Bakeries
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.
Egg tarts here sit among the cheapest in the city, and the rest of the case matches: honey cakes, plain buns, butter cookies with a chocolate-dipped end. Wheat Garden has held its position on Westminster Highway while other old-school Chinese bakeries have been squeezed out by rents and by shinier dessert cafes doing roughly the same trade under better lighting.
The selection changes daily and thins out through the afternoon, which is the single most useful thing to understand about the format. A bakery like this is not a restaurant with a fixed menu. Trays come out when they come out, and whatever has gone is gone until tomorrow. Arrive early for something specific. Arrive late if you genuinely do not mind what is left, which is a far more relaxing way to shop.
Westminster Highway here runs through City Centre, close enough to No. 3 Road and Brighouse station to reach on foot, along the stretch where older low-rise commercial buildings still sit between the new towers. That mix is vanishing block by block. Wheat Garden is part of what the older Richmond looked like before the City Centre plan took hold, and places like it tend to go without much notice. Buy more than you meant to while you are there. Buns at these prices cost nothing to over-order, and they are gone by morning anyway.
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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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.
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A long-running Cantonese bakery near Brighouse station where you grab a tray and tongs and load up from self-serve shelves. Portuguese egg tarts, pineapple buns, pork buns and sausage rolls come out through the day, and it stays open until 9pm. Cash only.
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The Richmond branch of the Chinatown institution, best known for steamed baos in more than a dozen fillings alongside egg tarts, buns and apple tarts. It sits steps from Brighouse station, which makes it an easy stop straight off the Canada Line.
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A tiny Japanese-French cake studio on Alexandra Road, open Thursday to Sunday only. Chiffon-based entremets and choux in flavours like matcha yuzu, restrained on sugar and finished carefully. The popular ones sell out, so it is worth calling first.
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An Asian bakery on Alexandra Road built around softball-sized meat floss cakes, savoury cream inside and floss outside, in flavours running from seaweed and salted egg yolk to Oreo chocolate and lemon yogurt. Unusual enough to draw people across town.
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