Ladurée — Restaurant in Toronto

Pretty disappointing. My review is mostly about the service, but I wanted to quickly say the retail product offerings are so limited they shouldn't have bothered opening this location. If you want to buy something from the counter to take home, your options are basically macarons or madeleines. A very far cry from Ladurée Paris and the products they have available for purchase.

I brought my niece (6) and nephew (4) here for afternoon tea with my sister, to celebrate my niece's birthday. We ordered two afternoon tea services ($110) and some à la carte items ($35). The waiter condensed everything onto one tiered server (which still looked sparse). Everything was tiny and I suspect the pastries were thawed from frozen. At the time of the reservation I advised we would be celebrating my nieces birthday. When we arrived, there was one friendly staff member with straight black hair and glasses. Unfortunately we never saw her again. Our waiter never asked how we were, never asked what we were celebrating, didn't offer us water, didn't check on our table after ordering, and messed up our sandwich and drink orders: We ordered a latte and coffee. He brought us two coffees with milk on the side. We asked where the latte was and he said the one with milk on the side was the latte??? Apparently if you order a coffee, expect it served black and without the option to add cream/milk. By the way, the coffees are tiny no matter what you order!

Our waiter told us to scan a QR code to access the menus. I had to ask for paper children's menus with crayons. I know that sounds petty but at every opportunity for customer service, they were oblivious. I saw the Laduree kids menus online and they were clearly designed to occupy kids with games and drawings to colour in. There was only one other table occupied. They weren't busy in the least. Having to practically beg for milk, water, a kids menu, crayons, etc. was annoying AF. When it was time to pay he hovered over the table and literally arched himself to see me entering the tip. It was the only time he was attentive. There were 4 staff members and 7 customers but the staff just leaned against the wall and stared out into space. It was unwelcoming and way overpriced for the meager offerings provided. Splurging is great when there is actual value to paying more. Not the case here. Support a local bakery where the pastries are baked on-site and the experience, not the furniture,...

We had lunch at Ladurée today, and in future, I would skip the cafe service and only consider grabbing some macarons for takeout.

First of all, the decor is already starting to look shabby - the pink bench has some seriously unpleasant stains along the entire length.

The food we ordered all looked beautiful and came in the typically tiny portions for French food. Unlike good-quality French food though, the taste in no way matched the appearance of the food.

My mother ordered the chicken salad, and complained the chicken was cooked in an oil that made it slimy. The salad was 95% greens and didn’t have enough of the flavouring garnishes to make it taste very good.

My aunt ordered the club sandwich and the “slimy” chicken coupled with a LOT of iceberg lettuce made it very difficult to keep the sandwich together - it kept sliding apart no matter what. The crusts were all cut off and it looked very cute on the plate though.

My husband had the selections of croque monsieurs - his plate came with three very tiny ham and cheese sandwiches presented in little spirals. It looked awesome, but the texture of the bread was not good as a result of the complicated arrangement. It was somehow unpleasantly dry in some parts of the sandwich, but soggy in others.

I had the beet and quinoa salad. The beets were bland, the quinoa with dressing tasted nice, but there were only 4 minuscule portions of goat cheese, which was necessary to save this dish from being totally “meh.” Again, it looked beautiful though. It was a very carefully-constructed little tower of quinoa, beets, and shaved goat cheese and radish.

The service was very slow, although the servers were very solicitous.

The one thing we all agreed was actually nice about the meal were the drinks. The teas were fragrant and yummy, the fresh pressed juice tasted good, and the coffee was strong and European.

The best past of the meal was the macarons we bought to take with us after lunch. So perhaps coming in for a beverage and small snack is a much better bet than coming in...

I was excited to try Ladurée as they are known worldwide for their macarons. The store is really striking - gorgeous displays, ornate decor, pastel palette, huge chandelier. We waited about 15 minutes to be seated (mid afternoon on a Saturday). The hostess was professional, but not at all personable, and even a bit stand-offish as though it was more of a bother to have to deal with us. Two tables opened up and one was at the end with a bit more room - I asked if we could be seated there (my daughter and I were celebrating an event) but she said they reserve it for customers with strollers. Not 5 minutes later she seated other customers there, sans stroller - not impressed. The servers were polite, but not very attentive, which is surprising given the small size and how few tables there are. We shared the Tea - consisting of 3 Macarons, 2 finger sandwiches, 2 Madeleines, Croques Monsieurs, and a small selection of other treats. The Earl Grey tea tasted more like Orange Pekoe - not very good. The finger sandwiches were bland. The other food was good, but not great. The macarons were very good - on par with Nadege and some a bit better (Orange Blossom, Passion fruit, Salted Caramel, Vanilla were all exceptional). The hot chocolate was absolutely amazing! In all, I don't think the Tea is worth $50 per person, but we overall enjoyed the experience and made the best of it. We bought some macarons to take home and they were wonderful. Maybe they need a bit more time to fine tune front of house staff, servers and service - if that improves to be on par with macarons and decor, Ladurée will be a fantastic place for a special treat. Definitely worth experiencing...