Urban Parisian Patisserie & Boulangerie — Restaurant in Ontario

With a name like the Urban Parisian Patisserie & Boulangerie, we were expecting something along the lines of the patisserie & boulangerie places we’d been to in Quebec. That isn’t quite what we got.

From the outside, the place is unassuming. Located in a residential neighbourhood off the main drag where at least you don’t need to fight for a parking space, a sign on the first part of the building, an older one-and-a-half-storey house, says “Phase 2 – Coming Soon”. I hope that’s going to be an indoor dining area because at present, it’s a take-out only establishment where you have to take your food to eat in your car, take it home, or find somewhere else nice to sit and eat it. A place to sit down and eat there too would be very welcome, especially for the tourists that don’t live in the area.

The second part of the building is a two-storey structure clad in industrial metal sheeting that seems incongruous with a name like Urban Patisserie & Boulangerie. But that impression changes when you walk through the door into the shop itself. A long glass counter features a variety of colourful, attractive, and tasty-looking pastries, breads, and pizza slices. Overhead boards list an impressive offering of hot & cold drinks. And a free-standing menu board at the end of the counter lists special deals of the day, like soup, wraps, and salads, or a combination of them (a nice touch for those who want to try a soup and a wrap, for instance, but don’t have enough room to eat a full serving of both).

We went for the creamy mushroom soup (very tasty!), and a chicken wrap that, among other things, contained pieces of apple and celery, which made it unique from any other similar wrap we’ve had and added the extra taste that made this wrap stand out from the crowd for us. A couple of cream puffs and a pecan butter tart made up dessert, all washed down with a couple of coffees.

Of course, we had to go elsewhere to enjoy these goodies because there’s no place to eat them on location. But a steady stream of what appeared to be mostly local folks was a testimony to the popularity of the place.

It would be fun to have some French café music playing in the background and have the staff wearing some outfits or clothing to add to the atmosphere that the business name conjures up in our minds. Perhaps the cook could wear a chef’s hat and the servers wear French berets! Lol, just ideas!

The service is friendly and the food is awesome. Well...

UP is an interesting place.

They're nice people who make good quality bread in a lovely setting. But they coat all their breads with excretions of reptilian creatures. Meanwhile veganism grew to 2% of the population over the past decade. They're the only full bakery in town and I cordially asked them if they could set aside a small order for me every week of some breads without the excretions. They were reluctant at first and ultimately never responded to me. I mentioned that I would have done so every single week for 6 months resulting in around $200 in sales over that time period.

A bakery being unable and apparently unwilling to provide a single item of food that is free of animal products is preposterous. Almost all restaurants at this point are easily able to provide plant based meals. Even BBQfests have corn on the cob and bloomin' onions lol. These gestures ultimately amount to hostility. Why on earth would they overtly alienate 2% of their potential customers when it's incredibly easy to cater to them?

Their overt priority seems to be amassing tourist $ and not genuinely pursuing positive patterns. Ironically they present a somewhat alternative and progressive vibe (locally sourced! etc). Not to mention that traditional french bread is as pure as possible. The French would "storm the bastille" and burn the place to the ground if they found they were coating all their baguettes in reptilian excretions.

This isn't necessarily a one star place.

But they've earned one star for being...

Based on all the 5 star reviews here, maybe we visited on an off day? Chocolate croissant was lacking chocolate and butter. Too dense instead of flaky. I hate to say it but the frozen pre baked chocolate croissants in a cello bag at Starbucks are better tasting than what I bought here. Breakfast sandwich croissant with bacon and sausage and nothing else was tasteless. Was given to us cold. Other baked goods in the counter were not at all reminiscent of a Parisian patisserie with the exception of the macarons. Cappuccino was ok. London Fog was ok but consider a different tea bag option, or change how it’s prepared as the large envelope style tea bag soaked through the cup and made a mess. Staff were functional. No hello, no smiles. Just took our orders and our money.

I make efforts to support local businesses but unfortunately this is a non...