[Sydney] La Renaissance

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La Renaissance Café Pâtisserie

Add: 47 Argyle Street The Rocks Sydney NSW 2000
Tel: +61 2 9241 4878
Hours: 8am~6pm
Website: www.larenaissance.com.au
Price: 15~25 AUD/person
Visited on: 2012-04

La Renaissance wasn’t really on my list until someone casually mentioned that it’s got Sydney’s best macarons. Uh, did you just say “best macarons”?

So there I was, the very next morning, lining up behind the crowd for a taste of La Renaissance’s pastries. This small cafe has a cozy courtyard in the back, which would be lovely on any sunny day.

Ordering at La Renaissance is one of those hectic experience where you try to eye everything on display before deciding which of these good-looking things you want on your plate, and you don’t want to take too long either because the customer next to you is growing impatient.

So here’s what we got. Starting with a Chicken Chasseur Pie (7 AUD), made with a traditional French hunters recipe of diced chicken, onions, mushrooms, tomatoes, garlic & white wine. Beautiful flaky pastry, with a rustic and hearty filling.

Then, a Vegetable Provencale Pie (7 AUD) with onions, capsicum, eggplant, zucchini, & diced tomato. The flavor for this pie was rather one-dimensional and not so exciting.

Moving on to the sweets. La Renaissance’s Mille Feuille has made a name for itself, and it is indeed quite nicely done.

And finally, les macarons. After much debate, I chose the following three to sample (2.70 AUD each). The yellow is passionfruit with milk chocolate ganache (Valrhona Jivara 40%), the white is China jasmine green tea with white chocolate ganache, and the green is pistachio with white chocolate ganache and cherry center.

And how were they? Not too shabby, not too shabby, but definitely not the best I’ve had.

While I wasn’t blown away by the pastries at La Renaissance, the offerings here are still quite solid, and its charming courtyard would be perfect for brunch on any sunny morning. Come give it a try.