Tag Archives: Calgary pastries

Calgary Bakeries and coffee

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Calgary keeps adding to its roster of bakeries that produce excellent pastries. Here are five that also brew a mean cup of coffee, making them the perfect place to meet up with friends.

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Everything elegant Mari Bakeshop makes is first rate, from croissants and pain au chocolate to more exotic roll cakes and choux pastries. This Bridgeland destination is a busy place, so order a latte before claiming a prized window seat.

Mari Bakeshop

There might also be a wee line at the Beltline’s little Begonia Bakehouse. Order a brioche-based pain Suisse and a“Canadiano” and head for a vacant table.

Begonia Bakehouse

Butter Block is arguably Calgary’s heavyweight pastry place, supplying baked treats to many city coffee shops. But it’s worth heading to its Beltline base for a fabulous banana cream pudding muffin, wolfed down with a double espresso.

Butter Block

Located on busy Macleod Trail across from Stampede Park, newish Otie Cafe produces work-of-art tarts and terrific, savoury cacio e pepe croissants. Wash down either with a coffee from local roaster Chronicle’s beans.

Otie Cafe

Chronicle beans also make an appearance at Killarney newcomer Millo Millo Bake Shop. Sip a cappuccino while munching an Earl Grey scone or delightfully cheesy pretzel bagel.

Millo Millo Bake Shop

Butter Block Delivers a Blockbuster

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A butter croissant and a sweet scone at fabulous Calgary pastry baker Butter Block

I came for a simple butter croissant. I left with so much more.

Butter Block & Co. makes arguably Calgary’s finest butter croissant, albeit with stiff competition from the likes of Manuel Latruwe, Black Sheep and Yann Haute Patisserie. Butter Block certainly delivered, for me, on all that a winning croissant promises: requisite multiple layers of butter-dripping, crispy yet pillowy pastry.

Yet I couldn’t stop at a single croissant, given the creative diversity that beckoned from Butter Block Café’s display case. I tacked on to my plate a lovely, crumbly sweet scone but could only wistfully gaze at the pain au chocolate, an unusual sesame croissant and the pastel de natas (Portuguese custard tarts), which I once swooned over in Lisbon. Future visits are certain.

The display case kept being replenished with fresh, innovative pastries

What knocked Butter Block out of the park for me was a holy grail quest finally answered—an exceptional bakery paired with an excellent coffee shop. Sometimes you get one but rarely both.

Yet in this cozy midtown Calgary café, everyone else was sipping on lovingly produced pour-over coffees. So of course, I added this to my tab and was rewarded with a smooth, earthy brew. It turns out, Butter Block has worked with David Kim in a Calgary roastery called Paradigm Spark.

The pour-over coffee bar. Soon to disappear?

Is all this too good to be true? Perhaps. Paradigm Spark is leaving the location December 31 in search of its own space, with Butter Block stepping in to fill the coffee void. We’ll see how it goes. But before I left, I made sure to snag a bag of Melody beans roasted less than a week ago.

I snagged some fresh-roasted beans while I could

Butter Block was established in 2017 by Karen Kong, a graduate of SAIT’s Baking and Pastry Arts program. The bakery is across the hall from the café, in the historic Devenish building, and it’s where you can pick up frozen croissants, to be baked at home. That’s because the best croissant is one just pulled from the oven.

Butter Block Cafe
Unit 110, 908 17 Avenue SW, Calgary
Weekdays 7:30 am-4 pm, weekends 9 am-4 pm