Recipe For Success

Le Matin Patisserie will soon open at Raeburn Park.

MOHAMED AL-MATIN has a good thing going.

His online bakery, Le Matin, started operations in May, but thanks to a couple of successful pop-ups, countless sleepless nights and a population with a sweet tooth, his viennoiseries have been selling like hot cakes.

Tipping its hat to his glowing resume – a Cordon

Bleu education and his time at Noma and the nowdefunct Restaurant André – his repertoire comprises five kinds of viennoiseries that you don’t normally get here in Singapore. The buttery kouign-amann is a godsend (read: Tiong Bahru Bakery’s just doesn’t cut it), as is the hay-smoked cruffin that’s crowned with lemon-verbena meringue. There’s also the cardamom-infused canele which, despite eschewing all traditions of baking with beeswax and copper moulds, tastes just like the real deal.

It’s a complex repertoire that relies on a simple business delivery model: sell the same 260 sets of pastries every week and people who want them badly enough will have to ‘camp’ for it online, each Sunday at 4pm. Once a strict fastest-fingers-first policy, people are now handed queue numbers at random, so everyone gets a fair, if somewhat arbitrary, shot. The wait can still be painful.

So instead of fighting the Internet, we recommend getting your pastries right at the source. Currently operating from a kitchen at Duxton Hill, Al-Matin will soon open a brick and mortar bakery at Raeburn Park in the third week of August. Together with his growing team of bakers (that will soon include a pastry chef from Restaurant Zén), he envisions it to be a small and minimalist walk-in joint without bells and whistles – no seating and only filter coffee. It would be a nice place to chill in otherwise, but no matter. The proof of this particular pudding will be in the eating, and we’re hoping the pastries will prove their mettle. If they do, Le Matin’s future looks bright and ours looks sweet.

www.lematinpatisserie.com