Coconut-covered bliss at Tokyo Lamington

This Elgin St cafe and bakery is serving up fluffy cubes of heaven, covered with coconut, or hundreds and thousands, or crushed pistachios, or flaky pastry …

With flavours like fairy bread popcorn, melon boba and pistachio lemon, Tokyo Lamington has made its name by putting unique twists on the humble lamington.

But even though customers love the wacky and wonderful flavours that come out of the Tokyo Lamington kitchen each month, chef and co-founder Eddie Stewart says his favourite is still the classic recipe.

“My favourite is still the OG – jam and cream in the middle with chocolate and coconut,” Eddie tells Inner City News. “For me, it’s what a true lamington is. A lot of people argue it’s not a real lamington because it’s got the jam and the cream, it’s got both,” he says. 

“But for me, that’s what my grandmother made and that’s what is a lamington.”

Eddie and his business partner Min Chai opened Tokyo Lamington’s Carlton store in 2022, after the resounding success of their first store in the Sydney suburb of Newtown.

The concept for Tokyo Lamington emerged while Eddie and Min were running a café which they opened in Tokyo in 2018.

That original café served classic Aussie breakfast fare, but more than anything else on the menu, customers were drawn to the lamingtons.

“Lamingtons are the perfect product to sell in Japan because Japanese love that really soft sponge cake in the middle,” Eddie says.

The pair had originally hoped to open Tokyo Lamington’s first location in Tokyo itself, but those plans were derailed by the pandemic.

Instead, they opened a pop-up shop in Sydney’s Chinatown in 2020, which operated for around six months.

“We were testing the waters during COVID, which was probably one of the hardest times to do that. Everyone thought we were crazy, opening a shop in the middle of COVID,” Eddie says.

Soon after that, Eddie got a call from a real estate agent asking if he wanted to take over a lease in Newtown, which had been the old location for Black Star Pastry, where he used to work.

The Newtown store opened in 2021, selling 100,000 lamingtons in its first year.

A year later, Tokyo Lamington made its Melbourne debut.

“I think that between Min and I, we’ve always loved Carlton. It’s just got that really beautiful family vibe about the place, it’s a little bit under the radar,” Eddie says.

We picked the shop in Carlton where it is on Elgin St because it was out of the way; we like to be hidden away a little bit, or just off the main roads.

Eddie estimates that he and his staff have come up with more than 600 lamington flavours so far.

Along with the OG lamington, some of his favourites have been gingerbread and pumpkin charcoal, which was a Halloween special. “Yuzu is probably the most popular, everyone goes crazy for the yuzu meringue,” he says.

This fan’s preference doesn’t have the classic coconut coating, instead it features a vanilla sponge filled with yuzu curd and whipped cream, and is covered with fluffy, toasted meringue.

Eddie says that the upcoming Christmas flavours are focused on evoking nostalgia. 

“People have got expectations for Christmas, you know. You need to have a gingerbread, a Christmas pudding, something fruity. So, all our lamingtons for Christmas are based upon what you would see on the Australian Christmas table,” he says.

“We’ve got a lot of staff from all around the world. A lot of our kitchen staff are from Indonesia, so they’ll do a lot of South-east Asian kinds of desserts,” he says.

“Pandan’s always on the menu, we’ve got ube, things like that. It’s very much a big team effort for flavours here.”

There’s more to Tokyo Lamington than its name might suggest, as it also offers a range of savoury baked goods, including a signature pork katsu sausage roll, and pies with unexpected fillings like beef and black bean or cauliflower cheese and wasabi.

There are also special quiches with a unique texture similar to that of a Chawanmushi, which is a Japanese set custard.

Looking ahead, Eddie says a lamington shop in Tokyo is still on the horizon, although not in the immediate future.

For now, Tokyo Lamington Carlton will keep dishing up its own spin on classic Australian treats. •