The Bon Vivant Blog

While in town for a course, I had to seek out good coffee – Ottawa doesn’t have much of a reputation as an amazing food town, but come on – with as many office workers as it has downtown – there absolutely has to be good coffee. And it turns out, there is. Bridgehead is [...]

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While Seattle is probably best known for Starbucks, at least on the West Coast it is known for its great coffee scene. We’ve looked around before but haven’t committed to a city-wide coffee search. At least this trip we got a bit of a better idea what’s going on by searching out some of Seattle’s [...]

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Always searching out delicious baked goods, we read about Emmerys somewhere or other and as it was literally around the corner from our apartment in Copenhagen, we decided to give it a try – and yes, it totally worked out. Emmerys is a beautiful food store, with multiple locations in Copenhagen, but with a very [...]

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One of the first things that you need to figure out about any city is where the good bakery is. And Copenhagen certainly has its share of good bakeries. Lagkagehuset is one of them, with about 10 locations around the city. We tried their Muesli bread – covered in pumpkin seeds, whole wheat inside, with [...]

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For ages now we’ve been going on about how great the macarons are at Pierre Hermé while we haven’t been giving the other challenger, Ladurée even a chance. This is like seeing Joe Frazier go at a heavy bag and saying that he’s the best boxer in the world. It’s like seeing a Picasso and [...]

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Amazing. Not only does he produce the best pastries that I have had in North America – and better than many I have had in France, but he has replicated his business in North Vancouver and opened a Kitsilano branch. He will be busy. Saturday morning – about 11:30 (late start) – we pick up [...]

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Wednesday – Remembrance Day – mid-week brunch with M. Medina has been open for a while, and is owned by the same folks that own Chambar – and located right next door to the same. I’ve heard legendary stories about Medina’s brunch and waffles, so even though we knew we’d have to wait, we thought [...]

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This was probably my favourite store in Italy. It’s inside an old church that has had its inside torn out and about 4 floors of books and restaurants installed. It’s a huge bookstore, with at least 3 restaurants – one for sandwiches, one for pasta, and one that is a wine bar (there may be [...]

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Bakeries occupy this special place in my heart – the good ones are run by people who love food, who put that love into what they do, and produce an exceptional product that just makes you happy. Flour is this kind of a place. Sunday morning – pouring rain and blowing wind, I was going [...]

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