A renowned Adelaide supermarket has just been given the award for making Australia’s finest croissant. No prizes for guessing who!
Adelaide’s Finest supermarkets have claimed first place for Australia’s best croissant at this year’s Royal Adelaide Show. As the only supermarket in the world, with an operational pâtisserie inside the supermarket, the team won a total of five awards in the professional baking competition, including
Best Ciabatta, Best Sourdough, Overall Champion Product, Best Apprentice, and Australia’s
Best Croissant.
These awards are the end result of a four-year journey for the pâtisserie that began during the COVID-19 pandemic. During this difficult time, Adelaide’s Finest Director, Spero Chapley employed highly skilled pâtissiers who had lost their jobs in the widespread hospitality lockdowns.
Adelaide’s Finest Pâtisserie team now numbers nine full time employees (plus three TAFE students) and is led by Huy Nguyen, formerly of Le Cordon Bleu cooking school.
Huy Nguyen has also worked in Adelaide fine dining establishments d’Arenberg’s Cube and Aurora. Alongside producing Australia’s best croissant, the Chef is passionate about culinary education, teaching certificates III and IV in patisserie.
These awards recognise the hard work of the team who often start their day at 3am inside the glass cube at the front of the Pasadena store.
Mr Chapley says, “the glass kitchen our patisserie team works from lets our customers see the incredible work that goes into these amazing creations. This brings an energy and multisensory dimension to the store experience, part of our ambition to make every visit new and exciting.”
Adding to this, Mr Chapley said, “the Patisserie is a fine example of how we have been operating for over 70 years – taking a risk on something new, pushing the boundaries of retail, employing and training staff in an effort to showcase the best South Australia has to offer”.
Adelaide’s Finest apprentice Christie-Lee Roberts won Best Apprentice Baker, and her pear Danish was crowned Champion Product of The Show beating every single other professional entry.
Every year, the Royal Adelaide Show celebrates baking excellence in a range of categories, from loaves of bread, to sausage rolls, and vanilla slice. Each category is carefully judged for its technical attributes crowing a winner based upon their demonstrated baking excellence. This year’s feature category, croissants, put emphasis on the French laminated pastry, putting the item front and centre in the Goyder Pavillion.
Each entrant was tasked with producing 4 croissants as close in shape, size and appearance as possible. The judges had a focus on tradition, looking for a winner producing a “back to basics” style croissant, “crisp, flaky” with a “buttery flavour and aroma”. Croissants were judged on appearance, colour, flavour and pastry quality.
The strict marking criteria for this year’s feature class included the detailed and intricate attributes, “taste, flavour and eating quality, lamination quality, and internal crumb structure.” Amongst other technical criteria, Adelaide’s Finest Supermarkets were able to achieve the highest overall score and secure the title of Australia’s best croissant.
Keen to try it? We don’t blame you. Head down to Frewville or Pasadena, but get in quick before they sell out for the day!
Australia’s best Croissant
Adelaide’s Finest
177 Glen Osmond Rd, Frewville & 20 Fiveash Dr, Pasadena
To buy croissants online, click here.
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