Bakeries
Family-owned Steveston patisserie open since 1996, focused on European-style cakes such as tiramisu and triple chocolate mousse, plus everyday pastries. It is where Richmond people order birthday and celebration cakes instead of buying one at the grocery store.
Ordering a celebration cake works better as a planning task than a browsing one, and the shops that do it well are rarely the ones with the best window display. Diplomat works in the European patisserie tradition on London Road in south Richmond, with an everyday counter for people who came in wanting a coffee and something to go with it.
London Road runs behind the village proper, closer to the newer residential blocks than to the boardwalk, and it is Steveston's unscenic side. That suits a bakery of this kind. The street carries a fraction of the traffic the waterfront blocks do, so you are among people running errands rather than day-trippers, and the whole transaction happens without a parade going past the window.
Order ahead for anything specific. Celebration cakes in Richmond move fast around graduation season and Lunar New Year, and a full display case is never a guarantee that the exact thing you pictured will be sitting there on a Saturday afternoon. Give a decorated cake several days if the date is fixed. The wider point is that supermarket cake is a false economy, which is the entire reason independent patisseries still exist in a city with a large grocery store every few blocks. South Richmond has held onto more of them than the City Centre has, partly because the neighborhoods down here still shop close to home.
In the Steveston neighbourhood of Richmond.
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Other bakeries and nearby businesses in the Richmond directory.
A family-run Steveston fixture since 1989, doing scratch breads, pies, cookies and custom cakes including eggless versions. The attached cafe serves all-day breakfast, sandwiches and a rotating homemade soup, so locals treat it as much a diner as a bakery.
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A tiny family-run shop on Chatham Street making proper Liege waffles with pearl sugar, real butter and honey in about a dozen flavours, from vanilla through matcha and yuzu. They also take custom cake, pie and creme brulee orders for pickup.
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A Steveston Village patisserie doing classic French work: fruit tarts, chiffon slices, viennoiserie and cookies made fresh each morning. Regulars also come for the savoury quiches and the small freezer of prepared soups and meals to take home.
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A Steveston counter frying gourmet mini donuts to order, with classic cinnamon sugar alongside a rotating list of seasonal flavours and filled versions. Mixed boxes let you try several, and they are best eaten walking down toward the boardwalk.
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A neighborhood Chinese bakery of about a decade's standing at No. 2 and Blundell, run on self-serve tongs and trays behind glass. Pizza buns, mousse cake slices and moon cakes in season; whole cakes need a day's notice. Free lot parking outside.
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Richmond's kosher bakery, family-run and Filipino-Jewish, turning out challah, cinnamon rolls, croissants, muffins and donuts. The hours are short and it closes Saturdays, so plan around them. Bread is baked fresh rather than held over.
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