Guylian Cafe

Aah Karen’s Crosswalk – that’s what I call that little section of Argyle Street at The Rocks in Sydney that intersect with George Street. With The Orient Hotel on the corner it’s nostalgic of all-night dance-offs to some frighteningly daggy 80s music and pub rock karaoke! Of course many such drunken memories and alcohol-fuelled melees are sometimes best forgotten.

Probably the most photographed light fixture amongst Sydney Food Blogs!

Lately I’m giving Karen’s crosswalk a big memory overhaul. Replace the seedy memories with ones of gastronomic proportions. My party years at Argyle St intersection may be of days past but the remaining restaurants still ensure my continual visitation with Lowenbrau Keller, La Renaissance and now Guylian Café - the food of Germany, France and Belgium all within 10 steps of each other. They come as a set. You ultimately can’t go to one without visiting the other. Or is it just me?


Before I met up for lunch with Sydney food blogger chocolatesuze, I had to pop into my favourite Gallic patisserie for a quick rose macaron entrée. After lunch at Lowenbrau, we both instinctively headed to Guylian Café for dessert.


I’m sure everybody is familiar with the recent explosion of chocolate cafés in Sydney and no doubt you would've read all about them in your favourite Sydney food blogs. First one big Swiss chocolatier came now we have Belgium’s Seahorse joining the party as well as a couple of other independent chocolatiers. Yep, Sydney is a great city to be in for chocolate lovers at this point in time.


Personally I’ve always preferred a box of Guylian seashells to Lindt due to my big love for chocolate and hazelnut and that cosmic wonder called praline. So it’ll be interesting (and delicious) to find out whether this preference translates to their flagship cafés.




The usual pornographic displays of desserts, cakes and chocolates greet you as any other chocolate café does. As well as the extra tables of retail chocolate goodies and other delectable assortments designed to tempt you into impulse purchases.

A mark of any chocolate café for me are their ice chocolate beverages – my culinary equivalent of chocolatesuze’s obsession over the Lowenbrau pork knuckle. So far Lindt Café owns my heart with their intensely rich concoctions that coat your tongue with Swiss chocolate-y goodness.


For now Lindt can remain on their pedestal without any worries about my ice chocolate adultery as Guylian unfortunately disappoints. Guylian fails to incorporate their trademark chocolate taste in their ice chocolate and frankly if I didn’t know where it came from I wouldn’t have guessed it was a Guylian. Actually I thought it tasted exactly the same as a Nesquik – available in a very large tin for a lot less than one $9 glass of Guylian. I use to drink 4-5 mugs of Nesquik a day so to say that I'm familiar with its taste is an understatement.


Chocolatesuze orders a Praline shake ($9) and she prays it’s sweet. I thought it was too sweet and lacked richness but the hint of praline was there.


Choosing a dessert was like being taken to a Car Motorshow and asked to select only one car to drive. The choice was impossible but I settled with a Layers of Passion ($9) – a hazelnut dacquoise and passionfruit cream with Guylian 70% chocolate bavarois on the inside.


It was essentially a glamorised cheesecake but still good none the less with the sourness of the passionfruit jelly topping cutting through the creaminess of the filling.



Suze orders a Ice Cream tasting pallet ($14) and was disappointed with the unimaginative presentation. We both were ho-hum about the strange-tasting vanilla ice cream, which tasted like fake flavouring – despite the flecks of vanilla bean. The chocolate ice cream doesn’t compare to the orgasmic richness that is Lindt but luckily redemption was found in the last two scoops of praline and coffee ice cream, which made us sugar happy.


A visit wouldn’t be complete without a few chocolates to take home – Hazelnut Nougat, Orange Cream (Puccini), Hazelnut Praline (of course!) and Espresso all in a gorgeous take home box and paper bag.




So far my love remains in the land of the Swiss although recurring visits are impending due to its auspicious location to my favourites La Renaissance and Lowenbrau and for their mouthwatering array of desserts. Ice chocolate?...not so much.

These heart macarons were looking a bit worse for wear - cute shade of pink though!

Guylian Café
91 George Street (corner of George and Argyle Street)
Sydney NSW 2000
(02) 8274 7500

Website (and I use the term website very loosely) - www.guyliancafe.com.au

East Circular Quay
Shop 10, Opera Quays
3 Macquarie Street
Sydney NSW 2000
(02) 8274 7900