Le Yeahllow is a happy place. It's bright and light and the display cases, like a jeweller's, are full of gleaming treasures. Owner Samsky Yeung who also founded White Mojo coffee shops, opened Le Yeahllow in 2021when he took over the former Adriano Zumbo Patisserie space inSouth Yarra and started baking and delivering cakes around Melbourne.Sam says, "Le Yeahllow was born from a simple idea: to create celebratory cakes that bring happiness to people's lives," and he explains the name as being inspired by the colour "yellow," which embodies joy, energy and playfulness.I spoke to Le Yeahllow's pastry chef Steven He at their CBD venue to hear all about the creative process behind the glorious, playful and inventive cakes. LeYeahllow also sells other patisserie favourites including caneles, Paris-Brests, and financiers, but it is the surrealist creations such as le Mandarin, the Love Letter and the Ballon Puppy cake which have the wow factor and go viral on social media.
Conversation with a chef: It's lovely to meet you. How long has Le Yeahllow been open?
Steven He: We opened on the 13 of the May, 2021. So, three years so far. The first shop we opened in South Yarra.
So right in the middle of Covid.
Yes. Lockdown was a big challenge for us. But our owner had the confidence to open in that period.
And what's the concept of the shop?
We are creating cake with a unique flavour combination and different texture. You will see we use ingredients such as black truffle, hibiscus flower and cherry blossom. We want our customers to taste something truly organic, which mean they can only get this cake at Le Yeahllow. So this is a totally different cake experience we offer.
How long have you been a chef?
I have been a pastry chef for over 20 years. Before I worked at Le Yeahllow, I worked in hotels, like Four Seasons and Shangri-La kind of hotel.
Why a pastry chef and not another sort of chef?
I was also a cookery chef. 20 years ago, I graduated from the cooking school. My major is cookery chef and then the Chinese pastry chef. When I started work in the hotel, I was assigned to the Western cuisine kitchen on my first workday. I was not willing to do that at the start, I didn't know names of the ingredients. But I just knew that I could learn more new skills and knowledge when I worked in the kitchen. I felt like I needed to work hard. After half a year, I found that I was interested in the pastry. I went to the pastry kitchen to learn every day after I finished my job and I helped them to do some simple things like making simple sponge cakes, glazing cakes, things like that. I was very lucky after two months I got the opportunity to join them in the pastry kitchen. That was the beginning of my pastry career.
What do you like about dessert and cake creation?
What I like about cake creation is the ability to infuse each creation with meaning. For example, we have a cake called Love Letter. Usually a love letter marks the beginning of a beautiful romance. We hope the customer can start a happy journey of love after receiving the cake. Our desserts connect people in a meaningful way. The process of the making of this cake allows me to express my creativity which I hope will bring joy and comfort to those who enjoy them.
What ingredients or flavours are there in the Love Letter?
That's the cake we use the hibiscus flower combined with cheese. Normally some of the cakes are chocolate, but this one we tried hibiscus flour and cheese. We think this maybe gives people a surprise when they taste it.
What I like about cake creation is the ability to infuse each creation with meaning. For example, we have a cake called Love Letter. Usually a love letter marks the beginning of a beautiful romance. We hope the customer can start a happy journey of love after receiving the cake. Our desserts connect people in a meaningful way. The process of the making of this cake allows me to express my creativity which I hope will bring joy and comfort to those who enjoy them.~ Steven He, Le Yeahllow
When you are in your creative process, are you thinking about shapes or flavours first?
It's actually hard to say whether flavour or shape is the first for me. For example, when I went to pick up the cherry, so I found the cherry was ripe and sweet and juicy and also very high quality at That is the seasonal ingredient. So we have to focus on the flavour. It's more important for us. In autumn, when I see that chestnuts are ripe, I will use chestnut to create a cake. But on the other hand, when we create a festival cake, for example, like Christmas, we focus on the shape first because for example, the cake shaped like a tree is because at Christmas, all the family people gets together and they take the tree back home. We also made a cake in the shape of a gift box the Christmas gift box.
We have a cake called Le Mandarin. That one, the shape comes first, but we have a lot of different ingredients inside, it is very complicated. When people eat the cake, they will very suprised because there are so many flavours inside. You can taste the chocolate, you can taste the mandarin, you can taste ginger and pineapple inside. Another example is that recently we had an apple cake with apples from the orchard at Montague and we made the Kissabel Apple Cheesecake. It is actually hard to get the flavour from an apple, but we needed to focus on the flavour because we combined apple with cheese. But also we made the cake similar in shape to an apple. So it depends on the cakes as to whether we focus first on flavour or shape.
It is quite the process. How long does le Mandarin take to make?
Actually, we spend three days from start to finish. We need to slow cook the mandarin over three hours and that's only one layer. After that we need to combine with the fresh ginger, puree with pineapple. We also use the very milky fine dark chocolate, from Valrhona, a very good company. After we make the cake, we need to freeze it and then we need to demould it. And then we need to put the whole cake in the mandarin chocolate. Then we spray three different kinds of mirror glaze. and we have to follow the temperature when we spray. After that we create the skin texture. It is a very difficult skill and I spend a lot of time doing that cake. At the end we can get a really artistic cake.
Oh, it's so much work. And then someone just eats it. But they love it obviously.
I always buy the mandarin for friends or family when they have a celebration. They love it. And also this cake is gluten free and so very friendly to gluten free people. And the nuts free people as well.
Is that the most complicated cake?
Yes. Most of our cakes are very difficult to make, but I think Mandarin is the most difficult.
The creativity comes a lot from my life. I think most food is connected to our life. I discovered when I came here that people like chocolate and they like cheese, so I create more cakes with these ingredients to have more of a connection to people here.~ Steven He, Le Yeahllow
And do you eat cake?
Yes, I love cake. Ever since I started working in the kitchen, I love cake. That's why I jumped to the pastry kitchen.
Samsky Yeung: Steven has two daughters, so that's why for birthdays he always has great ideas.
Steven: My daughters always give me ideas for creating cakes. They have the picture book, Camilla the Chicken, about a chicken. She is always reading it to me. At Easter she said, dad, can you put my Camilla on your cake? I said, okay. Of course I'll try. So I made the Easter cake for her and people liked it. The following the year, she asked me again, she said, oh, dad, I went to the farm, I saw a duckling. Can you put my duckling on the cake? So this year I made a duckling on our cake for the kids.
So creative and very well organised as well. I think you'd have to really, and really understand how all of those ingredients will work together.
The creativity comes a lot from my life. I think most food is connected to our life. I discovered when I came here that people like chocolate and they like cheese, so I create more cakes with these ingredients to have more of a connection to people here.
Le Yeahllow, 14 Claremont Street, South Yarra & 366 Little Collins Street, Melbourne