Red Mango is a North Sydney institution. Positioned is arguably the best retail spot in the area, Red Mango has a very nice choice of cakes and pastries.
While we’re here to talk about the doughnuts, I’ll say that the service at Red Mango is not up to scratch. Sometimes apathetic, sometimes unfriendly, sometimes even arrogant, the staff clearly haven’t been given customer service training. Nothing gets the taste of a doughnut off to a bad start than ordinary service. Perhaps, given their prime location, good customer service isn’t a priority. Who knows?
They have a range of doughnuts, probably sourced from a supplier of Italian pastries and cakes (I doubt they are from Mezzapica). Red Mango also has a small selection of cronuts, which I notice have been shrinking with time – the actual cronuts, not the selection. They are quite different to the usual cronuts you see around the shops, but I sense the love affair with cronuts is diminishing like that for the red velvet cupcake.
The zuccherati is a favourite of mine. A zuccherati is a Roman pastry – a long tube-like doughnut with custard filling. Some might call it a cannoli, but it’s closer to a doughnut than a cannoli.
The size is quite large – as you can see, mine’s about 17cm long. The custard goes from tip to tip.
The pastry is crispy yet soft with a generous coating of sugar. It’s a bit flakey and has a nice chewy texture like a panettone. It even tastes a bit like a panettone. The custard is firm eggy-style, similar to a vanilla slice. It’s not runny at all and oozes out the ends when you bite into it.
Red Mango, Greenwood Plaza, North Sydney
DomNuts 