Filou's Pattisserie - Corner of Fenwick and Lygon St, Carlton North

Finally, a beautiful day forecasted…and most importantly, a nice breakfast to look forward to. We got to Filou’s early in the morning and was greeted by the sweet smell of pastry (butter :D). The staffs were busy bringing out fresh pastries and other goodies from the kitchen and I couldn’t help but feel myself being drawn to the display cabinet full of tempting offerings.


For savoury, we settled for the spinach slice and mushroom pie and for sweets, an almond croissant, or should I say, croissants aux amandes…to wash it down, it was my usual long black.

The mushroom pie had a slight sourness to it that I personally thought overpowered the taste of the mushrooms. We were trying to work out where or what was added to it and I think it’s either sour cream or lemon…the pastry, however, was divine. Flaky without tasting oily, the crunchiness of it going ooh so well with the creamy mushroom filling.

The spinach slice was a very generous serve of vegetables. One could be forgiven for thinking it’s healthy but there was no masking the melt-in-your-mouth pastry that encased it.

It was just after 8am but yes, we just had to have something sweet to finish this deliciously sinful meal off and for me, the crux of French patisseries is the croissant. Being indecisive (and having not seen the vanilla slice), I decided on the almond croissant. The flakiness of the croissant was evident even from the outlook and we were not disappointed. The almond filling gave it a slightly cake-like/moist texture on a croissant that would otherwise be flaky but perhaps, a bit dry or over baked. Personally, I love my croissants to be flaky on the outside with a slight chewiness inside, so with the almond filling, it ticked the right box though without it (the edges), it was slightly on the dry side for me.

There’s nothing much to say about my coffee as I thought it was slightly burnt and didn’t quite enjoy it that much. So, I guess I’m off to Green Refectory for my second cup today…