Thierry Chocolaterie Patisserie Cafe

Vancouver, Canada (The Joy of Food) — The older I get, the more I lean toward dark chocolate, and melted bitter dark chocolate can be something like poetry in a cup. At Thierry, an order of ‘liquid chocolate’ is decadent and indulgent, swirled with ribbons of hazelnut, caramel, or coconut that add a touch of sweet to the creaminess. The drink is less rich than you might think, and more perfect than you can imagine.

You may or may not know that Vancouver is the fourth most densely populated city in North America with over 250,000 residents, behind New York City, San Francisco, and Mexico City. As far as Canadian cities go, it has the country’s highest population density with over 5,700 people per square kilometer. In this bustling metropolis a place like Thierry becomes almost crucial, one that opens for the breakfast crowd at 8 a.m. and closes with the drunk and stumbling at nearly midnight every day of the week.

Named after acclaimed maître pâtissier, chocolatier, and chef Thierry Busset, Thierry is a Vancouver institution with a sweet reputation for handcrafting petits fours, Viennoise, cakes, tarts, macarons, and exotic chocolates. About the chocolates, they’re made in small batches in a temperature-controlled room viewable from the front of the house, delicate and small in appearance but rich and filled to the brim with things like pistachio, white chocolate, and gin. 

Tarts here have the appearance of a classic French tart, but you will find twists and turns in the ingredients, something along the lines of a tangy yuzu sabayon filling where there’d normally be sweet pastry cream, or slivers of sour ginger take the place of sweet strawberries as a garnish. Holding all of this together is a sugarcane base instead of the more traditional shortcrust pastry, hard, crumbly, and pleasantly different.

Cookies might be the plainest option in most bakeries, but in the hands of an artist there can be greatness even in the mundane. Something like the Breton, a butter cookie with sea salt, is amplified richness galore juxtaposed with salty notes.

The macarons here are decent but definitely denser, not as sweet, and not as chewy when compared to Ladurée, the macarons by which all other macarons are judged. Thierry’s flavors veer away from some of the more traditional ones, stuff like coconut lime, lemon, and lychee are in the building while pistachio, vanilla, and strawberry are not. Fruit-flavored varieties have a buttercream center while others are filled with ganache.

While other popular dessert-centric places usually clock banker’s hours, Thierry is open late like any number of patisseries, gelaterias, and cafes in Europe, a place where the nightlife scene is about socializing without an itinerary that revolves around alcohol. Ultimately, Thierry is just a chill place to hang out. 

Written by Joy

Thanks for reading. The Joy of Food blog celebrates eating well, traveling often, and living la dolce vita. San Diego, California is home base, but thoughts are from all over. Reviews and photos help to highlight wonderful (or not) food experiences from around the world.

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