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The talk of the town at the moment is Cafe Cre Asion. Tucked within a Sydney laneway, this tiny cafe produces scrumptious sandwiches with housemade breads, fabulous Single Origin coffees, and a very exciting range of macarons.
Their macaron flavours are wildly intriguing and the menu changes daily. Since sprouting up six weeks ago, the macarons range has included flavours such as white chocolate and miso, yuzu, wasabi and grapefruit and bamboo charcoal and sesame! Owner, Yu Sasaki, says that he creates a new flavour at least once a week.
His inspiration behind the cafe's name is the concept of 'creation' and his Asian-inspired macarons menu. He has thoughtfully created everything in this tiny space, from the design of the fitout to the experimental macaron flavour combinations.
Yu's culinary experience includes working in the kitchens of Marque, French Laundry and Universal.
He has a unique approach to producing macarons as he comes from a savoury background and doesn't like macarons that are too sweet. Also focusing on quality, Yu prefers to use real ingredients. Where many patisseries use prepared pastes, Yu roasts and grounds his own core ingredients from scratch.
It has taken him four years to perfect his macarons recipe, trialling every aspect of macarons baking - temperature, consistency and starch digesting. It began with a stall at the St Ives markets for market research and he knew he had a winning product when his mates at Single Origin Roasters begun placing orders.
I'm here for the full experience - coffee, sandwich and dessert.
My latte is perfectly smooth and creamy with an inviting roasted aroma.
Cafe Cre Asion also operates as a Japanese tea house, so I've got to try that next! The coffee gets big ticks from me though.
The housemade breads on offer are brioche (unfortunately sold out at the time I visit), sourdough and foccacia.
The smoked salmon sandwich ($8) comes with generous layers of smoked salmon, pickled fennel, capers, fresh dill and oozy soft boiled eggs. It is no doubt a sensational sandwich with lots of fresh and tangy flavours but the excess butter leaves my fingertips a bit greasy.
The jamon serrano sandwich ($8.50) on the other hand is incredible! It is smothered with just the right amount melted Tasmania Heidi Farm gruyere cheese and the slight saltniess and umami characters of the jamon makes it simply divine.
Moving onto the macarons... They're $2.70 each or you can get a box of 8 for $21 and a box of 16 for $40.
Today's selection include peanut butter, plum wine, dear chris, chai, coffee, rum and raisin, cranberry, yuzu, raspberry jam, hoji tea and sesame, pistachios, dark chocolate, green tea, coffee and cassis.
There isn't a single flavour I can fault. They're all impeccable combinations.
Here's what I've tried --
The cassis flavour is a rich purple and tastes so fruity and lively. It's like drinking Ribena without the sugar rush.
The hoji tea and sesame is by far my favourite. The roasted tea is extremely fragrant and the earthiness of sesame seeds is the perfect combination.
Dear Chris is a beautifully balanced hazelnut praline flavour, and the plum wine flavour has a lovely fragrance with a slight bitter undertone.
The yuzu flavour definitely gives a distinctive exotic punch that is slightly tangy and citrusy.
Both the pistachio and peanut butter are irresistibly luscious, nutty and not overpowering.
Seating is limited to a few stools and seating mats so beware if you're coming for a sit-down lunch during peak hour.
Cafe Cre Asion
21 Alberta Street, Sydney
Open Monday - Friday, 7am to 4pm and Saturdays, 8.30am to 4pm
That oozy cheese toastie is one serious rendition of a croque monsieur! And who can say no to colourful macarons?
wow all those macarons yum!
Love a good sando that oozes cheese... :P Definitely the bloggers place of the moment :)
I had a peak in here the other day - but resisted buying anything as I'm "trying" to be on a diet...I was sooo tempted by the PB Macaron though.
Definitely seeing this place floating around the interwebz - must try it out, that peanut butter macaron is calling my name!
My tummy is grumbling from looking at your photos, need to pop by for lunch tomorrow! You should try bamboo and the raspberry one, they're so good ^^
Cafe Cre, huh? Quite a name with menus changing daily - I'm pretty much intrigued. Plus that smoked salmon sandwich looks yummy. I'm telling my friends about this! Oh I can't wait to get hold and drink the coffee they serve.
I totally hunted for this place when I saw the excess butter sandwiches!!! But they were sold out. :( will have to go in again before 1pm.
tracked this very out of the way cafe .... must say that i was not at all impressed with the macaroons at all although very pretty and lovely colours the fact that it seems i was sold old stock will probably make me not want to come back think i was the first customer of the day and most of the macarons were a bit soggyish but anyway bought 8 of them , the peanut butter , coffee,yuzu , salted popcorn , rubbarb , chocolate, pistachio and chai ... must say that if i had to pick a favourite it would be the yuku .. intense lemony flavour and the pistachio very yummy ... thanks Jen