Cafe Serano is the coffee shop counterpart to the popular Pape Village haunt Serano Bakery.

Already a neighbourhood institution, the sleek space is as much a hub for the Greek community as it is a cafe to grab foamy lattes and mini dipped ice cream cones. 

At any given time of the week, you'll probably find the brightly lit cafe bustling with people young and old, perusing counters of pita and conversing on the cafe's outrageously comfy seats (nearly all the furniture here is imported from Greece). 

Effie and Niko Takas, children of owners Sophie and Chris, are mostly in charge of this location, which specializes more on pitas and sweets like loukamades than its brisk-business counterpart further south on Pape. 

With a mix of new items and old favourites from the bakery just down the street, the Serano brand has expanded by taking over what used to be the Don Lands Bakery. 

As always, bread is a staple here, with loaves of Serano's famous housemade baked dough all available here. 

Like the bakery, there's also a gelato counter here, where you can get small scoops ($3.95) and large ones ($4.95) in flavours like pistachio and cioccolato.

If a scoop or two just won't cut it, they also have tubs of gelato available for you to take home. 

Also in the fridge: dipped gelato cones on sticks for $1.10 each.

Cafe Serano has its very own bakery operation in the back, meaning it doesn't have to import anything from its other location. 

In the kitchen, pastry chefs mix, flip, press, and bake endless sheets of phyllo dough, brushing them with butter to achieve the flavours Serano is known for. 

Out front, glass cases show off the final products. A brightly lit display in the centre of the store offers a whole array of beautiful little cakes asking to be tried. 

Quintessential pitas like ham peinirlis, spanakopitas and prasopitas are all for sale between $3.50 and $5. 

Coming in sizeable portions, these pitas are big enough for a whole lunch, or at least a snack you can finish off in two sessions. From the centrepiece case full of decadent treats, the Trigona Thessalonikis ($3.50) should not be missed.

Literally translated to 'triangles from Thessaloniki,' one of Europe's oldest cities, this pastry is stuffed with vanilla cream for a crispy sweet dessert. 

But, the star of the show is really the box of loukamades that Cafe Serano is trying to put itself at the forefront with. 

You can top these hard, honey-dripped balls of dough with your choice of gelato for a dessert that's bound to get you buzzing off a sugar high. 

Caffeine might push you over the edge, but the frothy cappuccinos here are good and hard to resist.

Even more tempting is an iced coffee drink layered with foamy milk. 

With a patio running along the side of the cafe (next to a beautiful mural by local Greek street artist BamBam), it's not hard to see why Cafe Serano is the spot to be in Pape Village.