The Bon Vivant Blog

Amazing.
Not only does he produce the best pastries that I have had in North America – and better than many I have had in France, but he has replicated his business in North Vancouver and opened a Kitsilano branch.
He will be busy.
Saturday morning – about 11:30 (late start) – we [...]

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Bakeries occupy this special place in my heart – the good ones are run by people who love food, who put that love into what they do, and produce an exceptional product that just makes you happy. Flour is this kind of a place.
Sunday morning – pouring rain [...]

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We’d all love for our cities to have a Pierre Hermé or a Thomas Haas. Well, if you look hard enough, pretty much every city has someone (probably from Europe) who has opened a bakery, and is putting their passion into pastry. Didier Julien and his family and team at [...]

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So – we had to come back. We’d been here twice before (here and here), but I didn’t feel that the prior posts did this particular patisserie justice.
We went there on the torture test day – Saturday morning. Lots of foodie people around – most of them [...]

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So this was it. Like Plimpton and Hunter Thompson covering Foreman vs. Ali, we decided to immerse ourselves in the hot action going on uptown .
The debate has been raging for years over who has the best pain au chocolat in Toronto; a couple of contenders have emerged [...]

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Boudin Bakery – of the famous “San Francisco Sourdough”. Right in Fisherman’s Wharf, great shop, great bread. Not much more to say – their sourdough bread is great. We didn’t get a chance to try their soup or any of their other bread, but yup – go here, buy their [...]

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Beautiful sunny warm (finally!) sunday and someone mentioned that Fratelli’s had the best cannoli so of course we drove right there to try it out. Best cannoli – no – but not bad and definitely popular with the Commercial Drive crowd which was out and about in full force. Also tried a smaller [...]

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