Bakeries
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.
Order a cake for a specific date at least a week ahead. Studio patisserie runs on small batches finished by hand, which makes a birthday cake an order rather than a purchase, and the day before is far too late to start asking. Plan properly and the whole thing is simple.
Japanese-French is the style, which in practice means chiffon-based entremets and choux work rather than buttercream and layers. It is a technical register. Components are made separately and assembled, textures are meant to contrast, and the result is designed to be eaten cold and fresh rather than kept for days. Small runs finished by hand cost more than tray bakes portioned out, and that is an honest trade rather than a markup.
Alexandra Road is worth learning if you do not know it. It runs one block east of No. 3 Road, behind the Aberdeen and Yaohan end of the Golden Village, and it holds more kitchens per metre than any street in the region. The units are small, the signage is dense, and the unit number is the only reliable way to find anything, so check yours before you park. Street parking fills early in the evening and the nearby mall structures are the easier bet.
Richmond's sweet culture came up through Hong Kong-style cafes and bakery chains where sugar was the whole point, and the studio bakeries that arrived over the past decade went the other way entirely. Less sugar, more structure, cakes built to taste of the thing they are named after. That shift is recent enough that plenty of people in this city have not caught up with it yet, which makes the first visit to a place like this genuinely surprising.
In the Golden Village neighbourhood of Richmond.
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Other bakeries and nearby businesses in the Richmond directory.
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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A cash-only Hong Kong style bakery on Hazelbridge Way that steams cheung fun rice rolls to order alongside the usual buns and pastries. The house chili oil and the egg tart donut are what regulars come for, and it opens at 7:30am on weekdays.
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The Parker Place branch of Richmond's best-known Cantonese bakery, running the same tray-and-tongs format with rows of sweet and savoury buns, egg tarts and cocktail buns. Handy if you are already at the mall for groceries or the food court.
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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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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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