Le Petit Tarte Cafe & Patisserie

It's superb to find a brilliant array of pastries in the inner city, and fantastic to find great service, but in this instance, choice is the heavyweight and common discourtesy fills the blanks where we once would have been handed change in one and two cent pieces. Le Petit Tarte is a long-standing Glebe cafe that serves quite reasonable food, but I've frequented the place over the last 6 years to take-away its quality cakes and pastries because it has always had some difficulty making a soy cappuccino that's not 'custardy' and exchanged for a long black. Being in the tight clutch of the highest traffic area of Glebe Point Road - amid the Ancient Briton, chemist, tobacconist, fish cafe, wood-fired bread shop, organic IGA, whichbank, and a pedestrian crossing thrown in - I personally find that the tiny outside tables of Le Petit Tarte offer a standard of comfort not experienced since a bus seat secured by tattered rope to a window on a jostling trip through the Himalayas.

For certain periods of time, and on a number of occasions, I have been addicted to some of Le Petit Tarte's offerings: chocolate crunch being my first; a chunky finger of rich, dense, dark velvet chocolate clutching crisp almond biscuit in a tight fist of luxury. Spectacular. And the cappuccino mousse, so triple light: almond, chocolate and coffee mousse with a froth of French meringue; so good I had to stop buying them when I realised I was using my washing machine money and eating them with the blinds drawn... and lovely biscuits, with a dozen other delightful choices; crumbles, fruit tarts and lengthy éclairs. Admittedly, Le Petit Tarte has the best chocolate croissants around, though with tight competition from "Bariloche Cafe" (two blocks up, lovely owners), and "The Pudding Shop" just across the road (friendly and quaint; serving its Lemon Lime Tart with finely diced strawberries offers the palate the finest example of Glebe 'delicioury', bar none).

If you're willing to spend between about 18 (for a small) and the best part of 35 bucks, Le Petit is always good for classy birthday cakes and dessert offerings for show-off dinners at home, though it did suffer greatly some time ago when one of its quality suppliers burned down. It has slowly regained most of its former deliciousness, and though not quite, is still one of the best places around for those who dream of cakes in the way some do sex slaves or expensive shoes. It certainly had some heady competition from "Stephen Baker Fine Foods" at the other end of the strip, but sadly and surprisingly, it closed as quickly as it had opened. Like anything perfect, it never really is.

Though Le Petit Tarte has a level of excellence in its limited choices, it's always a luxury and a treat to indulge. And given the last nine years of this government, most of us look forward to a little cake now and then in the same way we once looked forward to an extravagant weekend away, and the odd bottle of Moet. It is yet to occur to Le Petit that its counter layout is largely useless: the high cake cabinet in the front obscures the staff's view of any waiting customers; the register ensures staff have their back to the counter, as does the placement of the coffee machine. When it's busy, it's noisy; to stand waiting for a cake, or coffee takeaway is to be a human sound buffer between Saturday morning Glebe Point and Bridge Road traffic, and 25 people clattering over breakfast. I stood unnoticed and unable to attract the attention of any one of 3 staff for 5 minutes one Saturday, and if not for the arrival of a 6'7" ebony skinned god and the corkscrew through the universe female staff created in their speed to serve him, I would probably still be standing there, though noticeably thinner.

Service at Le Petit Tarte has always been curt to a lone stranger ordering only one thing; my regular patronage raised nary a flicker of friendly acknowledgement, nor recognition of any of my 'family of favourites' under the never setting sun of 'efficiency.' Quite frankly, if I wanted efficiency I'd use McDonald's drive-thru, wear paper undies and eat my food through a straw. What I, and I suspect many, want are those tiny moments of elevation from the drudgery of the boring bits of life, the dastardly state of the world, and a reward for opening what will surely be a crippling phone bill. Want we want are common curtesies and pleasantries: professional and attentive behaviour from staff in a way that's as standard and expected as receiving our pastry purchases without any squished cream or custard overflow licking off prior to handing it over. Not that this has ever happened, but if it did, it would probably be explained as efficient, friendly attention to detail. Le Petit Tarte would do itself a favour in realising that there is little skill in the art of service blindness and disdain with style; exemplified by Le Petit Tarte's female manager who shall remain nameless because she refused to give me one, even after introducing myself. I wanted to relay an incident rather unpleasant enough for me to want my discontent noted and I may as well have asked if she were willing to part with her entire business for $2.80.

If care and attention to detail continue to drop at Le Petit Tarte (my absolutely last (black) coffee some months ago had the stay-on lipstick print of someone else on the cup), to eventually hear on the grapevine the aforementioned cream and custard licking incident will bring only mild surprise, and should deign me a modern prophet.

Partake at Le Petit Tarte at the peril of your inner calm, economic integrity and expectations of good will and good service. And insulting to both the customer and the product is to present these single small delicacies to take away in a brown paper bag. A box and a bit of bakers paper, please! - these little babies are fragile and should be treated as such, no matter if it's only fuel to power one.

Le Petit has sweet, sweet offerings, but the service is a little tart.
Comment on this reader review

Suze Wyhldher
Wednesday, October 19, 2005