Vegan Practically

I’ve been living in Toronto for more than a year now and there are still new places to try. Last week we took a long-awaited trip to the Vegan Danish Bakery on Queen St. W., just west of Dufferin. It’s a cute, elegant space with old world decor — chandeliers, shiny wood tables, and comfortable seating. Their tagline is: “We are vegan, we are Danish,and we bake!”

And bake they do! They have glass-fronted cases filled with danishes, scones, cookies, cupcakes, and tarts. All vegan! You can also order sandwiches for lunch.

It wasn’t really busy when we went on a Friday at lunch time. That’s a good thing because there was only one person working that day. He took the orders, made the drinks, made the sandwiches, plated the eat-in baked goods and boxed up the to-go treats. He let us know he was on his own and that we might need to wait. Despite that, it only took him about ten minutes to make our lunch.

I had the tomato-arugula cheese melt sandwich and Diane had the BLT sandwich. Mine came on pumpernickel bread, which is not my favourite, but it was a satisfying sandwich with lots of flavour. Diane’s was on sourdough and made with our favourite vegan bacon (we think it’s from King’s). Both are pictured above, mine on the left, hers on the right. I had an iced latte with oat milk. She had a San Pelligrino.

We each had one dessert, since it was the occasion of a belated birthday celebration for Diane. She had a butter tart and I had a strawberry-vanilla cupcake. Diane said the butter tart was rich and delicious. It sure looked appropriately gooey and sweet from where I sat. My cupcake had loads of strawberry flavour in the frosting and a tasty vanilla cake base.

We took home a chocolate scone, a blueberry scone, and a danish. The danish had flaky pastry and a fruit and custard filling. I am not sure what the big deal is about danishes, to be honest, but Diane said it was a really good version of what a danish should be. I ate the chocolate scone the next day for breakfast with strawberries and whipped coconut cream (Wimbledon!). Diane had the blueberry scone, also with strawberries and cream. I was lukewarm on my scone because it was on the dry side, but maybe it’s best eaten the same day it’s baked.

We didn’t try any of the cakes, but they have a great selection of vegan cakes that can be ordered ahead in different sizes. I’m interested to try sometime in the future: the black forest cake, the strawberry shortcake, the lemon layer cake, the coconut vanilla cake, and the carrot cake. Given how infrequently we order cakes, it’ll be a years long project. One thing I can say is that I am excited to have found a bakery that has such a large variety of vegan cakes.

There were lots of things we didn’t get around to trying on our first visit. Between branching out to other menu items and trying out the cakes, we’ve got good reasons to return to the Vegan Danish Bakery soon!

Bon Appétit!