Highly talented American pastry chef Vanessa Quellec achieved local fame with her perfectly flaky croissants and feather-light macaroons at Camp's Bay culinary hotspot, The Roundhouse. She recently flew the coop in pursuit of a life-long dream – launching her very own eatery.

Part pasticceria, part laid-back diner, Café Milano is a joint venture between Vanessa and Cape Town epicurean, Giorgio Nava. It is set to open by the end of November.  

‘I met Giorgio through sommelier Jörg Pfützner, who worked with me at The Roundhouse,’ says Vanessa. ‘Giorgio was dining at the restaurant one evening and asked Jörg whether he knew of any good pastry chefs. The rest is history.’

In preparation for her new role, Vanessa immersed herself in Italian culture for three months at a pasticceria called Gigi Bar, which is about an hour and a half outside Milan. There she familiarised herself with a gamut of Italian delicacies, including the highly addictive cannoncinos.

‘They're puff pastries wrapped around sticks, which are caramelised and filled with pastry cream,’ explains Vanessa. ‘Giorgio insisted that I learn how to make them in Italy!’

On her days off, Vanessa managed to visit a whopping 20 other bakeries in the region, doing a required taste-test at each, of course.  ‘You can imagine how much weight I gained!’ she quips.

From the way Vanessa describes things, Capetonians will be able to plan their schedules around the bounty of Café Milano's girls’-only kitchen throughout the day.

For breakfast, patrons will be able to enjoy freshly brewed coffee with an assortment of piping hot Italian nibbles, such as brioche and bombolonis (‘kind of like doughnuts, but made with brioche dough’), as well as a range of Viennese pastries that Vanessa perfected during a year-long stint working for Knysna master baker Markus Färbinger. For slightly hungrier early birds, there'll be the likes of fluffy American pancake stacks drenched in authentic maple syrup, and made-from-scratch eggs Benedict.

Lunch will be a light affair, starring fresh, seasonal produce, including what Vanessa purports to be the best mozzarella she's ever had the pleasure of eating. The after-school rush will be welcomed with golden brown, cheesy foccacia con formmagio.

Adding even further appeal for Café Milano patrons will be French chocolate brand Valrhona. ‘I really believe in the product, so I'll be doing a lot of promotions for it,’ says self-confessed chocoholic Vanessa. ‘In return, they will be sponsoring some of the café's uniforms and flying some of the best French pastry chefs over a couple of times a year to help me keep my repertoire up to date.’ Now, that's what you call a sweet deal.

Find Café Milano at 153 Kloof Street, Cape Town. For more information, contact Vanessa at crema153@gmail.com.

By Annette Klinger