MELBOURNE | Lovey Patisserie Cafe Featuring Xplayground is a pop art café from Lovey Patisserie Cafe, and online pop-art collectible store Xplayground. I recently stopped in for What’s On Melbourne to find out more about the collaboration.
Lovey Patisserie is the creation of pastry chefs Karsin Zhang and Julie Zhu, both alumni of Le Cordon Bleu. Their original cafe opened in Doncaster in late 2022, offering a delectable selection of desserts, cakes, and drinks. Everything is made on site daily, using the best quality ingredients from local independent businesses like Duke’s Coffee, Zen Wonders, and Mörk Chocolate.
There’s a seasonally driven focus on French and East Asian flavours at Lovey Patisserie Cafe, with a leaning towards creations that are light, balanced, and not overly sweet. There’s things like a gluten-free coconut pandan Basque cheesecake, blueberry and elderflower Swiss roll, and matcha strawberry panna cotta.
To drink, there’s espresso based coffee drinks, along with flavoured lattes like matcha, taro, and black sesame. There’s also things like house-made grape and lime soda, and sparkling iced tea. A ‘canimal’ behind the counter means that you can have your drink canned to go, to enjoy later in the day.
As for the Xplayground side of things, you’ll notice several walls, especially the almost art gallery-type entrance, filled with limited, rare, and high-quality designer collectibles. The Melbourne-based online retailer has built a reputation globally for its range, and this is their first physical store.
There’s collectibles from the likes of artist Takashi Murakami with his signature “Superflat” style, POP Mart, Kaws, and BE@RBRICK. I’ll admit that I came very close to buying the NBA x BE@RBRICK Michael Jordan 1998 LAST SHOT collectible that was calling to me from the display.
Lovey Patisserie Cafe Featuring Xplayground
26 Berrbang Lane
Melbourne
Victoria 3000
Australia
Telephone: (03) 9314 6101
E-mail: n/a
Website
Open
Sun – Thu: 10:00am to 6:00pm
Fri – Sat: 10:00am to 8:00pm