Phenomenal Finom
A new patisserie/café has opened in Carterton’s High Street – Finom Kitchen, the brainchild of patissier and expert cakemaker Sarah Webster. By Sue McLeary. Photos by Lucia Zanmonti
The name Finom (fee-nom) is an Hungarian adjective, meaning “small, tasty, delicate, dainty and cute”. It could not be more appropriate.
Sarah’s partner Gabor is of Polish/Hungarian heritage. “When we visit his family in Budapest, I am always drawn to the delicately delicious, beautifully presented traditional patisserie. Budapest should be better known as a food-lover’s paradise. Our three children love going there and eating well” she says.
Sarah is well-known at local markets for her mouth-watering macarons: those petite, pretty, colourful, crispy, chewy, melty French treats.
Her first patisserie venture was the Frocks on Bikes High Tea, part of the first Kokomai Festival. “I did it mostly because Festival Director and friend Heidi Holbrook asked me. Everyone loved them and I asked myself if this could be a business?
“So I ventured into other fairs – Christmas at New Rags in Masterton, a charity Spring Market at Carrington, the Martinborough Olive Festival Night Market – and sold out every time. People loved the macarons and started asking about cakes and other delicacies.”
Sarah’s celebration cakes are works of art, almost always incorporating fresh flowers such as violas on semi-naked cakes. All the flowers Sarah uses, including roses, are edible.
Realising it would be prudent to balance made-to-order cakes with complementary shelf-stable products, Sarah created a range of Nut Brittles. Her macaron range is steadily expanding. Now available in a beautiful boxed set, they just might be the perfect gift.
“I’m self-trained,” Sarah says, “and built my skills attending many training courses here and overseas.
“A week-long Viennoiserie course at Melbourne’s Savour School of Chocolate and Patisserie was pivotal. Hard work but outstanding. I rated the school’s South Korean pâtissier Eunyoung Yun highly. Her work was so delicate and precise it was first daunting and then inspirational. She is an entremets specialist: small, delicate multi-layered cakes with textural contrasts. From French patisserie, they are echoed by the Hungarian speciality Dobos: seven delicate layers of sponge and chocolate cream topped with sugar work.
“I’m working towards offering a modern Dobos at Finom. For me, it brings together honouring Gabor’s heritage and my skills into something quite ethereal and beautiful.”
Finom is not a one-woman band. The café is closed Mondays but the kitchen is a hive of activity. Inna Savina is making the primary recipes – key components for the week’s menu, like curds and tart shells. In a neat twist, early supporter Heidi Holbrook is now training as a chef and doing her work experience at Finom.
Experienced chef and close friend Kirsten Berry is joining Finom soon as a business partner, so that Sarah can focus on patisserie, while Kirsten ensures the savoury offering is as strong as the sweet.
“I may have under-estimated the amount of work involved in what I think of as the ‘not food’ aspects of a café! But by bringing a strong team around me it’s really starting to hum”.
The team are quickly learning what their customers like, and have added seasonal, full-flavoured fresh options to the range of sweet treats.
“Customers notice that we retained some of Mirabelle’s iconic mirror collection, and everyone seems to love the rich blue-green-teal colour as much as we do.”
31 High Street Carterton www.finomkitchen.co.nz
