Review: Pastel by Helado (Lekki)
Thanks to my foodie-centric Instagram feed, I came across Pastel by Helado shortly after they opened in November last year. I found it interesting that someone decided to dedicate a whole (very Instagrammable) space to (mostly) pastries and made a mental note to visit, but only just got around to it this month.
I visited Pastel by Helado with my bestie around 10AM on a Sunday, because on this extremely rare occasion, I woke up early enough to attend my church’s first service. I had actually planned to visit Popsicles by Happie Hours that day, but it wasn’t open till noon, so I decided to stop by Pastel by Helado first.
When we got there, I was further intrigued that Pastel by Helado was actually a whole two-storey building, rather than a small section of a building — I later asked the attendant what the upstairs part of the building was for and she vaguely said it was for offices 👀. Anyhoo, the cosy dining space was even cuter in person, definitely optimized for pictures for the feed and I took advantage of that 👍🏽. Only a few pastries and desserts were displayed at the counter, which made sense at that time since they were just opening. I thought the menu - plain papers clipped to a board - were at odds with the very intentional aesthetics of the space, but it had a decent selection of ‘pasteries’, desserts, sandwich meals and drinks. However, I feel like they could have had a broader and more adventurous range of pastries, since that was their main thing after all.
Between my friend and I, we ordered an Asun pie, a Tiramisu, a Cinnamon Bun, and a chocolate croissant. The first two were already on display so we got them pretty quick. The crust of the Asun pie was quite scanty, which I was wary of because I really like a thick crust on my pies. The crust was really flaky and easily fell apart. It actually tasted really good. I enjoyed the melt-in-your-mouth texture of the filling and appreciated the spicy-smoky touch of the Asun. I also liked that the filling wasn’t loaded with potatoes as it allowed the Asun shine. I will say, however, that the choice (and wetness) of dishware was not ideal.
Asun Pie
As for the Tiramisu, it didn't look how I expected it to. To be honest, I’d only ever had Tiramisu flavoured ice cream, but I absolutely loved it, so I was excited to try the real thing. However, Pastel’s version did not have the multi-layered appearance or the generous cocoa powder dusting I had seen in pictures. Instead, it just looked like a regular slice of cheesecake. It was pretty frozen when it got to me which wasn’t great. I don’t expect them to make the tiramisu from scratch daily but I also shouldn’t be able to see the freezer burn on them. Because of how frozen it was, the flavour didn’t come through initially, but as it softened, I could taste the creaminess and sweetness better. Still, the coffee flavour was milder than I expected, which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Tiramisu
A few minutes later, we were served the chocolate croissant and cinnamon roll. I was ready to devour the cinnamon roll because it looked so good, with the generous cream cheese frosting and apparent cinnamon filling. Thankfully, it tasted as mouth-watering as it looked, very sweet and slightly buttery. In terms of texture, I would have loved it if it were fluffier, but I could let that go.
Cinnamon Roll and Chocolate Croissant
Just from the looks of it, the croissant was harder than I would have liked. If you’ve read my Dulce review, you’d know how obsessed I was with the buttery layeredness of their croissants. Yeah, Pastel’s croissant didn’t have that; instead, they were hard-baked and in need of some quality butter. The chocolate filling also put me off because it was cold and seemed like they had just popped in a low quality chocolate bar that refused to melt.
I decided to round off my Pastel experience with something from their drinks menu. I had wanted their Fresco drink, a fun-looking mocktail I’d seen on their IG page, but the attendant said lemons weren’t available so I had a Chapman instead. (Just a small shoutout to Pastel for keeping the price of their Chapman (N3,000) within the bounds of reason. I honestly believe anyone charging up to N5k for Chapman should serve jail time 🙏🏽). The Chapman had a nice colour gradient and looked promising. It tasted just as good, super flavourful and sweet. I also liked that they used Pulpy Orange instead of good ol’ Fanta for the orange flavour as it literally added substance to the drink.
Chapman
I should add that throughout the near 2-hour duration of our visit, we were the only customers and there was no background music to set the tone. But, no complaints there because it honestly just felt like my friend and I were chilling in someone’s house. The attendant was also really chill with us.
POSTSCRIPT
I wasn’t exactly blown away by their offerings, but I definitely see myself going back
VERDICT
PARKING
3-4 cars
DAMAGE
Tiramisu- N4,500
Asun pie - N2,500
Chocolate croissant - N2,800
Cinnamon roll- N3,000
Chapman- N3,000
Water- N1,000