Champagne Poetry: the fruit tart on Hawthorne

At 3343 SE Hawthorne in Sunnyside, Champagne Poetry mixes French pastry with ube, boba and passion fruit, and its pink interior has been all over people's photo feeds since 2022. Chef and owner Dan Bian trained at Le Cordon Bleu in Portland and with pastry chefs Cédric Grolet and Johan Martin, and she ran La Rose in Beaverton before opening this place. The south wall is covered in faux roses, blush and fuchsia velvet chairs circle marble tables, the corners are painted bubblegum, and a flower wall with neon wings has turned into a favorite photo stop. It's a pastry shop, so a country loaf isn't on the menu, and the thing to come for is the fruit tart.

The colors hit you first. There are airbrushed tarts that look like real fruit, pastel mousse cakes, tie-dye macarons, and a doughnut-shaped chocolate cake that's bright pink and covered in sprinkles, because Bian wanted to bring some pink to Portland. In 2025 she opened a second shop at 1620 NW 23rd with shorter hours, and it runs more like a lounge and Asian-fusion dinner spot than an all-day bakery. Hawthorne is where you go for pastry, and 23rd makes sense when you're already on that side of the river.

The Hawthorne shop stays open into the afternoon and evening, which most Portland bakeries don't, so you can walk in after a movie and still find a full case. It's a sweet habit to pick up.

Order the fruit tart first. The shells are crisp and the fruit is glossy and carefully placed. Passion fruit shows up in the tarts and in the entremets, where its sourness cuts through the cream, and the entremets themselves are named, colorful mousse cakes like the Mt. Hood and La Vie En Rose. The Mango Tango is airbrushed to look like a real mango until your fork breaks through to silky mango mousse with passion fruit and banana underneath. The croissants rotate through butter, almond, pain au chocolat and savory versions like spinach feta or leek parmesan, and a plain butter croissant is the classic pick, or a savory one if it's lunchtime. There are macarons if you need a small box. The brûlée lava cheesecakes (original, matcha, ube) are for when you're staying a while, and regulars come back for the soft, syrupy Japanese soufflé pancakes. A tart, an entremet and one croissant make a well-rounded order.

Check the 23rd shop's hours before you cross town for pastry, since it runs a shorter week and is set up as much for dinner and drinks. The Hawthorne shop is small and late weekend mornings fill up quickly. If you want a whole entremet or a celebration cake, order ahead, since the flavor you saw online may not be in the case when you get there. Ube, matcha, boba and passion fruit run through the whole menu. Street parking on Hawthorne can take a while, and if the tarts are sold down, get a croissant and come back later, because the shop stays open long after the morning bakeries on the same street have closed.

More on the bakery: Champagne Poetry Patisserie