Premiere Moisson is a good bet for your favourite baked goods

• Premiere Moisson, 920 Boulevard Maloney W., Gatineau

During my Toronto years, a start-up bakery began shaking things up by offering residents a quality French-style baguette. Ace Bakery soon had multiple storefronts and eventually moved to a large commercial facility delivering bread to other vendors.

They’d achieved such success that in 2010 Loblaws parent company Weston, bought Ace and expanded the market. 

With such expansion, shortcuts and cost-cutting followed, and soon those baguettes had little to do with the original that made the name Ace famous. After a very long time I finally had one of these baguettes and found it to be inedible. 

Something similar, although less dramatic, happened at Quebec’s Premiere Moisson.

I first had Premiere Moisson’s delicious breads and pastries at Montreal’s Atwater Market.  The wooden racks of baguettes, sharply fragrant sourdough loaves and herbed breads were the appetizers for the colourful display cases of Viennoiserie, buttery croissants and petit pain au chocolat.

They, too, saw success with their baguettes and you can now find them widely at grocery stores such as Metro. Here too, this bread is less appealing than those at the Atwater location and I prefer to buy these breads from the actual bakery.

Luckily we have a Premiere Moisson just a short drive from downtown Ottawa where you can stock up on these products and also come away with good and reasonably priced pastries. They may not be of the superior quality of a Maison Oddo or a Tartelette but few things are.

Just the same, the pear and almond tart, for example, gives you a completely buttery tart with nicely poached pear and a modestly sweet almond paste as a base. Fruit-based baked goods are a personal favourite, and this was a winner.

Equally good were the petit pain au raisin and the date and minced nut square. All buttery with good flavours and satisfying textures. For an idea of the value at Premiere Moisson, everything pictured here came to under $17 in total.

If you’re unfamiliar with this bakery, stop by. It’s a very nice shop offering not just quality breads, good pastries and coffee but delicious sandwiches for a light lunch.

NEXT EDITION

The Burger Safari returns

Some time ago I reviewed Pearson Street Smash Burgers based in Embrun. It’s only taken a few years but the fad has made its way to Ottawa and I have a couple of options worth exploring. 

Yet a burger safari wouldn’t be complete without a twist and we do have an old favourite for our vegan brothers and sisters. After my Odd Burger experience, how would this burger stand up? Would it be another “meat-like” replica or something a little more original?

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