If years of pre-dawn queues and national press weren’t enough, founder of Lune Croissanterie Kate Reid and her brother Cam have landed a huge endorsement in The New York Times.
In an article published today in the paper’s T Magazine section, Oliver Strand froths over Reid’s “ethereal, exceptionally flaky pastries” and describes her climate-controlled glass cube in the Fitzroy shop as something “straight out of a James Bond film”.
He writes glowingly of her unorthodox creations (such as the MP3, baked with pulled pork, queso fresco, manchego and chipotle tomato jam). But the “classic beurre” (butter croissant), “with its holy balance of buttery heft and feathery flake, may be the finest you will find anywhere in the world, and alone worth the trip across the dateline”.
When I call Kate this morning she’s baking her own birthday cake with her mother ahead of a small celebration with her family.
“It’s pretty surreal,” she says. “I’m stoked.”
Kate explains that Strand came to visit Lune in December 2014, when it was still at the tiny Elwood premises. She has since closed Elwood and moved to a large Fitzroy warehouse space, which opened in October last year.
“He came in with Matt Perger (Melbourne barista and World Brewers Cup Champion) and sat on the steps in the kitchen for the whole morning’s service. We gave him a pulled pork and a traditional croissant.”
She says he got back to New York in January 2015 and interviewed her for three hours. According to what Strand told Kate, the NYT wasn’t interested in publishing a story on pastries in summer while readers were thinking about losing weight.
When I ask Kate if she thinks articles like this will prompt international tourists to visit Lune, she says it’s already happening.
“We get a lot of people coming from Asia, Europe and America who have heard about it. Some people say it’s one of the main reasons they come to Melbourne,” she says.
Could endorsements like this encourage Kate to expand overseas?
“It’d be so exciting. Cam and I dream about doing that, but it will only happen when we have a really solid team in place based in Melbourne that can carry on the quality of production without us,” she says.
“It’d be pretty exciting to go to New York, wouldn’t it? Somewhere in North America, or Europe or Asia.
“I kind of miss the little Lune sometimes,” Kate says, before I let her get back to making her cake. “The completely barmy environment, the people lined up in the dark. Anyway, onwards and upwards!”
Lune Croissanterie
119 Rose Street, Fitzroy
