MELBOURNE | I often praise the joys of “brown” food, and lament food that’s designed for social media, all style and no substance. These are, of course, big generalisations. There’s a lot of shitty brown food, and loads of delicious social media-ready stuff. I recently visited Asian-inspired cake shop, musu&co, for What’s on Melbourne, and am happy to report it’s more than just style over substance.
Opened by Tara Jiang as a made-to-order cake business, musu&co moved to its bricks and mortar digs in Carlton a few years ago. Starting with a boba lava cake, the menu soon expanded to feature an assortment of cakes, tarts, and drinks. Signature cakes can be ordered as individual serves, or in a variety of sizes through to large cakes for events.
The boba lava cake is still musu&co’s signature item, as popular now as it was when Tara launched her business. A second creation from the early days, soft chiffon cake filled with Earl Grey milk tea lava and brown sugar boba, is another customer favourite.
I tried a couple signature items, and a few seasonal things, and was impressed by the balanced flavours and textures, and retrained sweetness. The mango pandan chiffon cake is a highlight, and the jasmine tea cake with fresh green grapes is also a winner. For something different, that’s both sweet and salty, check out the salted egg yolk lava cake topped with meat floss.
I also highly recommend the layered jelly emoji cake, available in either matcha yuzu or raspberry pistachio. The latter, which I got, features raspberry Bavaria, pistachio sea salt mousse, cream cheese mousse with sour cream, raspberry jelly, pistachio pine nut crunch, and pistachio sponge.
Beyond cake, there’s a small selection of lattes and soda. Think rose with sparkling sakura water and butterfly pea, Thai milk tea, and strawberry matcha milk. Like the cakes, the feature well balanced flavours, and aren’t too sweet. Just remember to stir well before taking a sip.
musu&co
1/73 Cardigan Street
Carlton
Victoria 3053
Australia
Telephone: n/a
E-mail: n/a
Website
Open
Wed – Mon: 12:00pm to 6:00pm