30 Hardware Lane,
Melbourne, 3000
A friend of mine was bemoaning the mainstream success of the macaron, to a certain extent I could see where he was coming from. At the same time I also felt that this was a bit of "We hate it when our friends become successful" envy.
The truth is the macaron is as ubiquitess as the muffin or the cupcake and like all things that explode in popularity, some are winners whilst others are a fail. Quantity over quality and trying to do many flavors rather than focus on the fundamentals seems to be a problem.
Le Belle Miette seems to have it about right. Le petite shop leaves you with no ambiguity on what it is there to sell as one walks in to an array of visually perfect macarons. The level of surface gloss on some of these are bordering on reflective and the flavor combinations are all tempting rather than challenging.
In my first of what is likely to be many visits to La Belle Miette I tried four macarons. 72% Cocoa Single Origin Chocolate (Venezuela), Caramel a la Fleur de Sel, Violet & Blueberry and Raspberry.
On the positives, they all had a delightfully thin and crispy shells, the almond meal ground to the point of no coarseness and all four had divine fillings. The standouts were the salted caramel and the violet & blueberry.
If I were to identify any negatives, it would be the level of chewiness was a bit wanting. The salted caramel was about right, but would have liked more in the others. It is a very minor criticism in what were otherwise great macarons.
La Belle Miette - Recommended.
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