Serano Bakery — Restaurant in Toronto

We went in on the weekend to try their greek delicacies because we heard good things about them. The cakes/pastries/desserts themselves live up to expectations! They are more on the sweeter side but I really enjoyed them 💖

However, we’re a bit put-off with the service we received . Since there are so many options and we don’t want to create any bottle necks in their system by thinking too long, we make sure we look through and made a list of what we want before taking the number. When our turn came, I start listing off the cakes we want and the attendant just kinda stare at me for a while and passive aggressively say “so how many cakes you want, because I need to know which box size I need to grab” and I said 6 cakes. Once she got the box I started listing the cakes again, I’ve made sure that I list it in order of the cake placement in the counter so we don’t have to go back and forth but the attendant keep cutting me off everytime we move shelf with a “that’s all from this section?” with an annoyed face. Then we moved on to the section with custard in a cup type of desert and she snappily said “you told me 6 small cakes, now you want the big cake that means we need a bigger box, you should’ve told me you want the big ones” and I was honestly just confused. I have no idea that there’s a difference for them. I have no idea how many box sizes they have. And when we go through our list the first time she cut me off and only ask for the number of cakes I want. She, again, just stared at me for a while until I asked her if it’s easier for her to just see my list so she can figure the box out.

The rest of the purchase went without a hitch but we left with some confusion on what we did wrong ☹️ we felt like it’ll be more helpful if she just ask us to see our list from the first time (since she can see me reading off a note) if she really feel like we’re that stupid. I totally understand that it’s a busy weekend and handling a first-time customer who’s not familiar with their system can be annoying but we felt a little...

This bakery has great cakes, but their organization and customer service is lacking. If you are picking up a cake, make sure to PRE-PAY. Do not pay when you pick it up, or you may have to wait for it for awhile. I went there on a Saturday morning (my first mistake), and for those of you who haven’t been there, it is both a bakery and grocery. I had to take a number even though I wasn’t buying anything except the cake which I had ordered 3 days prior. I wish I had known that prior. I would not have to wait in the bakery line if I had prepaid which I wasn’t informed of by the person taking my order on the phone. Had I prepaid, I could have just picked it up, though there was no designated cashier to inform me of this. I had to flag someone down to let me know this. As a result, I had to wait in a 25 minute bakery line with the those waiting to pick their desserts from the display case. Had I prepaid, I would not have needed to take a number and wait. It seems like it was not only me who was confused by how the lines and bakery was being organized as there were 3 other patrons in front of me with the same issue. Perhaps in the future they need someone who just is a cashier as that would have relieved the confusion, and the line. The woman serving me was very apologetic, which I did appreciate. This is not the first time I’ve gone in to purchase things from Serrano, but it’s usually savoury things that do not require a number, though in those cases it was still confusing. They need to seriously re-evaluate how they delegate cashier duties...

Serano Bakery sells good pastries, but I would not recommend ordering a custom cake from here if you have an eye for aesthetic detail and if you can tell the difference between quality and amateur baking.

I figured since they are always busy they MUST be good, so I decided to support this local business and order a custom cake for a BaByQ we were having. I'm sorry to say that I was quite disappointed with a couple of things.

Firstly, I gave them an inspiration photo, and they immediately admitted that they weren't going to be able to replicate the design exactly as I wanted. I decided to go with them anyway, because the price was decent. When I saw the cake, though, I was first thrown off by the colour. They interpreted the beige/brown cake in the photo as a muted pink...not the same. What's more, the details on top were EXTREMELY boring and flat. The piping lacked dimension and creativity.

Secondly, the quality of baking was not what I expected. The cake was super dry (almost burnt on the edges) and the buttercream lacked any sort of flavour or substance.

Since then, I've provided the same inspiration photo to another caterer/cake artist out of town, who blew me away with her skill in both developing the design to suit my needs and produce a deliciously moist cake with velvety smooth and tasty buttercream. This was the proof I needed that my expectations were not at all unreasonable.

Again, their pastries are delightful, but I cannot say the same about their...