Dining Review: A new sweet spot in Montrose

The restaurants in Montrose might want to up their dessert game.

A bright little storefront has opened on Honolulu Avenue, and it’s already cost at least one nearby eatery a dessert order. A man and his daughter walked into La Fleur Pastry recently after they’d had dinner out, deciding instead of ordering sweets at the restaurant that they’d stroll to the pastry shop to pick out European-style goodies.

La Fleur Pastry, which opened in October, is still defining its space and its menu, but the place is already welcoming, with friendly and patient service and great upholstered seats if you decide to hang out at a window-front table or outside and have your sugar on site. There’s the large, well-lit display case in the main area, and in the front, two tables on either side of a gold wall fountain that’s for the moment dry. Your tea and coffee come in floral-patterned china. But you didn’t go there just for the creamy cappuccino.

There’s passion fruit mousse topped with freshly whipped cream, light, not too sweet and bursting with fruit flavor. Near it, also in a clear plastic cup, is a rummy tiramisu topped with whipped cream and a chocolate-dipped ladyfinger cookie. The crisp cookie is the perfect foil to the frothy topping and the booze-soaked cake.

The raspberry chocolate slice is a small architectural wonder: paper-thin sheets of semi-sweet chocolate alternated with fresh raspberries and held together with a light, mortar of Parisian cream. It’s almost too pretty to eat. Almost. This gets my vote to go on the permanent menu. That and the hot chocolate, made fresh with dark Swiss chocolate and topped with freshly whipped cream. Will it bring back memories of the marshmallowy hot chocolate from childhood? Not unless your mother was Ina Garten.

If you generally shy away from Sacher torte, thinking that slathering chocolate cake with apricot jam is a good way to ruin chocolate cake, you might want to give La Fleur’s a try. Here, the Austrian dessert has a barely perceptible stripe of apricot marmalade sandwiched between layers of cake, which is covered in a shimmering dark Swiss chocolate glaze. A tiny chocolate disk with white lettering labels the cake as a Sacher.

The apple strudel has a feathery exterior and a hint of marzipan along with the chunks of apple. The cannoli is robust, crunchy dough around a slightly chunky mix of ricotta, cream, pistachio and chocolate flakes.

The cherry cheesecake is another permanent menu candidate (I hope), decadence topped with jellied cherries and shingled with almond slices along the sides. And the ludicrously light yet flavorful eclair, please.

You know before you walk into La Fleur that it’s big on macaroons. There’s an artful little tree made of them in the window. They’re impossibly light, and you can get them regular size, mini, mini with two flavors. Ear Grey, coconut, chocolate, coffee, any number of flavors and combinations. Passion fruit is a standout.

Why is it that neon macaroons seem like something Hunter S. Thompson should have had beside him in that red Chevy convertible as he sliced through the desert on his way to Vegas? Neon pink, neon green, neon yellow, bright, puffy tablets to go along with the real pharmaceuticals. Pop, pop, pop.

He would’ve liked the passion fruit.

What: La Fleur Pastry

Where: 2420 Honolulu Ave., Montrose

When: 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday through Thursday; 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday

Menu includes: Mini macaroons, $1.60; many other pastries $3.

More info: (818) 369-7223
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REBECCA BRYANT is a food writer and previous contributor to Marquee.