Kream — Restaurant in Toronto

I'm surprised this place has 4.9 stars from over 1,000 reviews - may be my preference is significantly different from others or my experience was an outlier, but I don't think this place deserves such a high rating.

I tried this place with my partner and we tried the chocolate and strawberry cream filled pastry, as well as a small cup of chocolate cream and a strawberry cake in a plastic, rectangular container. Based on the appearance, I expected the pastry to have a flaky, croissant-like exterior, but it was actually quite dense. I had to use a knife to cut into it, and it had a texture more similar to the crust of a loaf of whole wheat bread. The strawberry cream inside the pastry was unpleasant, as it tasted a bit sour and stale; we did get the pastry in the evening, but why bother serving a batch that is no longer fresh? The cream was also on the denser side. Similarly, the chocolate cream was also quite dense and sickly sweet; unfortunately, the best part of the chocolate pastry was the Malteser placed at the top of the pastry, which I don't think is something they made from scratch. The chocolate flavour in the cream tasted artificial, it honestly tasted closer to Nutella than a pure chocolate; I was expecting something that would taste like hot cocoa with texture of a light, fluffy cream, so I was extremely disappointed.

The only thing my partner and I thought was okay was the strawberry cake - both the cream and the strawberries inside tasted fresh (probably because these cakes were kept inside a fridge, unlike the pastries). I did think the cream was on the borderline of being overwhipped, as it felt like there was layer of fat covering my lips after I had a few spoonfuls. Also, I felt the cream could have used a bit more vanilla to give it more of a lift, as it just tasted like plain whipped cream from a can that you can get from grocery stores. Also, the small bits of sponge mixed in with the cream felt a bit dry and very much flavorless.

Another thing I did not like as well about the dessert was the use of rosemary leaves in both the strawberry cream cake and chocolate cream. May be it comes down to individual preferences, but the inclusion of rosemary leaves is too polarizing, in my opinion. I wouldn't mind rosemary leaves in desserts that have stronger flavours like peach cobbler or cherry pie, but such a powerful herb can be quite overpowering in a light, cream-based dessert. I accidentally ate a rosemary leaf with a spoonful of chocolate cream and all I could taste for awhile was rosemary.

Due to the hype, I went into this place with high expectation, but I am very disappointed in the quality of the desserts here. I would not recommend this...

my original plan was to order a whole cake (8-inch Peach Paradise) from this shop to celebrate someone's b-day at a gathering!! unfortunately there was no way to do this through their Uber Eats link (like w/ all of their other menu items), but they had a v helpful post on IG with instructions so i DMed them and they provided me with their cake options & details (e.g. flavours, sizes, approx. # of servings, prices) and also asked me for some info to complete the pre-order (name, email, phone #, pick-up date time location). they were quite responsive at first but then didn't get back to me after i sent over the e-Transfer on the day prior to the agreed upon pick-up day (i guess they were super busy/missed my msgs somehow?)!! i was quite confused and also sent a few msgs on the day of hoping to confirm whether my order went through .

Went over the pride weekend and got a set of six to sample with friends = they were DELICIOUS The flavours we got were earl grey, chocolate, milk, yuzu, blueberry, tiramisu AND the girls there were so sweet they gave us a bonus matcha one to try!!!

More specific details:

We went pretty late in the day so I was honestly expecting everything to be a bit too crunchy and a bit too soggy (as pastries tend to do over a long day) But they were perfect!!

A light but rich cream balanced perfectly with the buttery pastry

The flavours were all done really well being both natural (no weird artificial after tastes) and strong enough to make each one its own distinct experience (without overdoing it and crossing into being overwhelming)

They were all consistent the textures of the cream and pastry but each one was unique because of the flavouring

Surprisingly easy to cut into quarters and actually held their shape despite not being hard or crunchy

I’m not a huge fan of desserts were it seems like the only point is to pack as much sugar in as possible - these had a soft mellow kind of sweetness that highlights all the different things that can make a pastry good (the sweetness yes but also the buttery taste of the pastry, the textures of the different elements, and the exact flavouring of the ingredients and how they complement each other!

One last bonus thing if you’re feeling really fancy: we decided to try them in an intentional order so that the flavours would always complement the next!

We started with MILK (because none of us were familiar with that as it’s own flavour and it seemed like a good basic to compare the others to) = you put milk in EARL GREY so that seemed like the next logical step. Earl grey tea contains bergamot as one of the main flavours which is actually part of the citrus family = next was YUZU as it is also a citrus and would complement the previous flavour well = BLUEBERRY goes well with the lemony citrus of yuzu while also being a great mild fruity flavour which complements = CHOCOLATE and of course chocolate goes great as a mocha when you combine it with = the coffee in TIRAMISU which has just enough bitter herbal notes in it to be followed up by = MATCHA

( Honestly all the flavours would go pretty good one after the other but we were slightly tipsy and had a lot of fun making up these...