One of Eddie Stewart’s fondest childhood memories is going to Paesanella Cheese in Marrickville to buy fresh ricotta with his mum.

“I remember eating it in the car on the way home with a spoon,” the co-founder of Tokyo Lamington tells Broadsheet. “It was such a magical, nostalgic time.”

Today Paesanella’s fresh ricotta forms the base of the bakery-cafe’s latest flavour – ricotta cheesecake – which was developed to celebrate the newly opened Marrickville location. Stewart and Tokyo Lamington’s co-founder Min Chai are in Ona Coffee’s old spot, right next door to Paesanella.

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While the menus are similar across Newtown, Melbourne’s Carlton and now Marrickville outlets, the pair have introduced flavours that pay homage to Marrickville’s rich migrant history. “This is such a great area for food, and we love the cultural heritage of the locals,” Stewart says. “We’ve done ricotta cheesecake as well as a Vietnamese coffee lamington with vanilla sponge and Vietnamese coffee cream that’s smoky and made with condensed milk.” It’s supercharged with coffee syrup, and they’ve dunked it in white chocolate and coconut.

The OG, filled with raspberry jam and vanilla cream, is there too, along with the fairy bread and popcorn buttercream number, a yuzu curd lamington coated in torched meringue, and a rotating vegan version. (Right now it’s a bright-lilac ube vegan sponge.)

The full menu at Marrickville hasn’t launched yet, but savouries like quiche, hearty meat pies and an array of onigiri will be on offer in the coming weeks. Upping the offering from Newtown are classic chocolate eclairs, banana bread topped with honey butter and the yuzu poppyseed cake that sold out daily when Tokyo ran the bake sales that kept them afloat during lockdown.

As for the fit-out, each store has its own style. “We wanted to go really nostalgic, like you’re coming into your grandma’s living room. There’s mid-century teak furniture that we’ve been collecting from auction sites and Facebook Marketplace and restoring.”

When Stewart and Chai first opened Tokyo Lamington in Newtown, it was just before lockdown. The climate in 2024 is completely different, and Stewart is cautious.

“It’s scary at the moment, you don’t know what’s going to happen, but I have a feeling it’s going to be okay. We just have to stick to our guns, create spaces that are warm and inviting, and offer people really delicious baked goods.”

Reinforcing Stewart’s positive attitude was what was meant to be a soft opening weekend on June 15 and 16, when Newtown locals tripped a suburb over to support their favourite lamington shop.

“We opened on Saturday and hit the ground running. There was a lot of buzz from social media, and it’s been such a beautiful feeling seeing our regulars coming out to support us.”

Tokyo Lamington & the Bakery
140 Marrickville Road, Marrickville

Hours:
Daily 7am—3pm

tokyolamington.com
@tokyolamington