A medialuna has the same crescent-moon shape as a croissant.
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medialuna → have → croissant
It shares the same golden-brown colour and ridged outer crust.
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It → share → colour
Both are laminated and filled with buttery layers.
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Both → laminate → layers
And both are eaten with tea or coffee as a way to start the day.
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both → eat → day
Ask an Argentine, though, and they’ll tell you the two are completely different.
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two → ask → you
“Medialunas look like croissants, but they are smaller, softer, sweeter … and better,” says Lourdes Abboud, co-owner of medialuna bakery Tuki in Darlinghurst.
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Abboud → look → Darlinghurst
“Nobody in Argentina eats a croissant – no way.”
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Nobody → eat → croissant
The main difference between a French and “Argentinian croissant” is the dough, which is enriched with eggs for a softer, brioche-like crumb, sweetened with honey and vanilla, then brushed with hot sugar syrup for a glossy, sticky glaze.
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which → enrich → glaze
The other difference is how many you eat, says Xavier Ambrosio, owner of coffee caravan Patagonia Cafe in Brookvale.
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Ambrosio → eat → Brookvale
“You usually buy a dozen medialuna, and eat three or four in one go.
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You → buy → go
It’s tough work slinging medialunas in a croissant city like Sydney, which may be why so few bakeries attempt them.
uncertain
bakeries → ’ → them
That, or it’s the labour involved.
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it → ’ → ?
A proper medialuna takes two to three days to make, thanks to its long fermentation period and extended resting times.
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medialuna → take → period
“It’s more than a pastry, it’s a memory, it’s a feeling, it’s a taste of home.”
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it → ’ → home
Best plain: Tuki
“Argentine pastries crafted with love and lots of butter,” is the slogan for Tuki bakery.
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pastries → craft → bakery
They mean it too, the half-moon pastries are 30 per cent butter.
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pastries → mean → it
Abboud and partner Mauro Cardoselli left careers in architecture and law to live out their dream of making medialunas full time, originally expecting to sell about 50 per week.
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Abboud → leave → week
These days, it’s closer to 1500.
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it → ’ → 1500
The pair bake out of a rented kitchen in Surry Hills and sell the medialunas in boxes of three, six and 12 from their terrace house in Darlinghurst.
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pair → bake → Darlinghurst
Cardoselli, who trained at a pastry school in Tucumán in Argentina, spends 48 hours on each batch, resting the dough for eight hours between folds.
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who → train → folds
It shows in the final product, which has an elegant honeycomb structure and soft, melting texture that collapses in the mouth.
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that → show → mouth
The flavour is gently sweet, lifted by the perfume of orange peel in the glaze.
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flavour → lift → glaze
They come picnic-ready too: uniformly shaped, neatly piped with dulce de leche (milk caramel) or crema pastelera (vanilla custard), and packed into sky-blue cake boxes for takeaway.
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They → come → takeaway
By day, pastry chef Nicolás Arratta rolls croissants at Cherry Moon General Store in Annandale.
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Arratta → roll → Annandale
By night, he bakes medialunas for his online bakery, Titto by Coco.
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he → bake → Coco
Arratta grew up behind the counter of his parents’ panaderia, Le Exquisitee, in Buenos Aires, where his brother Titto taught him how to make medialunas.
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brother → grow → medialunas
These days he bakes them from his home kitchen in Zetland.
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he → bake → Zetland
“I don’t have a dough sheeter or anything like that, I just roll the dough out with a rolling pin,” he says.
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he → have → pin
It makes the end result even more impressive, the pastry is rich and buttery with a gentle tang, the edges caramelised where the golden toffee gathers.
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toffee → make → tang
Best of all is the crema pastelera, slotted with thick, sunshine-yellow custard and showered in icing sugar.
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pastelera → slot → sugar
The same dough is used to make a wider range of facturas (Argentine pastries), including vigilante, filled with baked pastry cream, and sacramento, ribboned with membrillo (quince paste) and crusted in sugar.
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dough → use → sugar
For now, this side hustle is helping cover the cost of Arratta’s Australian visa.
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hustle → help → visa
Longer term, he’s hoping to open an Australian-Argentine bakery.
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he → hop → bakery
“Maybe we will do a Vegemite medialuna, or a bacon and egg one,” he says.
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he → do → medialuna
It’s a coffee caravan, parked outside the WOTSO co-working space in Brookvale, surrounded by garden furniture and potted plants.
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It → ’ → furniture
Owner Xavier Ambrosio arrived in Australia in 2019 from Rada Tilly, a small beach town in the south of Patagonia.
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Ambrosio → arrive → Patagonia
After working for years in hospitality, he launched his mobile cafe in Long Reef in 2024, before relocating to a permanent spot in Brookvale earlier this year.
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he → work → Brookvale
Baking runs in the family.
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Baking → run → family
“My mother’s side has always had bakeries, and have always made medialunas,” Ambrosio says.
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Ambrosio → have → medialunas
It’s particularly good filled with ham and cheese, pressed on the grill until crisp and molten.
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It → ’ → grill
…and 3 more, not listed.
The Aporia
