Green tea chiffon, red bean beignets

THE confection-filled bakery case sparkles in the combined light from a crystal chandelier and sunshine slanting through a graceful two-story bank of windows. Inside the case, cakes sit coquettishly in a row: a tall green tea chiffon cake, its whipped cream frosting tamed into sculptural swoops, or a dome-shaped strawberry cake, fresh berries peeking through the frosting to give an effect of a meadow under snow.

This is Wien Konditorei und Cafe, also called Wien Bakery & Cake House and Wien Panaderia y Casa de los Pasteles, a Korean bakery that six months ago relocated from its original L.A. location to its new, specially built home, a pastiche Mittel Europa chalet with an exterior awning that suggests a mansard roof and a polished contemporary interior with a few Old World touches.

It's one of a small wave of Korean-Euro bakeries that express a fascinating new aspect of L.A.'s food zeitgeist. With their refined but tradition-busting creations, these bakeries -- independents as well as recently arrived outposts of upscale Korean chains -- target a sophisticated, well-traveled clientele within the Korean community.

And non-Korean Southern Californians are quickly picking up on the appeal of cakes, pastries, cookies and breads made with European baking techniques adapted to Korean tastes.

At these new wave bakeries, ingredients familiar to lovers of fusion desserts -- green tea, red bean paste, chestnut and sweet potato -- bring an air of innovation to beautifully executed European classics. Not incidentally, some new Asian classics-in-the-making are front and center.

Did we mention the red bean doughnuts?

Just as American-Euro bakeries such as the pioneering La Brea Bakery and its offspring romanticized rustic European baking, these Korean bakeries for the most part romanticize super-refined forms of European baking, including viennoiserie, the French baking style that focuses on puff pastry creations.

For all its charm, Wien, the brainchild of Hae Duk Kim, a Korean-born baker and Austriaphile, is located on a gritty block on Olympic Boulevard. The signage identifies pastries not only in Korean but also with a unique mix of English, French and Spanish ("green pea pan"). A few trilingual fliers stacked near the coffee announce that Wien has added another branch and "now opens its door to happiness for you in downtown Los Angeles."