Boulangerie Kouign Amann

It was a French baker around 1860, in the northwest province of Brittany, who began experimenting with the time-tested recipes of French baking. While there was ample butter and sugar, flour was in short supply, and to make due, he put a concoction in the oven that no French baker ever had. The result was a crispy cake-like pastry soon baptized Kouign-Amann—kouign meaning dough and amann meaning butter in the Breton language—which soon became the traditional treat of the region. Today it's a rare find, but remains the house speciality of a compact little bakery-café on Montreal’s Mont-Royal street.

It was Daniel Fourne, a French baker still in his 20s, who opened up the Kouign-Amann bakery after relocating to Montreal around 1990. He ran it for 14 years before passing it on to another baker, Nicolas Henry, who’d come to Canada from Normandy just a few years prior. Nicolas spent a good deal of time making batch after batch of Kouign-Amann to learn how to get it just right, and then spent the next three years working to train the staff, run the café and build his business.

Today, Kougin-Amann bakery is a neighbourhood favourite. While there are only a few tables inside, there’s a constant flow of visitors dropping by for freshly baked croissants, pastries, tarts, sandwiches, and of course, servings of Kouign-Amann.