Brian Tran thinks Toronto needs to shed its inferiority complex and embrace what it has to offer — its incomparable food scene. “Whenever I come back from travel, I always miss Toronto,” says Tran, the co-owner of LÀ LÁ Bakeshop. “You can probably find the best ramen in the world in Japan or the best dosa in India. But I find that because of the diversity here, it’s hard to get bored of eating.”
It’s safe to say that anyone with a passion for good food would love this city’s culinary landscape. You could throw a dart at a map and almost certainly find an amazing restaurant that proudly serves up that country’s cuisine in Toronto. The same will soon be said for the city’s bakery scene, and the best bakeries in the city. In recent years, particularly since 2020, there has been an influx of bakers and pastry chefs who are boldly using ingredients and cooking techniques from around the world. Beyond their successful brick-and-mortar locations, these tasty treats are stocked at many of the best cafés in Toronto.
Rhea Abayan of Bakerrae celebrates her Filipino heritage, whipping up pastries like ube coconut basque cheesecakes and mushroom adobo milk buns. Rochelle DeSouza of Pretty Little Layers blends Indian nostalgia into her entremets with fresh mangoes. Meanwhile, Tran shares his Vietnamese culture through vibrant desserts like salted egg cake and durian croissants. Despite their different approaches, these bakers share a common goal: creatively showcasing their “home” through food. I chat with these bakers who are bringing a slice of heritage to their recipes.
Là Lá Bakeshop
Brian Tran
Ramona Leitao
Brian Tran never thought that running a bakery would be his career, especially with his graphic design background. But in 2020 everything changed.
It was the beginning of the COVID pandemic, and both Tran, as well as his life and now business partner, Harry Pham, lost their jobs. Pham was an avid baker back in Vietnam and started baking during the lockdown. That’s when Tran realized they could sell baked goods online. He learned to help bake the dishes with Pham. “You are bringing these flavours that are really not seen in Toronto,” Tran had told Pham, encouraging his Vietnamese baking.
Ramona Leitao
Their seaweed pork floss roll cakes, durian chiffon cakes and salted egg cakes quickly became popular, leading to deliveries beyond the GTA. Confident in their success, Tran knew it was time to open a brick-and-mortar bakery. “I had no doubt people would enjoy this food,” he says. LÀ LÁ Bakeshop’s first location opened in The Annex neighbourhood in August 2021 and immediately sold out on opening day. Since then, LÀ LÁ has opened shops in Scarborough and Mississauga, with plans to expand further.
The best-selling item at LÀ LÁ Bakeshop is the salted egg and pork floss chiffon cake. Salted eggs are a popular Vietnamese dish typically soaked in brine and spices. This adds a deep umami flavour, contrasting the sweet vanilla chiffon. The pork floss, a cured pork that’s finely shredded into fibres, has a light and fluffy texture that pairs well with the soft chiffon and chewy salted egg. “I find Vietnamese food focuses on texture and mouth-feel more than Western cuisines,” Tran says. If there’s one thing Tran isn’t afraid of using in his pastries, it’s durian. “People try to be too polite with the fruit,” he says. “We are durian people. We love durian.” The tropical fruit comes from southeast Asia and is quite divisive due to its potent smell. But what wins people over is its creamy, custard texture and caramel flavours.
Ramona Leitao
Tran and Pham use durian in various pastries, like their mini cakes, made with layered pandan chiffon and pieces of durian in a rich sauce, and topped with custard. There’s also the durian croissant, which is both stuffed and topped with pillowy durian to complement the flaky, buttery texture. The lava salted-egg bun is another popular savoury pastry at LÀ LÁ Bakeshop. The milk bun is filled with a runny salted egg, and topped with pork floss and salted egg crumble.
Running a bakery takes a lot of work, but Tran says that growing up in Toronto’s Jane and Finch neighbourhood gave him the work ethic to do it. “There’s that stigma of [the area] being more ridden with crime, plagued with poverty and a lot of negative things,” he says. “But I feel like that’s such a real part of Toronto. It’s given me a tough skin and a real working-class background.”
Tran is proud of how far he and Pham have come since opening their shop in 2021. “We’re doing something really different here. I think we’re doing it in a way that is authentic to not only Vietnamese culture, but to Toronto culture,” he says. “If you are someone who genuinely thinks you are adventurous with food, try some of the stuff in our modern Vietnamese bakery. You’ll love it.”
Pretty Little Layers
Rochelle DeSouza
Ramona Leitao
In 2014, Rochelle DeSouza, a business management student in Mumbai, India, was set to follow a traditional corporate career path. That year, she visited her sister in New York and took her first recreational baking class, a gift from her sister that would profoundly alter DeSouza’s life. “There was something about that moment,” she says. “When I went home, it brought me so much joy to just be in the kitchen.”
DeSouza began experimenting with recipes, sharing her pastries with friends and family. This led to the creation of her business, Pretty Little Layers (no, it’s not a reference to the TV show Pretty Little Liars, DeSouza says). As word began to spread, she started making desserts for customers’ special occasions. Two years in, DeSouza pursued formal pastry training at Le Cordon Bleu Ottawa. After completing the program in 2017, the now-certified pastry chef worked at various bakeries and restaurants, including Alo, until she was laid off in 2020 during the COVID pandemic. “I didn’t have any source of income and I didn’t know what to do next because hospitality got hit so bad,” she says. With time to rethink her future, she revived Pretty Little Layers in Toronto with a new focus on her signature dessert, the decadently delicious entremet.
Ramona Leitao
Ramona Leitao
Originating in France, the layered cake is made with a sponge base, mousse and layers of cream, compote and sometimes gelée. DeSouza mastered this technically challenging dish at Le Cordon Bleu Ottawa and finds it extremely satisfying to make. Each layer requires precision and freezing before assembly, with the combined layers frozen for an additional 15–20 hours before glazing.
To make her signature marbled entremets, DeSouza creates at least two mirror glazes in different colours and strains them for an even consistency. Then, she takes the assembled, completely frozen entremet out of its cake mold and places it on a cup. Pouring both glazes at the same time and at just the right speed is key to spreading them evenly and creating that vibrant, marbled look. DeSouza cuts off the excess glaze to ensure the final result is beautifully clean and polished.
Pretty Little Layers offers an assortment of entremets, including red velvet cheesecake, Baileys Irish Cream and pistachio raspberry. The bestseller, though, is the classic mango, made with fresh mango pieces, mousse and gelée. For DeSouza, creating mango-based entremets is special. It evokes childhood memories of summers in Goa, eating sweet, tangy mangoes from her grandparents’ trees. “When you bite into it, I want it to take you straight back home,” she says.
Ramona Leitao
Inside the mango-strawberry entremet is mango mousse with fresh mango pieces, along with strawberry cremeux and strawberry gelée. A classic vanilla genoise sponge base balances out the flavours of the mango.
More than four years since relaunching Pretty Little Layers in North York, DeSouza has fulfilled her goal of becoming the go-to pastry chef for entremets. “What is most special to me is that I’ve built this sort of family, this community that I never had,” she says of her journey. “It’s almost like my extended family home away from home.”
Bakerrae
Rhea Abayan
Ramona Leitao
If there’s one thing family and friends know about Rhea Abayan, it’s that she’s always wanted to own a café. But Abayan also had another love: nursing. “Growing up, my lola took care of me and my sister,” says Abayan, who worked as a bedside nurse, travel nurse and a COVID nurse. “I regret not being able to take care of her when I got older. Nursing became a way for me to take care of the elderly the way I wanted to take care of my own lola.”
Suffering burnout from nursing during COVID, Abayan turned to baking to relieve some stress. It revived her dream of opening a café. “I decided to just go for it,” she says. That’s when Abayan first started Bakerrae, an online café, in early 2021. The name is a play on her nickname, Rae. It quickly became a sensation due to the crafty ways Abayan would make sweet and savoury pastries like ube (purple yam) flans, mango calamansi (a lime native to the Philippines) pavlovas and Filipino onion galettes. “Bakerrae was born as a love letter to my Filipino culture,” Abayan says. “It is a personal journey to Filipino flavours, drawing upon my childhood with a twist.”
At her bakery, Abayan prepares one of her favourite pastries, the Mushroom Adobo. The milk bun is made with the Tangzhong method for a fluffier texture, and filled with whipped garlic ricotta and mushrooms. They’re marinated in an adobo sauce typically made with soy sauce, vinegar, garlic, sugar and whole peppercorns. After baking, the bun is then topped with grated asiago cheese, chopped green onion and crispy garlic chips. It’s a savoury, tangy and scrumptious treat that pays homage to the mushroom adobo her mom would make when she was a kid.
Ramona Leitao
Abayan has a savoury tooth, and it’s obvious in the way she makes her adobo cookies. These chewy and crispy treats are made with soy sauce, bay leaves soaked in brown butter, vinegar and Chachalate chocolate chunks. Owned by Abayan’s partner Ryan Lee, Chachalate makes chocolate from scratch. The cookies are then topped with pink peppercorns. This combination of ingredients results in an unforgettable flavour bomb of sweet, salty and umami. Another favourite pastry of Abayan’s is the Filipino Onion Galette. Abayan flawlessly executes the buttery and flaky galette dough, that’s then filled with gruyère cheese and onions caramelized in soy sauce and calamansi juice. It’s then topped with chopped chives.
Ramona Leitao
Bakerrae offers the Ube Coconut Basque, a rich cheesecake that’s made with three types of cheese: triple crême brie, cream cheese and mascarpone. Abayan says cheese is typically used in a lot of Filipino desserts, which makes this dish the perfect fit at her bakery. It’s made with an ube-infused coconut cream and topped with a Chachalate ganache. The cake is not overwhelmingly sweet, and has a milky, creamy flavour thanks to the cheese. There’s also a slight tanginess from the chocolate ganache.
Bakerrae had a physical storefront in the Upper Beaches neighbourhood from August 2023 to May 2024, and Abayan is actively looking for a new space. Currently, Abayan and Lee use a rental kitchen in Scarborough to make their much-loved pastries. Abayan says they’ve learned a lot since she started her professional baking journey. “It has been both exciting and fulfilling. I look forward to continuing to grow and explore new opportunities to share my baked goods with a wider audience.”
