BERTRAND BAZIN
Café Bazin
Located in Westmount on the increasingly foodie strip of Victoria Ave. below Sherbrooke St., the month-old Café Bazin is part breakfast café, part lunch bistro and part dessert bar. The restaurant space is dominated by a large counter where you can watch the chefs at work, and many of the dishes are served by the chefs.
Experience: Full disclosure — Bazin is my ex-husband, whom I met in 1990 when we were both working for pastry chef Yves Thuriès in France. Hailing from a family of bakers and pastry chefs, Bazin began his apprenticeship at age 14. After working in Michelin-starred restaurants and hotels in France and Dublin, he arrived in Montreal in 1991, where he was pastry souschef at the Four Seasons Hotel, and head pastry chef at the Intercontinental Hotel and the private club Le 357C since its opening in 2001. Last year, Bazin took over the pastry programs in Antonio Park’s restaurants, and in July he opened his eponymous café with Park as a partner. Philosophy: At age 49, Bazin is the oldest of the four chefs profiled here, so he has seen countless pastry trends evolve.
“Pastry isn’t like before,” he says. “In France you filled up your window and you refilled items as they sold. Pastries, like a mocha cake made with buttercream, were meant to last a long time. Now we’re all trying to keep the number of products for sale to a minimum, preferring to make everything to order. Today’s pastries are more delicate and could never spend days in the fridge. As much as we try to work more seasonally, the season here is very short, so you have to transform fruit at its best, making jam, sorbet, pâte de fruits. We make everything from scratch — the pastry, the bread, the croissants, sorbet, even the quiche. It’s a pain to make everything ourselves, but in the end there’s immense personal satisfaction to working that way. I don’t specialize in one thing. I’m a pastry chef, I make it all, and I also want my staff to learn.”
Influences: French chefs Pierre Hermé, Philippe Conticini, Christophe Renou, Philippe Givre, Frédéric Bau.
Bestsellers: Strawberry vacherin plated dessert and the “dacquoise tout chocolat,” made with chocolate cream, Chantilly and mousse.
380 Victoria Ave.; 438-387-3070. Instagram: @cafe_bazin