You Can Find Some of the World’s Best Croissants in This Country — and No, It's Not France

A line of customers, captivated by a precise row of laminated pastries arranged like sculptures in an art gallery, snakes around the concrete counter inside Lune Croissanterie. Just beyond the counter, a team clad in crisp white aprons buzzes around a futuristic, climate-controlled glass cube, cutting and folding dough to create some of the world’s best croissants.

Kate Reid, who founded Lune Melbourne in 2012, now oversees seven shops, including two new Sydney locations — the brand’s first foray in the harborfront city. The former Formula One aerodynamicist studied aerospace engineering, and her precise and playful baked goods are the result of years of scientific research and development.

Croissants “are the most technical pastries in the world,” Reid told Travel + Leisure. “There are dozens of processes, and opportunities for innovation at every phase.” At Lune, they’re not making the flaky, crescent-shaped pastries the traditional way. “We make them with the technique that I created,” she said.

After burning out of racing, the Melbourne native turned to baking, eventually traveling to Paris where she was mesmerized by the perfect croissants and pain au chocolat. There she spent time apprenticing at Du Pain et des Idées in the city’s 10th arrondissement, an experience she calls transformative.

Returning to Melbourne, she was disappointed by the city's croissant offerings. So she did what any engineer would: she systematically developed her own method. “The best thing about baking, for me, is the scientific process,” she says. “If you follow it to the letter, you will pull out of the oven a perfect baked good.” So perfect, in fact, her baked goods have been praised by culinary luminaries all over the world, including renowned chef Yotam Ottolenghi who described them as "the croissant that should act as the prototype for all others."

Since starting with the classic croissant, Reid and her team have added dozens of laminated creations, like a chive cream cheese-filled everything croissant, and a birthday cake number finished with vanilla buttercream and sprinkles.⁠ There’s a twice-baked pain au chocolat with malt biscuit frangipane, chocolate ganache, and hunks of TimTams on top, created to celebrate the iconic Australian cookie’s 60th anniversary.

There are cruffins now, too. (They're a croissant-muffin hybrid Reid created in 2013 and has since spurred countless imitations.) Some are filled with sunny yellow lemon curd or stuffed with passionfruit coconut whip and passionfruit jam and crowned with jagged shards of meringue. Seasonal specials include the eggnog cruffin, filled with rum syrup and eggnog custard and finished with a dusting of grated nutmeg and meringue cream.

When it comes to inspiration for new menu items, Reid has found it in surprising places, including while traveling. During a visit to Pepe in Grani in Campania she had a memorable pizza topped with hyper-local apricot, ricotta, mint, black olives, and hazelnuts, and one of her chefs recreated it in croissant form. “I took a bite of it and closed my eyes, and I was transported back to Pepe in Grani,” she told T+L.

Beyond selling baked goods, Lune also hosts a four-course, experimental tasting menu called Lune Lab. The first course is a traditional croissant, just a few minutes out of the oven, then on to a savory, with menus rotating seasonally. (Currently on the summer menu: a tarte tatin with beets, wasabi crème fraîch, and fennel pollen.) The final course is a petit four like a butter caramel made from the scraps of the butter leftover from making other pastries.

“We get really experimental with it,” she said. “That’s our opportunity to play around with very unique, small-scale produce, like one of the finger lime or apple growers in the Yarra Valley.” Guests can book tickets for Lune Lab up to three months in advance, and it’s currently offered in Melbourne and Brisbane locations with plans to eventually run in Sydney, too.

Of Sydney’s two new shops, the flagship in the inner-west suburb of Rosebery was designed to be an immersive experience. There’s the signature climate-controlled glass cube in the center of the bakery where guests can watch the pastry chefs craft precision-engineered pastries refined with the same meticulous attention Reid once gave to race car aerodynamics.

“We literally treat our traditional croissants like a Formula One car,” she says. “How can we make it better every single day?” And while there have been innumerable improvements to everything from how they knock back the dough before shaping the croissants to how they box pastries, the original croissant is just as stellar as it’s always been.

“I think if you picked up a Lune croissant that I made 12 years ago and one today, you would still have the same eating experience.” Back then, Reid was one person, making 200 pastries a day, while nowadays the Melbourne shop is making 38,000 pastries a week.

“The quality of that product is the same as it was so small back then,” she said. “That is innovation in itself.”

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