La La Bakeshop located along Bay St. near Gerrard is a Vietnamese-inspired bakery. They actually have another shop in Scarborough, one in Waterloo, another in NYC and then lastly in Ho Chi Min, Vietnam. Their first ever location was originally located in the Annex along Bloor, however, that location is now closed with the Bay St. location being their Toronto flagship store.
Having been to La La Bakeshop may times before, their new Toronto cafe is a great addition to their existing stores. Now customers can enjoy a sit down experience, enjoying their freshly made to order coffee and beverage creations and desserts. On their drink list they have offerings like durian iced coffee, banana peanut butter latte, the classic Vietnamese iced coffee, tangerine jasmine cold brew, raspberry pistachio cold foam, longan jasmine milk tea, a banana salted caramel matcha latte as well as your usual classic espresso based drinks. The drink menu is impressive and you can keep trying new things on the menu if want to be adventurous.
Food wise, the cafe has a variety of sweet and savoury croissants (pistachio, durian, butter garlic, salted egg, egg and cheese, etc) as well as lava buns. For cakes they have your traditional circular cakes but also their cake boxes are popular as well (think longan jasmine, tangerine jasmine, durian, coconut pandan sticky rice, matcha pandan tiramisu...). So many unique Asian inspired flavours!
The cafe space is bright and beautifully designed. There are smaller tables, larger rectangular tables, as well as a communal table when you enter the cafe. There is wifi available and you are free to use your laptop to work or study there during the day.
I stopped by La La Bakeshop twice already since they opened on Nov 30th! First time I stopped by on their opening day in the afternoon and the cafe was packed. Many people were enjoying their beverages as well as treats. I was able to get a cake box as well as a croissant to go as well as chatted with one of the co-owners, Brian. The second time I went shortly after 8am for breakfast where I ordered an iced Vietnamese coffee with pandan foam and a salted egg croissant. The iced coffee was great with the delicious pandan foam. Going early in the morning was nice and peaceful as well since the cafe wasn't crowded at all.
Always love the treats at La La Bakeshop and my favourites has to be the garlic cream cheese bun, coconut pandan sticky rice, the matcha pandan tiramisu, and....hopefully they will bring back the banh mi croissant (was at their now closed Annex location before). I also heard that they will be bringing their banh mis back soon!!
Service wise, the staff are friendly and always smiling, working hard to make sure all the customers are satisfied. They are all still trying to get the hang of things so it may take a few minutes for your drink to be made, but other than that they are nice and friendly!
Overall, a beautiful addition to the Bay/Gerrard area for Vietnamese-inspired goodies! Can't wait to be back to try more drinks as well as baked goods. read more