Wild Flour Artisan Bakery [International Correspondent]

Bakery: Wild Flour Artisan Bakery 
Address: 211 Bear St #101, Banff AB 
Website: http://www.wildflourbakery.ca/
Style: Canadian 
Price: $$ 

Nanaimo bars are a good choice

This was on the list last year, but I never got around to it (actually, the first time I went, there was a long line-up and I wasn't in the mood to stand in it); this year, we were pretty much ordered to go here [editor's note: You betcha!], because Wild Flour is Banff's only bakery. Personally, I would call them more a cafe first; it's more breakfast/lunch/coffee oriented than the sort of place you go for baked goods, though they have a display case of them. The breads have this rustic feeling, but the things we got, the first thing coming to mind wasn't exactly 'artisan', but that's okay.

My first pick was the Nanaimo bar. I like Nanaimo bars and am always disappointed that they don't seem to be seen beyond Western Canada. The one from Wild Flour was pretty good: they used good chocolate. Maybe that's why it was harder than usual; it also had a nutty bottom with a good cream filling. I would certainly take it again.

Another thing we bought was the lemon tart, which had a good creaminess; I thought the appearance made it seem fancier than it was. In reality, just a lemon tart. One issue I had was that the crust (somewhat similar to the Nanaimo bar, though this was less problematic) was too hard and made eating this challenging and annoying, since slicing into the custard was so easy and then the crust wouldn't break off. Either a knife was needed (which we did not have) or you ended up with pure custard/plain dough.

Lemon tart and berry (cheese?)cake

The second "fancier" item was, I think, a berry cheesecake. Or some sort of mousse cake. Honestly, I don't really remember much about this thing and I only made notes for the other two things. I don't know how that happened... [editor's note: Ohhhh, I am going crazy!!!] I know that it had the same base as the lemon tart, but because the main part of the cake was denser and heavier, it matched more. I guess it was pretty good, since I don't remember anything bad about it. Pretty good -- I did three "Rockies" bakeries this time: in Banff, Jasper, and Lake Louise, and Wild Flour was definitely the best.

Rating: ***