One of the newest boulangerie-type bakeries in Montreal is Boulangerie Le Toledo in the Plateau neighborhood nearly four months ago. This vast space has 14-feet ceilings and has this charming vintage look for its open seating area that has a children’s play area, a large communal table with bench seating and the back area where there’s an elegant lounge area with a marble coffee table.
This bakery is led by head baker/chef Riccardo Arnoult and owner François Barriere. The coffee beans are from Structure Coffee Roasters, a Montreal-based roastery. Besides having the good and locally sourced beans they also have baristas trained with Structure to properly brew the coffee beverages.
Mr. Arnoult has a vast experience in baking bread from his pursuit of the MOF (Meilleur Ouvrier de France) one year and his years working as a leader at South Shore bakery L’Amour du Pain.
This bakery is trying to show that it is possible to be very good in both food and coffee. The majority of bakeries tends to be strong on the baked goods but lacking on the coffee program.
Since it was early on a weekend morning, I had a cappuccino and croissant. The cappuccino was excellent and arguably the best one I’ve had in months. Rich and robust coffee flavors and the beans they used perfectly suited the sweet milk. The croissant was wonderfully layered, delicately crisp, flaky and light with just the right amount of butter flavor. The house made blueberry-mint jam was lovely and I wish I could buy a jar.
The brioche was wonderfully plush and pillowy light even though it’s famously enriched with lots of delicious butter and eggs. The bread itself is delicately sweet and spreading the mentioned blueberry jam is a great accompaniment too.
The strawberry tartlette was a beautiful sweet treat. The crusts of the tart were perfectly solid, not soggy when I cut through it with a metal fork. The local Quebec strawberries were vibrantly sweet and the mascarpone cream was just the right foil to balance it.
The various loaves of bread I tried were simply wonderful. All of these breads were levain (or wild yeast) raised so it had its own unique tang since they are slowly fermented. They are all excellent with a beautiful medium-thick crusts and lovely dense, moist crumb.
[alpine-phototile-for-flickr src=”set” uid=”26389565@N00″ sid=”72157709785937647″ imgl=”flickr” shuffle=”1″ style=”gallery” row=”4″ grwidth=”1200″ grheight=”800″ size=”640″ num=”30″ shadow=”1″ border=”1″ align=”center” max=”100″]
Information:
Boulangerie Le Toledo
Official Website
351 Mont-Royal Ave E
Montreal, QC H2T 1R1, Canada
Phone: +1 514-840-0999
Google Maps
