Lune Croissanterie is ready to land in Sydney. After five years, two stalled developments and a pandemic, the world-renowned bakery is set to open its NSW flagship store at the Rosebery Engine Yards, with an anticipated launch on Saturday, December 7.

It will be the largest and most important opening by the Melbourne-based croissanterie yet. In the converted factory, more than 65 employees will produce up to 5400 warm, buttery croissants daily. Shortly after Rosebery opens, a second satellite store in Martin Place will follow, its launch date under wraps until opening day.

Previous SlideNext Slide

It’s an emotional moment for founder Kate Reid, who has transformed Lune from a one-woman wholesale operation in the Melbourne suburb of Elwood into a phenomenon commanding hours-long queues, attracting international media attention (notably being named “best croissants in the world” by The New York Times) and, before the end of the year, opening seven stores across three states.

“I didn’t anticipate this when I started Lune 12 years ago,” Reid says.

“[It was] this tiny little business, just me, and now we’re probably going to be pushing 270 staff … It’s become so much more than just a croissant,” Reid says.

Reid admits she burst into “involuntary tears” on a crowded Surry Hills street in early November. The first batch of Lune croissants to be laminated, proved and baked in Sydney had come out of the oven. The fit-out for the Martin Place store was nearly complete. When a Sydney-based friend called to ask where they should meet, Reid could say “come to Lune”.

“It was the first time I’ve told someone to meet me at a Lune in Sydney. It was amazing,” she says, her eyes welling up again. “It’s been an emotional day.”

The move to Sydney feels momentous – partly because of the long, tumultuous journey and partly because of what success in Sydney could mean for Lune’s future.

Reid and her business partners, restaurateur Nathan Toleman and hospitality professional brother Cameron Reid, have pursued a Sydney store since 2019.

Demand was huge: word had spread about the woman who traded in her career as a Formula 1 aerodynamic engineer to become a pastry chef, applying the same uncompromising precision to baking viennoiserie as she once did to race cars.

Her croissants were dubbed “the prototype for all others” by UK-based chef and cookbook author Yotam Ottolenghi. Reid says they aren’t the best croissants in the world, just “subjectively the way I want to eat a croissant”. They are meticulously crafted swirls of light, golden pastry with a characteristic crisp outer shell – a reverse-engineered formula, refined only slightly over the years.

Lune Fitzroy became a travel destination for Sydney fans, who showed off their Lune bags at the airport and called for their own store over email and social media.

A serendipitous email from a Sydney property developer in late 2019 led the trio to inspect the first proposed site for Lune in Chippendale. To Reid, it felt like a sign from the universe that they needed to expand their fledgling pastry empire. The site was incredible, she says. But the pandemic had other plans.

COVID-related construction delays resulted in the Chippendale site falling through, and a second site in Darlinghurst failed to eventuate after complications with its heritage listing. Meanwhile, Lune opened its first Queensland outpost in Brisbane, and locked in the Martin Place site – too small to accommodate full-scale production but ideal for retail.

In January, determined to make good on their promise to open a Sydney store in 2024, Cameron set off on a manic tour of 11 properties across the city.

“I think everything happens for a reason,” Reid says. “When he landed on the Rosebery Engine Yards, it was literally like he’d found Lune’s Sydney home.”

Lune Rosebery intends to be an evolution of the Fitzroy store, a production hub capable of accommodating seated customers and supplying thousands of croissants in-store and at Martin Place.

As in Fitzroy, the site features a temperature-controlled glass cube where bakers (each trained for more than a year at Lune bakeries in Brisbane or Melbourne) work in full view.

After a few months, they’ll introduce a distinctly Sydney-style Lune Lab, an experimental three-course menu using croissant dough to create sweet and savoury dishes.

“It might just be the croissant in the sky at the moment, but we’ve got to dream big.”

Lune founder Kate Reid

Reid says she’d like to collaborate with a Sydney chef on the first Lune Lab offering. Kylie Kwong, who recently closed her South Eveleigh restaurant Lucky Kwong, is her first choice.

“She’s iconic to Sydney, and she’s this formidable woman that’s trailblazed the way for female chefs in such an inspiring way,” says Reid. “Her cooking is so incredibly delicious, and I’d love to see what she could do with Lune pastry.”

Both Sydney outlets will offer coffee from Ona (recently crowned Good Food Guide cafe of the year), a seasonal pastry menu that changes monthly, and a menu of Lune classics such as pain au chocolat, ham and gruyere croissants, and morning buns (croissant pastry baked with cinnamon, brown sugar and orange zest).

Each store has its own take on the signature Lune aesthetic: clean, sculptural lines, textural stone and dark, earthy metals.

“It isn’t how you’d usually describe a bakery, but it’s such a sexy store,” Reid says of the Martin Place site. Close to the new metro station, she anticipates the Sydney CBD store will become the busiest Lune to date.

“It will have the smell of croissants pumping all the way down Castlereagh Street,” she says.

And, no doubt, long lines of people. Reid is keenly aware that customers sacrifice hours of their day to sample Lune’s products, and she’s determined to make the wait worthwhile, with exceptional service and fresh-out-of-the-oven pastries.

“It can be a real pilgrimage … [so] I want them to walk into Lune and feel special and feel like we’re grateful for that time they’ve given,” she says.

Success in Sydney is critical to Lune’s future. For Reid, it is the greatest proving ground. If Lune can make it in Australia’s most populous city, its greatest tourist destination, and in its taste-making hospitality scene, it can probably make it anywhere.

Plans for a 2025 Lune world tour have already begun, and there’s tentative talk of pop-ups in Singapore, Tokyo, Seoul, Shanghai and Hong Kong. And in the distant future, who knows? Maybe a store in London or New York, a long-held aspiration for Reid.

“We can’t just stop after Sydney. It’s like trying to stop a freight train,” she says. “It might just be the croissant in the sky at the moment, but we’ve got to dream big.”

Lune Rosebery, 115-151 Dunning Avenue (entry via Mentmore Avenue), Rosebery, will open on Saturday, December 7.

Lune Martin Place, shop N80, Metro Martin Place, 1 Elizabeth Street (enter via Castlereagh Street), Sydney, will open on an undisclosed date. lunecroissanterie.com