Petit Gateau [RIP]

Bakery: Petit Gateau
Address: 2365-B Lakeshore Rd, Oakville, ON
Website: www.petitgateau.ca
Style: European, North American, French
Price: $$

[These photos have been in my pics folder for the longest time, so I thought it's about time to post them! Maybe I'll get to the World Tour 2012 after that, though I do have a few more local eats and treats to share ^^]

I really hope that I have the right place; my brother went out to get me stuff in Oakville and brought back these tarts from "the bakery across the street from Denninger's in Oakville". Seeing as there is nothing directly across the street, I figured it must be this place a few blocks east. Their website does say they have tarts, so correct me if I'm wrong. ;)

For some really strange reason, there is quite an amount of "French" bakeries in the area, none of which are terribly authentic.  Petit Gateau is one of these bakeries serving up a hodgepodge of non-country-specific, pan-European goodies in the form of croissants, cakes, tarts and cookies.

I can say that the tarts he did get  -- one pear, another apple, and a more traditional pecan tart for himself -- are really nothing in comparison with, Patisserie d'Or, another Oakville pastry shop not too far away from this place. While it was appreciated they did make their own tart shells, they didn't seem to be able to hold the filling and got crumbly on the sides and mushy on the bottom very easily. The shells were especially a tad too rustic in the pear tart with the sides falling apart completely; in the end, with the bottom having also somewhat vanished, it tasted just like eating plain, cooked pears. Quite disappointed with that.

In addition to this, we got one flambeed apple tart and a pecan tart drizzled with chocolate, which didn't seem as delicate as the pear, but which still had so little dough that you couldn't quite taste any of it, which, for me, isn't the point of a tart. Neither was exceptional; as mentioned, the apple tart from PdO (above) was much tastier and, as for the pecan tart, another Oakville bakery, The Black Forest Pastry Shop, did that better too. In the end, I'm really surprised that this place ended up winning some 'best bakery in Oakville' competition, but perhaps they're simply not good at tarts or... I DO have the wrong place after all. ;D

Rating: **