of decadent cakes. Photo: Juliana Mare
First, there’s the pastry window with danishes, lamingtons, the occasional savoury quiche and the iconic “zonut” which on my visit, was a mouthwatering choc-banana flavour. When you combine the banana filling which had a jam-like consistency, the fluffy donut mixture, the chocolate ring of icing and the dusting of sugar, the zonut is only for serious sugar lovers and shouldn’t be allowed within five feet of a diabetic. It was undoubtedly delicious with a rich, sweet banana taste but curbed my sugar cravings for at least a week.
The next window is filled with row upon row of picture perfect macarons – sorry, that is “zumbarons” in flavours I’ve never stumbled across before. After much deliberation, I narrowed my purchase down to a box of six ($15); apple pie, toasted marshmallow, salted buttered popcorn, pandan & sticky rice, passionfruit & basil and the flavour I was bursting to try, Vegemite on toast.
Having attempted to bake macarons before, it’s quite remarkable how flavoursome the creamy ganache of each macaron has. Aside from the buttered popcorn which was disappointingly lacklustre, every other macaron had a rich, palpable flavour.
The iconic “zonut” and “zumbarons.” Photos: Juliana Mare
As an Aussie who takes her Vegemite seriously, I had high, high expectations for Zumbo’s vegemite on toast macaron. Luckily, it blew my mind, and my tastebuds. I’m accustomed to slathering more butter than Vegemite on my toast so the mild flavour of the ganache was pleasant enough without feeling like I was swallowing a spoonful of the spread on its own.
To say I was impressed by the cake window is an understatement. The National Gallery of Victoria should commission Zumbo tocreate an exhibition because his cakes look more like works of art, than desserts.
From left to right:
The Annoying Orange: Layers of flourless chocolate cake, orange caramel, olive sable, chocolate & clove mousse, orange & white chocolate jam.
A rich, dense flourless chocolate fondant cake with Italian meringue, strawberry and choc-raspberry macaron.
Secret Carrot’s Business: Layered carrot cake, baked cheese cake, cream cheese mousse, semi dried carrots and caramelised pecans.
Cracking into the Annoying Orange cake reminded me of those photos that show the different internal layers of a planet. It was a faultless dessert with a decadent chocolate-orange flavour and four delicious layers of cake, caramel, jam and mousse. On its own, the mousse layer was too overpowering for my taste but combining it with the other layers was very enjoyable to eat.
It’s a rare occasion when I don’t finish a dessert but I struggled to finish even half of the chocolate fondant cake. It was overly rich, sickly sweet and the texture was so incredibly thick and wet that the fork used to cut a piece came away coated in cake. The italian meringue on top was perfectly gooey inside but did little to balance the over-abundance of sugar in the cake.
Ordinary carrot cake is just never going to do it for me again after eating Zumbo’s version. Cream cheese mousse, carrot cake and cheesecake is a winning combination in regards to flavour and texture. The base was crumbly and offset the creamy mousse wonderfully but the real winner of this dessert was the soft, airy carrot cake crumbled on top.
Zumbo’s Pâtissier has set the benchmark for desserts incredibly high as the cakes, macarons and pastries are as beautiful to look at as they are to taste. There are completely unique treats that firstly, Zumbo should be commended for and secondly, you simply won’t find anywhere else.
It’s well worth a visit, even if it’s likely to end in the mother of all sugar comas.
