This West Pymble cake shop is so famous in China that people travel just for a slice

• Du Plessy Pralin & Otello’s Japonaise cake has gone viral on Chinese social media with a huge surge in demand.
• The cake has been so popular that Chinese social media users started bootlegging slices on WeChat.
• The owner has gone from selling 100 cakes a week to selling 100 cakes a day.
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There are many examples of the butterfly effect in everyday life. A butterfly flaps its wings in one location and causes a typhoon in another; that’s the jist of what’s also known as chaos theory. A more wholesome example: two strangers meet on a train, bond over pastries, and suddenly the owner of a Sydney cake shop, Du Plessy Pralin & Otello in West Pymble, goes from selling 100 cakes a week, to selling 150 cakes a day.

From the outset, Du Plessy Pralin & Otello is unremarkable. It’s a typical cake shop in Sydney with a great name, a friendly owner, and a loyal following. As Broadsheet reports, second-generation owner Paul Adam has now been dealing with demand so hysterically high that he had to put a stop to Chinese social media influencers bootlegging slices of his cakes on WeChat (for $37 a slice).

The culprit? A Japonaise cake, elevated by Adam’s version of the classic recipe which takes light, dark chocolate mousse and spreads it between two layers of almond and hazelnut meringue before topping the cake with a pair of rosellas stencilled in cocoa powder. He has been making the cake since 1998.

One of Adam’s regulars, Margie, apparently met a Chinese social media influencer, Max, on a train. The two bonded over Max’s box of pastries and Margie’s critique of his sub-optimal choices. She suggested Du Plessy Pralin & Otello’s Japonaise cake, and her description was so appealing that the two exchanged numbers and agreed to meet to meet to try the cake together.

Max vlogged the meeting, posting to Chinese social media platform Red Note and subsequently going viral. Hence, this humble West Pymble cake shop is now big in China.

“It’s bizarre,” Adam told Broadsheet. “The influencer posted a video of the cake and people went crazy.”

Just a month after the cake’s virality, Adam began noticing up to 80 people queuing outside every single day. It’s now not uncommon to see 40 people waiting for the bus with cakes in their lap.

Du Plessy Pralin was founded by Adam’s parents, Marcel and Martha, in Pymble in 1961. When Adam adopted the business, he moved it to West Pymble in 1988 and it’s been the focal point of the local community since.

Are people flying in just to visit the cake shop, though? While some reports imply that Chinese travellers are FIFO’ing just for a slice of this viral cake, Sydney Travel Guide can find no official reports of cake-fuelled long-hauls being taken in the last few months. But given just how maddening the demand has been, we wouldn’t be surprised if it was true.

More believable is that the cake has become an instant cult classic amongst Chinese social media users in Australia, and we wouldn’t be surprised to meet people from Melbourne, Brisbane and Canberra in the snaking queue.

Adam has already asked Max to tell his followers to pump the brakes for a bit, because their Easter stock is being neglected. The popularity hit just as the family-owned cake shop started preparing for the busy Easter period, when they produce more than 4,500 chocolate eggs and bunnies. Max was told to tell his followers to come back in May once the Easter madness has died down.

And fair enough. The tiny cake shop could just as easily be overwhelmed, but Adam reportedly thinks the “frenzy” will settle down and “things will go back to normal” soon enough.

Going viral and maintaining consistency has been a challenge for food businesses in the past. High expectations often lead to disappointment, regardless of the finished product, which can then lead to discontent and bad reviews. Yet Adam has been doing this for decades now, so we think Du Plessy Pralin & Otello is more than able to step up to their newfound global fame.

Social media users have nicknamed the Japonaise cake as the “old baby cake,” in reference to Margie’s role in making this viral hit happen. In the video, she states that she’s never met an “influencer,” just a few days before sending the cake shop, and Max, viral.

The Japonaise cake is just one of 11 cakes on the menu at Du Plessy Pralin & Otello. It’s easily the most popular, with the gluten-free cake coming in four sizes: extra small ($50), small ($58), medium ($68) and large ($75).

Other cakes on the shop’s menu include a Blood Orange Mousse Cake, nut-free Raspberry Mousse cake,

“All of our cakes are handmade from fresh and the best of ingredients,” reads the shop’s website. “We only keep a small selection available in the shop on a daily basis. The avoid disappointment, please order your cakes 48 hours in advance as we no longer guarantee supply on request without notice.”

Cake, anyone?

Du Plessy Pralin & Otello

Address: Shop 17, Philip Mall, Kendall Street, West Pymble
Contact: (02) 9498 8089
Opening Hours: Monday – Wednesday (9:30am – 5:30pm); Thursday – Friday (9:30am – 6pm); Saturday (9am – 2am)

duplessypralinandotello.com

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