Posted on

The ‘sweetest’ spots in Wellington

We’ve sampled many a curry, cocktail, craft beer and dessert while we’ve been immersing ourselves into the Wellingtonian culture but this post is all about the sweeter things in life.

First up: Louis Sargeant. Oh my, this place is The Best. My boss took our team here for a treat and it knocked my socks off. This delightful orb of a pudding was called ‘Glamour’. It was a concoction of violet and blackcurrant jelly and white chocolate wrapped around a delightfully light and fluffy mousse centre. Garnished with unicorn dust (aka silver foil), Like A Boss. I likes me some silver foil.
At any rate it was in the heavenly patisserie counter at the front of the restaurant – also filled with delectable-looking tarts, éclairs, croissants and other wildly distracting treats. Just go there. Right now.

Louie SargeantThe verdict: 4.5/5 for taste, Frenchness and overall awesomeness.

The place: Louis Sargeant, 146 Featherston Street, Wellington.

The budget: Something for everyone. You could spend $10 on a cake to takeaway. Or a lot more.

 

Next up: Hippopotamus

I took my mum here for a special girly high tea outing and she was well impressed, innit. Arguably more so since it won the global High Tea Challenge today, a mere week after we went. We had the pleasure of sharing our high tea with other literary aficionados, as the high tea was a fundraiser for the Katherine Mansfield House & Garden (go there, it’s great!).

We enjoyed champagne, almond tea, crab mousse in adorable wee jam-jars, spoonfuls of a hazelnut mousse, beautifully clean-cut sandwiches and a mouthwatering assortment of choux pastries, hand-crafted chocolates and classic fruit tarts. Plus a macaron to finish, naturally. It was a beautiful afternoon with impeccable service, perfectly balanced flavours and general good cheer.

My mum was just delighted by the whole experience, so I’d definitely recommend it for a special occasion. I’m disappointed that my photo doesn’t really do the feast justice. I was so excited to eat everything that I wasn’t focusing my camera properly. Whoops.

Hippopotamus High tea

 

The verdict: 5/5 for taste, ambience and overall experience.

The place: Hippopotamus, 90 Cable Street (in the Design Hotel),  Wellington.

The budget: On the pricier side – best for a special occasion!

Posted on

Artisan marshmallows and cheesecake? yes please Loretta!

So my ‘London expat’ blog has been reincarnated as a ‘Kiwi repatriation’ blog: I’ve been a little quiet on the blogging front while we got settled back into Godzone but the good news is that Wellington is a foodie heaven!

I mean, the Welly Walks app even has a food trail. Talk about drool-tastic.

Anyhow. It was a cold winter’s night and we just wanted cheesecake. Easier said than done: my boyfriend and I spent a good 20 minutes browsing online menus of all the Wellington establishments we could think to Google. It turns out most places do dessert but very few openly serve cheesecake.

Which prompted this sad little Tweet into the void (I’m only sharing so you can enjoy the embarrassment of my 1 lonely retweet):

image

With radio silence on the Twittersphere we decided to walk the length of Cuba Street in search of cheesecake.
First stop: Fidel’s. We love Fidel’s. They were serving cheesecake, but on closer inspection they only had one slightly dry looking piece of baked cheesecake. Unconvinced, we pushed on, wondering if we would regret that call later.

Next up: Laundry. No luck.

Then Ombra: they had a strawberry cheesecake listed but that wasn’t enticing us enough so we continued.

Logan Brown would have been lovely but we weren’t dressed for the occasion.

Then we hit Loretta, a place we have had many a fine brunch at. My brain stopped functioning once I spied a double chocolate cheesecake (blending both white and dark chocolate) and handmade passionfruit marshmallows on the menu.

Yeeeeeeharrr!! We were in business and took a window seat immediately.

The cheesecake was delicious, albeit a bit too big (even between us we couldn’t finish it which is saying something). The marshmallows were the standout performer though. Delightfully fluffy but holding their square shape, they had a delicate hint of passionfruit that had me coming back for more. The hot chocolates were pretty damn good too.

image

The verdict: Loretta, we will be back. Your weekend eggs are amazeballs and your dessert game is on par too. Oh and the decor is super funky so we felt very trendy 😉
181 Cuba Street, Wellington.