The way we eat has changed. It is no longer enough to search out the most delicious food. Now, we look for food that is bright, colourful, pleasing to the eye, sexy even? Customers are asking what the prettiest dish on the menu is, not what tastes the best. In fact, customers often know what they want prior to arriving. They arrive armed with screen shots from Instagram and Facebook, showing the service staff what they'd like to order before they're given the menu.
Here is my list of Sydney's biggest Instagram hits of the dessert variety;
Black Star Pastry
Strawberry Watermelon Cake
Consistently one of Sydney's most Instagrammable desserts, even international visitors coming to Sydney seem to know about this cake and where to purchase it. Not only does this cake look great, it tastes terrific too.
Fresh and light consisting of an almond dacquoise, rose scented cream, and fresh watermelon, decorated with strawberries, pistachios and dried rose petals.
I personally, as most of you know by now, do not like watermelon, but that won't stop me from enjoying this cake whenever possible (I do however remove the watermelon layer haha).
Black Star Pastry have multiple outlets around Sydney, Melbourne and possibly internationally in the near future.
I-Creamy Artisan Gelato
Flower Gelato
Flower gelato's have grown in popularity world-wide and the place to get yours in Sydney is I-Creamy Gelato. Their gelato flavours are delicious and often rotate depending on the season and mood of the chef. I always keep an eye out for their durian flavour, although it’s not as available as I would like it to be. That being said they have a wide range of flavours, you won't be stuck for choices.
Get your phones ready to film whilst the staff put together your flower based on the flavours you've chosen. Then prepare to take your photos before it melts, you wouldn't want to drop any of that delicious gelato!
Tella Balls Dessert Bar
Tella Ball Shake
This was possibly the biggest viral craze to hit Sydney a few years back. People were lining up for hours just to get their hands on the Tella Ball Shake. Lucky for us, the craze has died down and Tella Balls have opened multiple outlets around Sydney, making it easier to get your hands on one of these bad boys.
Such a simple idea combining age old favourites milkshakes and donuts. It started off with a Nutella filled donut on top of a Nutella shake with a straw through the centre of the donut anchoring it and allowing you to drink the shake. You are now able to get different flavour Tella ball shakes such as strawberry, and salted caramel. I warn these can get a little messy, but from my experience messy food is often the best kind.
Aqua S
Soft Serve
Accident or marketing genius I'll never know, but the combination of fairy floss decorated soft serve, fortnightly rotating flavours, and the cloud feature wall created the most instagrammed dessert in all of Australia.
With Sea Salt as their staple flavour and two rotating flavours every fortnight, Aqua S managed to keep their customers engaged and enthused for each release. Add to that the interesting choice of toppings like the signature fairy floss, salted caramel popcorn, popping candy, burnt marshmallow, and palmier cookies to name a few.
Aqua S have gone global, so if you're International you might find one open near you soon.
Baked by Andres
Coke Cake
When you really want a cake to impress the "Coke Cake" is it! Andres cleverly constructs the Coke bottle out of chocolate, fills the inside with chocolate sponge cake and buttercream.
On occasions Chef Andres can be persuaded into making different types of these including as seen in the photo; Sprite cake with matcha buttercream, and a Fanta cake with peanut butter buttercream.
I've had the pleasure of trying all three. To be honest, I couldn't tell you which I prefer. They were all fun, delicious and most importantly (at least for this blog post,) they are incredibly Instagrammable.
Note: This is an independent review, food purchased was a combination of complimentary visits and self funded visits by "Itd be rude not to".