Australia’s Most Famous Croissant & MasterChef “Dessert King” Coming To S'pore For Café Event

Lune’s Australian pastry chef-owner Kate Reid, formerly an engineer who designed cars for Formula One, bakes croissants that The New York Times declared "may be the finest you will find anywhere in the world”. Diehard fans start queueing up outside her store as early as an eye-watering 3am. As if that’s not enough, she is also known to have created the world’s first cruffin in 2013 (that croissant-muffin hybrid). What an overachiever.

To ensure Singaporeans get to experience a true Lune croissant, the raw, frozen crescents will be flown in from Melbourne. Once they reach Singapore, they’ll rest in the same brand of proofer that Kate uses in Australia before they are baked. There will only be approximately a thousand boxes — each containing two pastries (there will also be pain au chocolate besides croissants) — for sale at Café Culture. We were lucky enough to have a preview taste of the croissants when Kate was flown into town to test the ovens here. They were super flaky, crackly and crisp-coated, with butter-saturated, silky interiors. And they're so perfectly puffy and beautifully lacquered they look almost unreal.

While all that’s swell, there are some other pretty cool café names coming to town too.

​​​Which is great news if you’ve only mostly been able to globetrot and café-hop vicariously through your richer friends Instagram feeds. The ten popular café brands from Melbourne, Sydney, Bali, Tokyo, Copenhagen, Bangkok and Shanghai — will reside in one convenient, comfy space within Singapore's very own MBS. So all you need to do is Grab or train it down and cafe-hop to your hipster heart's content. Moreover, the press release promises that “each concept is designed to capture the spirit of the original outlet in its home country”. There will be a communal space with loungey areas, chairs and tables for you to savour your coffee and cake. More details will be revealed in August and some of the names on this list, aside from Lune, might be subject to change. But these are the café brands to look forward to now.

Photo: @coffeecollectif, Instagram

No, not that bubble tea brand. Koi Dessert Bar in Sydney serves elegant, painstakingly plated desserts, okay?

Photo: Koi Dessert Bar, Facebook

The sweets are whipped up by the pretty sweet-looking Reynold Poernomo, who despite not winning the grand prize in MasterChef Australia 2015, scored a perfect 30/30 on a dessert challenge for the show. He's also a 30/30 in our book (even though we've never tried his treats yet). No wonder he was unofficially labelled the “dessert king”. The pastry chef himself will be coming to town for Café Culture, if you wanna check out his, uh, mad skills. What he’ll be serving in Singapore isn’t confirmed yet, but his signature plates include the…

Tasty noms like its creator, perhaps? Kidding — it's probably named after the flavours found in Nutella. This is one of Koi’s signature desserts. The glossy orb dusted with gold flakes is crafted with espresso mousse, salted caramel, hazelnut and chocolate brownie.

There’s also this tropical number shaped like a realistic-looking coconut husk. It features coconut cake, coconut mousse with pandan, passionfruit and vanilla caramel, plus mango and pineapple compote.

One of the earliest movers and shakers in Melbourne’s speciality coffee scene. Its edgy, wood-clad flagship café with an in-house coffee roastery was one of the original hipster hangouts for caffeine junkies when it opened in 2005. It now boasts four outlets, including an outpost in Jakarta. St Ali is helmed by 2018 Australia Latte Art Champion and barista-coach Shinsaku Fukayama, who’ll be in Singapore together with head barista Kirk Pearson. Yay, for coffee nerds.

​​​​​This hip Danish coffeehouse, coffee school and roastery boasts a team that has snagged the gold medal in both the World Barista Championship and World Cup Tasting championships. Coffee Collective also trades its coffee beans directly from farmers.

Photo: @coffeecollectif, Instagram

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Photo: @coffeecollectif, Instagram

A quirky little Japanese coffee house located in the quiet town of Meguro in Tokyo. Switch Coffee is owned and run by barista Masahiro Onishi, who snagged second place at the Millrock Latte Art Championship in 2010. He later trained for a year in Melbourne to refine his coffee bean-roasting technique.

Cuppas from Switch.

A hotspot for caffé latte-sipping and brunch-eating cool cats in Bangkok. Coffee maestro Varatt Vichit-Vadakan, a 2014 Barista Champion of Thailand, is behind this café which champions Thai coffee and its farmers.

Besides house-roasted kawfee, the all-day casual eatery serves classics like Truffle Alfredo Tagliatelle and Strawberry Waffle.

Incidentally, Varatt Vichit-Vadakan is also the boss of Roots Coffee Roaster, another well-loved coffee temple in Bangkok. Happily, it too, will make an appearance at Cafe Culture.

This stylo-mylo Seminyak brunch haven is often on the makan list of most Bali fiends. Because the Indonesian island is such a popular holiday destination with Aussies, it’s no surprise that an Australian expat is behind Sisterfields. It serves an all-day Aussie-style brunch menu of classics like Pancakes with strawberry compote, matcha granola and strawberry sorbet, a “Dirty Burger” and an Indonesian-inflected Kale Breakfast Bowl with sambal eggs. Plus cakes, pastries, smoothies, juices and coffee, of course. Noice.

Cafe Culture 2019 runs from Aug 28 to Sept 1 (Aug 28 is for trade), 10.30am to 6.30pm. Tickets cost $45 for early birds (including $43 worth of food vouchers), and $65 (including $43 of food vouchers). Get the full café lineup & your tickets here: www.cafeculture.sg.