Favourite hometown bakeries: The bakers of The Great Canadian Baking Show Season 5 weigh in
For Canada's best amateur bakers, their standards for bakeries are understandably high. We know the bakers of Season 5 don't just trust any old bake shop for their goodies (some even prefer their own kitchen!), so we asked them to share their all-time favourite bakeries in their hometowns.
Vancouver, B.C.
Caron Lau: The best bakery in Vancouver is Beaucoup Bakery. They have a lot of Asian pastry chefs who combine Asian flavours with French techniques, which is, I think, the perfect marriage.
Regina, Saskatchewan
Stephen Nhan: I do enjoy Queen City Cakes. Le Macaron is also wonderful. There is this lovely doughnut shop in Regina called The Everyday Kitchen. They make sourdough doughnuts. I think they're the first sourdough doughnut shop in North America and it's in Regina, so another reason to visit!
Toronto, Ontario
Alina Fintineanu: The best bakery is Serano Bakery. It is absolutely delicious. It's run by wonderful Greek people and they have the most beautiful, delectable pastries. You can get these tiny little boxes of bite-size desserts, everything is so good and nothing's overly sweet and it's also dainty. And if you want to impress anybody on a date or anything like that, just show up with one of those boxes and you're good.
Ottawa, Ontario
Aimee DeCruyenaere: The best bakery that I've tried is called Art Is In. And then there's another one called The SconeWitch which is exclusively scones and scone sandwiches, for the scone lovers.
Marian Castelino: I haven't been in Ottawa that long, so I haven't found the best bakery, but I do like a coffee shop called Morning Owl. They have a bunch of little desserts and it changes every day. And they have really good coffee.
Montreal, Quebec
Kunal Ranchod: The best bakery in my hometown is a tiny one called La Mie Matinale. They make the best pastries, the best babka, the best everything. They're super tasty and super kind and super French.
Dartmouth, Nova Scotia
Dougal Nolan: The best bakery in my hometown is actually closer to were I grew up, and it's called the Cedar House Bakery. It has this incredible chocolate cake that was my birthday cake every single year that just brings tears to my eyes to this day. It makes so many beautiful East Coast-style things that just speak to my childhood and speak to my heart.
Home sweet home
Three Season 5 bakers insist that, whatever their hometown may be, the best bakery in Canada is wherever they themselves are baking.
Amanda Muirhead: The best bakery in my hometown is my kitchen.
Steve Levitt: Honestly, I never go to bake shops, so I would say it's my kitchen.
Vincent Chan: The best bakery in my hometown would be my house. I mean, why would I go out and buy something that I can make myself?