'Fatcarons’ Famous in Wellington!

Last month’s surprise level change announcement may have thrown a big curve ball at Wellington’s new Café CLOUD, but every cloud has a silver lining.

In spite of being plunged back into level 2 restrictions right on opening day, the sun has been shining brightly on this great, new coffee shop on Lambton Quay.

Owners Jimmy Phan and business partner April (Jiyoung) Moon had been frantically renovating what was formerly Coffee 86, with much help from April’s electrician boyfriend K.C. Oon, and his tradie mates.

The opportunity to take over the lease had only come up a month before and they were all celebrating at the café with more than 60 guests, family and friends, on the night of the government’s August 11 Auckland lockdown announcement.

April, who’d been up much of the previous night baking her now locally famous macarons, says that after a celebration restaurant dinner she went home and fell asleep. “K.C. woke me at midnight to tell me the news,” she says.

It was straight back into some midnight baking and then a super early start for them at the new café, rearranging tables and setting social distancing regulations, as well as ensuring adequate contact tracing notifications and registers were on hand.

Fortunately for Jimmy and April the café is situated right beneath the TVNZ offices and right in the midst of Wellington’s busy Lambton Quay office and business precinct. A reporter from upstairs must’ve had a hankering to try their Vivace Coffee and a small item on national television about their level 2 opening plight a few days later was a helpful boost to business.

“Everybody’s just been so supportive,” says April. “It’s been wonderful.” With a Les Mills gym right next door there’s also been a rush on their protein lattes and bulletproof coffee, as well as real fruit smoothies sweetened with honey.

Jimmy has 10 years’ experience in cafes and also owns Wellington’s Extra Extra in Panama Street, but for April it’s a whole new career. She had worked in cafes while studying at university but it wasn’t until the March lockdown forced her to stay home from her administration job that April rediscovered a love of baking macarons.

Korean-born, these are not just normal macarons. “I went home for six months in 2018 and discovered there was a huge craze on Korean macarons,” she says. “They’re not as sweet as traditional French macarons and are filled with a number of different fillings. We call them ‘fatcarons’ as they’re so fat,” she laughs.

K.C. thought they were pretty good so offered a few to his mate, Jimmy, to try and before long April was doing all-night baking sessions, preparing macaron orders for Extra Extra and also Lower Hutt café Simply Sweet. “The guy at Simply Sweet told me that he’s had one lady buying nine or 10 at once and his café is becoming known for them,” says April.

April Moon and Jimmy Phan – business partners of Café CLOUD on Lambton Quay overcame COVID-19 lockdown challenges to open!

New flavours are emerging all the time, including crème brulee, brownie, cheesecake and lemon curd. aIt goes without saying that April’s special twist on macarons takes pride of place in the new CLOUD coffee shop, alongside the star of the show, Vivace Coffee. “We tried various other local coffees but we found they were quite

mild,” she says. “Jimmy thought we needed something stronger.” It looks like Jimmy was right. Their ‘Ultimate’, five bean blend of coffee beans sourced from Africa, South America and Asia, has its own unique flavour and is bringing the customers back for more. “We also do a single origin that changes every week. At the moment we’re using Columbian coffee beans.”

While official opening day on August 12 wasn’t quite what they’d anticipated, with the excitement of the busyness slightly waned after the previous two days of ‘soft’ opening, April says they sold a lot more coffee and food than expected.

After the tension of August 14’s government follow-up announcement, she says they’re looking forward to getting back to level 1 as soon as possible.

As for the name, there are many reasons. “Aotearoa is the land of the long white cloud, steamed fluffy white milk foam and macaron egg white mixture remind me of clouds and Cloud 9 is a positive thing,” says April.