Kugelhopf at the Monarch. Acland St, St. Kilda, Vic, Australia
Posted by razzbuffnik on January 28th, 2008
In this day and age of bland franchises and shrinking diversity it is a pleasant surprise to visit St. Kilda’s, Acland Street just to see some old fashioned bakeries. Much to the credit of the people who own the cake shops that caught my eye, their stores look like something from a bygone age. No cutesy plastic signage and “designed” interiors, just old style European cakes in the windows with scant regard to current merchandising trends. Real honest to goodness cakes that are the antithesis of what one sees in so many cake shops here in Australia and many other countries outside of Europe that I’ve visited.
Amongst these old fashioned shops is the Monarch Cake Shop which isn’t as big and flashy as the rest but has an old world charm that pulled me in to try their chocolate kugelhopf.
The kugelhopf served at the Monarch is more like the kind one might find in Austria rather than Alsace and has a chocolate filling. The texture and flavour of the kugelhopf provoked a cascade of thoughts as I was eating, about when chocolate was new to Europe and what sort of things the they would have made with it. It’s not often that a cake with coffee stirs so much thought in me. It was worth every cent I paid just for the daydreams it caused.