Bakeries
A cash-only Capstan Way shop making Hong Kong and Taiwanese-style treats such as buns, swiss rolls, cookies and sponge cakes, with a lighter hand on sugar and oil. The mango cake is the local pick and prices sit under the fancier patisseries.
Bring cash. Nothing else on this page will save you as much bother, because Janice Cake Shop does not take cards and enough people are caught out by it that the warning belongs at the top rather than buried at the bottom. The baking is Hong Kong and Taiwanese in style: buns, swiss rolls, cookies and sponge cakes, made with a lighter hand on sugar and oil than the European-style patisseries elsewhere in the city. The mango cake is what locals point to.
The lighter sugar business deserves explaining rather than being treated as a slogan. A Hong Kong style sponge is built to be eaten in quantity and to sit alongside tea, not to arrive as a single rich slice at the end of a meal. If you grew up on that, the European version tastes cloying. If you did not, the first bite can read as underdone before the whole cake, rather than the frosting, turns out to be the point.
Capstan Way has changed more in the past decade than almost any street in Richmond. Towers went up, a Canada Line station opened, and the ground floors filled with small food shops serving the people living directly above them. This is one of those, and the trade it does is a neighborhood trade: a cake collected on the way home, not an afternoon out. Plan on carrying something away rather than sitting down with it.
In the City Centre neighbourhood of Richmond.
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Other bakeries and nearby businesses in the Richmond directory.
A cake boutique and small cafe on Alderbridge Way doing custom celebration cakes plus neat single-serve mousse and entremet desserts, with coffee to sit in. Order ahead for anything specific rather than counting on the display case.
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An old-school Chinese bakery on Westminster Highway where prices have barely moved. Honey cakes, plain buns, butter cookies dipped in chocolate and some of the cheapest egg tarts in the city. Selection changes daily and thins out late in the afternoon.
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A Taiwanese-run bakery across the road from Aberdeen Centre making deliberately oversized pastries: big madeleine-style cakes filled with custard and raisins, Hokkaido milk bread, sesame and red bean buns. Cheaper than its neighbors and take-out focused.
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A small scratch bakehouse tucked into President Plaza that bakes everything on site using French technique. Croissants are the draw, especially the double-baked salted egg yolk custard one, alongside cream puffs, cakes and matcha or black sesame pastries.
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An easy-to-miss Taiwanese bakery inside Admiralty Centre, stocked with peanut buns, curry pastries, pork floss rolls and butterfly coconut buns. The taro loaves marbled with sweet taro paste are what regulars actually come in for. Cash only, take-out only.
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A small pickup-only bakery on No. 3 Road working from a short rotating list of cakes and pastries. Order online or at the counter and collect at the store; their products also turn up at a couple of other Richmond dessert shops. Closed Mondays.
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