Yandoux Patisserie: Dessert Review - The Vancouver Takeout Blog

Yandoux is a patisserie in Olympic Village that offers custom cakes, a selection of individual-portion cakes in their showcase as well as pastries and afternoon tea sets. I stopped by to grab some dessert to-go while waiting for my pickup order from Boca’O nearby.

While most dessert shops and bakeries in Vancouver close early, it’s great that Yandoux Patisserie is open most days until 7PM. This makes it possible to grab dessert on the way home or after dinner, without needing to plan things in advance.

Their truly gorgeous custom cakes is what made me want to try this place. Seriously, just check out their website or Instagram. They look like works of art. They offer individual petit cakes in their showcase, but the selection was quite limited near the end of day. However everything looked cute (cheesecake shaped like a piece of cheese is a cool gimmick) and it made me really excited to try them.

The packaging was nice and the cakes were securely taped to the bottom of the box

The Sampler is a trio of cube-shaped cakes. Cutting into it, you can tell they’ve included many different elements and fillings. However the actual taste is where the experience went downhill. Given the price and small portion size, you would expect an explosion of rich and vibrant flavors, but this wasn’t the case at all. The mousse was bland and the filling didn’t really stand out. All the flavors sort of blended together and I couldn’t really tell what I was eating, nor much difference between the three cakes.

According to Yandoux’s description, this contains a vanilla lychee ganache, tropical fruit coulis, cococut almond sponge and hazelnut chocolate cracker. However just like the Sampler, none of the flavors or textures really stood out. It’s actually hard to explain; the cakes were creamy but not rich/decadent, nor were they light/refreshing. Just sort of hovering in a middle ground of meh.

Final Thoughts

Yandoux Patisserie is a prime example of creating food that looks better than it tastes. I realize it could be unfair to form an opinion based on a sample size of just two cakes. Normally I would attempt to return and try a larger selection in case I simply got unlucky with my choices. But it’s hard to justify a second visit when they price their cakes at the very top end of the price spectrum and can’t back it up with taste.