Previous SlideNext Slide

If there is one piece of advice for visiting Crescent Croissanterie, it is go in the morning. Demand for baker and co-owner Elly Kim’s bogglingly wide and lustrously golden range of croissants means the shop’s entire front counter
cabinet is bare by early afternoon.

All that’s left is a scattering of pastry flakes and 18 lonely nameplates explaining the buttery glories that once lay before them.

Plain croissant, gone. Chocolate croissant, gone. Almond, camembert, tiramisu,
pistachio, pretzel, basil, chorizo, ham and cheese, cinnamon bun, eggplant parmigiana and custard Earl Grey, all gone.

Some days it is all Kim can do to write, “Sold out. See you tomorrow, thanks,” on a brown paper bag and stick it to the front door before going to have a lie down.
Except she doesn’t rest or recline.

Closing the shop after each day’s trading means starting preparation for subsequent days’ pastry excitements. It takes 48 hours to create a
croissant and Kim, who opened Crescent Croissanterie last July, is awake for about 20 hours every day.

“During the busy season, I often end up sleeping only three hours a night because I finish work late,” she says. “I’m not sure where the problem is but I really want to finish work quickly and go home early so that I can have enough rest.”

In this tiny grey and butter-yellow-tiled bakery, heralded by a small, boxed and glowing croissant illustration jutting out from the exterior’s black-tiled facade, Kim is the only baker.

Each week she single-handedly makes between 2000 and 3000 croissants,
along with fronting the till and co-running the business with her brother Youngjun Kim.

She is devoted to pastry baking after training and working for 14 years as a pastry chef at Giaana’s Baking Company in California, pastry chain Paris Baguette in South Korea, Organic Bread Bar in Paddington and northern beaches bakery Berkelo.

The croissant’s taste, beauty and ability to dextrously incorporate ingredients absorbs her aim to create versions that can be eaten for breakfast, lunch, dinner or as a snack.

Today, with cold winds whipping Crows Nest’s streets and puffer-jacketed customers queuing out the door, she is explaining to people that another run
of croissants will be ready in 15 minutes.

Minutes before, a full 15-tier rack of just-baked plain, chocolate, ham and
cheese and custard Earl Grey croissants has emptied like a sped-up film to patrons inching in from the cold. Some stay to watch the golden-lit revolving racks of baking croissants in ovens along the back wall.

If you get in early enough, Kim’s croissants swing boisterously between sweet and savoury, crescent-shaped and pie-like, classically plain and lusciously festooned. Some, like the pistachio croissant, a delicately turreted, melty and light beauty, is filled and topped with lusciously nutty cream. Chopped pistachios adorn its peak like tiny green rocks on snow.

It is easy to have a three-course meal here, entirely furnished by croissants and covering all the major food groups but without any cutlery or plates.

Perch on Crescent Croissanterie’s street benches, tear your gaze from the imploring eyes of fellow customers’ dogs, and start with a ham and cheese croissant. Here is a fat, deeply lush and high pillow of pastry loaded with gooey cheese and a lolling fold of cured pink meat.

Move to the eggplant parmigiana, a deep pastry box with corners reminiscent of a knotted handkerchief, filled with rich tomato sauce-covered eggplant and festooned with mozzarella cheese.

Then, consider the crunchier and sweeter yuzu butterfly croissant, a layered orchestration of citrussy honey, fresh lemon glaze and candied yuzus fruit peel.

There’s also Single O coffee on tap, so please finish up with a strong brew and a flamboyant Earl Grey custard croissant, its creamy innards blushing with fresh raspberries.

In Kim’s eyes, croissants can be anything and she is far from ending her quest within the buttery pastry universe. She’ll recommend a croissant but don’t ask her to pick the best.

“But, if I had to choose, I would say plain croissant for my favourite one,” she says. “To see it rise in the oven is always fascinating.”