Flaaah with Ono at Suria KLCC
French pastries are works of art that pervade the abundance of bakeries in Klang Valley. The same goes for matcha desserts that can be found in nearly every corner of the city.
So what better way to create a masterpiece than to fuse two much-adored desserts, and serve them under the roof of one cafe? This is what you’ll get at Flaaah with Ono at Suria KLCC. It’s a new collaboration cafe between Flaaah, a KL viennoiserie known for its gargantuan, golden French pastries, and Story Of Ono, a speciality coffee and matcha cafe.
Curious, we headed to the new cafe to bring you this review.
Ambience at Flaaah with Ono
Stationed right at the core of the metropolitan life hustle, Flaaah with Ono’s new outlet at Suria KLCC serves as an enclave of layered pastry beauties and velvety beverages.
Decked in a monochromatic colour scheme, with complementary hues of black and white, the contemporary space exudes a relaxing vibe that’s enhanced by the smell of coffee and baked goods.
Shoppers and office workers can make themselves comfortable at the cafe’s dining area, which has been designed for comfort despite its smaller space. It features cushioned seats and wooden tables, complete with ample plug points for those bringing their work to the cafe.
All the magic happens at the front counter, which also doubles as a coffee bar where you can find baristas whisking green liquids with bamboo bristles and whipping up frame-worthy caffeine concoctions.
Right next to the coffee machine is where the wondrous spread of flaky creations lay behind a glass display. Laminated crescents, wheels, and rolls of pastries are piled atop each other like structures displayed in an art gallery.
We joined the passers-by in ogling at the glossy pastries, and joined the snaking queue of customer to patiently wait to place our orders for a taste of copious amounts of butter.
Pastries and matcha drinks at Flaaah with Ono
You won’t find a baked good at the cafe that doesn’t look technically flawless, and our spread came out looking as visually stimulating as we had expected.
Each pastry was served modestly on a stainless steel plate, though it is clear that all the art lies in the pastries themselves. The croissants are perfect specimens – the rings of laminated dough coil intricately together to form a plump croissant, looking ready to burst with butter, we’d like to think.
Pain au Matcha
In a cafe that’s the brainchild of a collaboration with a Matcha brand, there’s no way we could skip the Pain Au Matcha (RM17).
Architecturally, it’s flawless. The matcha-speckled pastry shatters under the weight of a single fingertip, giving way to the mass of matcha cream encased within its core that holds its structure well.
A huge bite of the pastry gave way to the airy, ice-cream-like texture of the matcha cream that was full-bodied in its flavour, as well as the mouthfeel of what tasted like a million sticks of butter from the delightful pastry itself.
Honey Fig Mille Feuille
The Honey Fig Mille Feuille (RM28) was seductive, to say the least.
Standing proud on its serving plate like a tangible testament to the ingenuity and expertise of the cafe’s pastry chefs, the French pastry is impeccably constructed with alternate layers of crisp puff pastry and vanilla praline cream.
We were pleased with the generous amount of juicy figs that crowned and layered the puff pastries – but this seems to be the only upside we could find about the pastry. While the drizzle of honey paired well with the figs, it only made the already too-sweet praline cream even more bitingly sweet.
The experience of enjoying the mille feuille could have also been more elegant – if not for all the tiresome sawing we had to do, trying to hack the puff pastries apart.
Pepperoni and Cheese croissant
We also ordered the Pepperoni and Cheese croissant (RM18) for the sole reason of it looking like a snacc behind the display counter, with its glossy, caramelised deep-amber layers.
Much to our delight, the pastry proved to be a whole meal.
The lighter-than-air exterior gave us a mere second of blissfully crunchy resistance when bitten into, before disintegrating into a buttered cloud that melds with its more substantial layers of slightly chewy dough.
At its heart, it holds a hunk of rolled-up pepperoni that’s well-seasoned and adds a whole lot of dimension to the pastry. Taste-wise, it’s gorgeously savoury from the meat and cheese, cheekily tangy from the smear of dijon mustard, and imperceptibly sweet from the croissant itself.
Matcha drinks
As for the refreshments, we opted for two of the cafe’s signature Matcha drinks, fancifully called When Two Worlds Collide (RM20) and Kajyu-En (RM18).
The first drink features a collision of society’s favourite caffeine drinks – matcha and coffee.
We expected bitter on bitter, overwhelming richness and caffeine overload in a jitter-inducing drink. But we were gladly proven wrong. A sip was surprisingly light. The coffee mellowed with the fizziness of soda water, while the matcha froth took centre stage, balancing out the thinness of the coffee with its rich, creamy and robust mouthfeel.
Kajyu-En, on the other hand, is a milder concoction of the two. Glowing matcha is poured over a bed of strawberry puree, lime, and soda water. The drink lay on the sweeter side, making for a perfectly revitalising drink for a midday pick-me-up.
The verdict
We polished everything, leaving only trailing crumbs on the table and artful flakes on our clothes. If we’ll have to wait in the excessively long line to get our hands on any of the gems on Flaaah with Ono’s menu again, we would.
Lest to say, this world of pastries and matcha is one that we will very happily partake in.
Address: Suria KLCC, Lot 114, Level 1, Petronas Twin Tower, Kuala Lumpur City Centre, 50088 Kuala Lumpur
Opening hours: 10am-10pm, Daily
Contact: Flaaah with Ono’s Instagram
For more food features, here’s Butter & Spice’s charcoal flan tarts in PJ and Grumpy Bagels, a viral bagel cafe in KL.
Cover image adapted from: TheSmartLocal Malaysia
Photography by Jia-Ju.