By Sean Delaney
If you love to serve your guests the best, you’re going to want to make a quick call to the bakery that’s been serving the best in Toronto for half a century.
West Finch Bakery has been in Emery Village for 50 years, and will mark the 20th year at their present location, where chef and owner Joseph Montinaro explained they’ve always been innovating, but never changing the fact that they serve the highest quality foods and desserts available.
“Our focus is on desserts, weddings, corporate functions, a little bit of everything,” he said. “But we can go with something very simple little like a pasta, rice, risotto, or take it to a foie gras and carpaccio if you want. We’ve worked with Ferrari and Lamborghini, and just recently did a launch for Bugatti. That’s what we do. We can go simple or do something custom. It’s about what our customer wants and it’s always the best.”
Everything at the West Finch Bakery is made in house and from scratch. They’ve always been a dessert house but during the years have transitioned from an Italian influence type of dessert maker over to international style desserts. They cater to a lot of private clubs in the city, and chefs, Montinaro said, are always asking for new, specific and creative products.
“For example, they may ask me to create a dessert to pair with a wine coming from Chile or Israel. So, we will study the region the wine is coming from, the culture and create a dessert from that influence,” he said. “We always look to create something unique and personalized.”
One of Montinaro’s recent projects is a series of chocolate bars with personalized logos of a corporation on the bar.
With the holidays approaching, they will produce quite a bit of chocolate, a tremendous amount of cookies, corporate baskets, jarred figs in syrup and more.
And to make things all that more exciting, Montinaro has a new partner in chocolate production, chef Derrick Pho.
“We have started a new company called ds confections. We are upping the ante considerably when it comes to designing masterpieces. Come in and you will see all the beautiful chocolate creations we have in store for you. All made from scratch,” he said. “We’re developing a lot of new ideas and looking forward to creating a lot of new things in house. And we’re already beginning to develop ideas for Valentine’s Day.”
If you want to learn more about the West Finch Bakery or be absolutely overwhelmed with the incredible assortment of “one of a kind” individually hand crafted artisan holiday deserts, make sure you visit them at: 1107 Barmac Dr.
Or reach them by phone at: (416) 743-2661