First Look: At New Alexandria Warehouse Pasticceria Mia Dolci, There’s a “Jewellery Box” of Cakes and Pastries

When you enter new pasticceria Mia Dolci you’ll be confronted with a wall-length window looking into the warehouse beyond. Behind it, a team of pastry chefs and chocolatiers are hard at work. They’re making crisp Paris-Brest filled with puffy clouds of Chantilly cream; delicate cannoli shells piped to order full of buffalo ricotta; tarts lush with seasonal fruits; and an array of other spectacular desserts.

Guiding them is Riccardo Girardi Falcone, who until recently was executive pastry chef at Urban Purveyor Group, where he oversaw the sweets at restaurants like Rockpool Bar & Grill. He co-owns Mia Dolci with respected chef-restaurateur Orazio D’Elia (Da Orazio).

“It’s been on my bucket list forever,” Girardi Falcone tells Broadsheet of his decision to open the pasticceria. “And Orazio, it’s his dream as well, to open a pastry shop.”

Both southern Italian natives – Girardi Falcone from Salerno and D’Elia from Naples – the pasticceria is a reflection both of their childhoods, and their travels and careers since.

“We do mostly Italian pastry, but I’m not stuck to Italian flavours just because we’re Italians,” says Girardi Falcone. “I love yuzu, so I use yuzu sometimes, and sesame. We don’t really have those boundaries, we’re not stuck in the classic Italian pastry shop where we only do cannoli.”

But those cannoli are worth a mention: the shell is delicate (“the crunch needs to be brittle-y,” says Girardi Falcone) and the cream inside is piped to order.

“Everyone prefills [their cannoli], which is something that is against my belief,” he says. “If you want to have pre-filled cannoli, the shell needs to be thick, like a biscotto.”

The filling is made from buffalo ricotta – a traditional ingredient of the Amalfi Coast, from where Girardi Falcone hails.

Buffalo ricotta also forms the base of a cheesecake with blueberry jam, which has been popular since the pasticceria opened in late December. Girardi Falcone says the texture is almost like a mousse; the cake is slow-cooked, and the high-in-fat buffalo ricotta offers a rich creaminess. Blueberry marmalade at the bottom takes it beyond other ricotta cheesecakes you’ll find in Sydney, and cuts through the creaminess.

Meanwhile, D’Elia namechecks the Paris-Brest – another bestseller – as his pick.

“I’m a big fan of hazelnut, so everything that’s got hazelnut has my name on it,” he tells Broadsheet. “Our Paris-Brest has a Chantilly cream, some hazelnut brittle and some hazelnut cream, so when you bite into it, it’s amazing.”

The majority (370 square metres) of the 400-square-metre warehouse is taken up by the kitchen, where the team works to fill wholesale orders for restaurants, make chocolates (which will launch for Valentine’s Day) and craft colourful treats for the front cabinet, which Girardi Falcone calls a “jewellery box” and is filled with 10 to 12 different items each day. Cakes will soon be available to order online, and house-made pizza is also on the menu.

Mia Dolci’s small cafe section is bright and airy, and fronted with double-storey windows. Baristas brew Vittoria coffee from behind a blond-wood counter, and a smattering of chairs, benches and tables cater to customers dining in on the copious cakes, pastries and tarts filled with seasonal fruit.

Girardi Falcone is just as pro working to the seasons as he is against pre-filled cannoli.

“I don’t like the idea of doing strawberries in the middle of winter,” he says. “During summer we use berries, during winter we use apples or pears. I’m from Europe and the seasons are much more defined.”

Mia Dolci
192–200 Euston Road, Alexandria

Hours:
Mon to Fri 8am–3pm

miadolci.com.au
@mia.dolci.italiani