Beaucoup Bakery & Café

A Cookie and a Mission on Fir Street

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Beaucoup Bakery opened on Fir Street in December 2012 with a mission most companies would be embarrassed to write down: leave the world a happier place, even if through something as simple as a cookie. Jackie Kai Ellis founded it. In 2017 a sister and brother, Betty and Jacky Hung, took it over, and the mission survived the handover, which is rarer than it should be.

Betty trained as a pastry chef at École Gastronomique Bellouet Conseil in Paris, and the discipline shows in every layer. The croissants are the reason to come, plain or filled, and the honey version with almond frangipane and banana is dessert wearing a breakfast disguise. The cardamom kouign-amann is the one to fight over, butter and sugar with a spice that people from my part of the world put in everything from tea to rice. The peanut butter sandwich cookies keep the founding promise. Chausson aux pommes and cinnamon scrolls fill out a case that is French in technique and Vancouver in temperament.

Jacky runs the front, and the counter moves the way a good counter should. There are more outposts now, at the St. Regis downtown, Time Out Market and Britannia Beach on the road to Squamish, but the Kitsilano shop at 2150 Fir is home. Go early, while the case is full. Buy two kouign-amann. Eat one on the walk and pretend the second one is for somebody else.

Order this: Cardamom kouign-amann, A croissant, plain and then filled, Peanut butter sandwich cookies, Chausson aux pommes
The damage: $
Go: Early, while the case is full
Find it: 2150 Fir St, Vancouver, BC