Bakery Pompette
Bakery Pompette is an authentic boulangerie from the team behind (you guessed it) Pompette and Bar Pompette.
Opened a few doors down from the team's chic College Street spaces, the bakery pumps buttery, delicious creations to droves of customers old and new.
Chef Martine Bauer, her husband and sommelier Jonathan Bauer, and business partner and barman Maxime Hoerth have focused their attention on authentic and intricate French delicacies, replicating exactly what you find on the streets of Paris.
From pain du chocolate ($4.50), baguettes ($4.50), financiers ($4.75) and kouignamann ($5), each and every item is meticulously made in-house - a trend that started when the Pompette team would bake their own bread for the restaurant.
"We opened the bakery because, since day one at the restaurant, the feedback mainly from the customer was 'the bread is so good, you should sell it,' and the place was too small to do that," said Bauer.
It's a new universe, with nobody from the team ever really baking or playing with bread making.
At the beginning, they confessed they couldn't even make a croissant.
"It's important to know that even in France, if you go to a bakery, 80 per cent of the bakery doesn't do their own croissants; they buy them. So it's quite rare to do your own croissant from scratch,"
But it appears that the learning process has quickly paid off, with the bakery turning out impeccable sweets (some 200 a week) to hungry customers.
The bread is an especially laborious process, some 72 hours (including fermentation) before a sourdough loaf is ready to be sold and eaten.
You can find gigantic loaves of spelt sourdough ($8.50), seeded pan loaf ($8.50), sourdough rye ($8.50), and a yummy cranberry honey loaf ($7.25).
"You have a mix of bread, a mix of croissants, some cakes and cookies like the brioche, the bananas bread and you have a few savoury as well and we do some pantry stuff too," including the restaurant's now famous chocolate mousse, ready to be taken home and eaten.
Though it just launched earlier this month, the baguettes and cookies are quickly flying off the shelf, alongside lattes and coffee-based beverages that are also available for order.
The interior of the space isn't flashy, but clean. Filled with light-coloured woods and crisp white countertops, the simple decor doesn't distract from the French pastries.
Don't forget to try their savoury options as well, like the leek and goat cheese quiche ($12), the jambon fromage sandwich ($12) or the ham and cheese croissants ($8).
Taste a little bit of France at Bakery Pompette at 655 College Street.
Fareen Karim
