Sweet Lee's

Bakery: Sweet Lee's Rustic Bakery 
Address: 4150 Wellington St, Verdun QC 
Website: http://www.sweetlees.ca
Style: Canadian 
Price: $$ 

Amid the refined pastries that fill Montreal's vibrant and delicious bakery scene is this almost unexpected underdog from Verdun; regularly appearing on best-of bakery lists, Sweet Lees is a colourful and eclectic bakery where rustic isn't just in the name alone. Unlike a lot of Montreal bakeries, Sweet Lee's is also not aiming to be a French patisserie. They sell cookies and fruit-loaded muffins. Their baked goods are far from delicate and dainty; on the other hand, they're almost hearty with their golden brown exteriors, fillings stuffed to overflowing or oozing out from the bottom. They're not perfect. They're not pristine. But they do look good.

Granted, the bakery does appear bigger than it really is, with baked goods and cake slices just at the front and an independent cafe operating in the same space along the opposite wall. Their specialty seem to be their cinnamon buns and croissants. At any given time, they have several unique flavours of croissants.

I had the pumpkin and maple ($3.75). These flavoured croissants consist of a croissant that's almost splayed flat and stuffed in the middle with the respective filling. I'm a fan of pumpkin - real pumpkin - so I was looking forward to this. Perhaps I didn't exactly distinguish the maple part in the description, but the pumpkin was delicately spiced and the flaky croissant was a nice complement. The one thing I thought needed improvement was that the filling was pretty much relegated to the middle and there wasn't enough of it for you to enjoy the pumpkin with every bite. A few bites with the pumpkin and the rest was just a standard croissant.

Rating: ***