Our kitchen in the morning offers the very sweet welcome of Brownie Love. The waft of baking chocolate brownies is the first sign that we’ve arrived. Already the promise of great baking and delicious little brownie morsels everywhere. It’s so wonderful to be with the kitchen team as they now take the daily lead in pursuing our dream to protect the handmade and make the world’s best brownies. They share and live out everyday, our vision to nurture and protect the traditional methods of handmade baking. We all believe that only handmade food has the potential to deliver the magic concoction of art and humanity in our favourite foods. The magic is the secret ingredient that makes food so inextricably linked to our culture. Any, culture.
We love Brownies. Everything about brownies. The sweet chocolatey aroma, the gooey fudgy centre, the crispy crackled tops and the mystic of the baked. Bakery is both an art and a science. Not mutually exclusive, the brownie recipe is of utmost importance however so too is the care and the emotion around provenance.
Our Luxury Brownie range is now the fullest and best it’s ever been. Back in 2006 when Dello Mano pioneered the Australian Brownie Market, our Original Luxury Brownies were Classic, Espresso Walnut and Honey Caramelised Macadamia. These three unique flavours have stood the test of time and continue to grace our display cabinets, over a decade on. Goodness knows, not many things last over a decade these days, so they’re true testimony to the amazing flavour combinations and delicious ingredients.
We launched Dello Mano, because we identified an untapped opportunity for brownies in Australia. We wanted rich, fudgy, real chocolate brownies. In those days, brownies were mostly not on any menu . When we undertook a country wide brownie search we found very few and when we did, they were dry and cakey. We wanted more for the brownie. We wanted to catapult Brownies to stardom. We wanted to celebrate handmade food, beautiful ingredients and through delivering with all that passion, we wanted to feel pride in our work.
Of course, today we continue in our traditions. We use beautiful Belgian Chocolate in our Brownies. This concept has been imitated, however one noteworthy difference for us, is that our Belgian Chocolate is in generous quantity. We use lashings of chocolate – real chocolate and not cocoa. Back in those days when we were a fledgling start up, I set out to create the best-ever Brownie Recipe. With a background in chocolate product development, pumping our brownies with real Belgian Chocolate seemed to me a sure way to create genuine luxury.
Our eggs too are different. Fully appreciating from the beginning the importance of egg quality in the beautiful brownie creation, our choice of eggs was of prime consideration. A decade ago, before it was topical we selected farm fresh, free range eggs to include in our brownies. We purchased our eggs from a farmer at the Farmers Market – a fellow marketeer we knew from our own experience would have the passion and the personal connection to her produce. To this day, and from the beginning, our eggs are free range and delivered direct from the farm to our door.
Each batch of our Luxury Brownies is handmade. Many years ago during a family trip to Italy we were struck with the inspiration for Dello Mano. We know the exact moment. We were wandering the streets of Rome with our small children, exploring beautiful bakeries and we became enchanted with the passion of the providores. They almost “gifted” their goods to their customers. We wanted to be part of that feeling – we wanted that for us and we wanted it for our clients. It wasn’t just about processing food. It was about all the art and humanity that can only be found in handmade food. It is about the pride one feels in creating food for others, the gift of the love and the care. The selling process too, is not just about the goods but all the love and passion in the creation.
We still bake in small batches so all the love of the handmade is captured and the brownie integrity protected.
Our Luxury Brownie range is a kaleidoscope of colour. We retain the original favourites and have added decadently delicious varieties like Raspberry & Hazelnut, Chilli, Maple Caramelised Pecan and Rum & Raisin. All still handmade just like we did when we were first announced as the Brownie Pioneers.
As artisan brownie creators, we are so blessed to have such a wonderful team – both in our stores and our kitchen. Without their commitment to our shared dream we would not have been able to grow our business, to expand our reach or continue to push for the stars.
We have two Brisbane stores. One in the heritage listed Tattersalls Arcade and the other in New Farm’s favourite shopping precinct, Merthyr Village. At both stores on any day, we invite you to come in and sample anyone of our Luxury Brownies. We were the first luxury Brownie and as the saying goes – The Original is Always the Best.
Our Dello Mano Stores Trading 7 Days
New Farm – Merthyr Village, 83 Merthyr Rd. New Farm ( inside near the Coles )
Tattersalls Arcade – 215 Queen St. ( enter from the Queen St Mall just before the Edward St Brisbane Corner. The arcade is opposite the Chanel Store).