I walk past Thierry most mornings on my way to work. Each morning, at consistently the same crack on the pavement, I get hit with a waft of baking pastry and my God, it smells so good. I had heard that the hot chocolates were meant to be exquisite but it wasn’t until I read about Thierry in the ‘Vancouver Eats’ cookbook which I had borrowed from the library that I really wanted to go there.

After a hard day of shopping, Andy, Mum and I took a much needed break by visiting Thierry for a hot chocolate and one of those tasty smelling pastries I’d been sniffing on a regular basis. The Vancouver Eats cookbook suggested that the almond croissants were well worth a try and naturally, I was an easy sell.

Thierry was much busier than I anticipated and it actually had much more of a canteen feel to it than I would have liked. I realised then that Thierry was actually an extremely well known spot and we really struggled to find a table. Eventually we succeeded; crammed right in there amongst the other weary shoppers.

We all ordered hot chocolates of varying flavours. Andy got a standard hot chocolate (i.e. quite milky), Mum got the coconut hot chocolate and I got the classic house special. Andy’s was tasty, but probably the wrong thing to order at a specialty cafe. My hot chocolate was positively exquisite (the smaller size was more than enough) and the coconut hot chocolate was also rich and delicious.

As for the almond croissant: wow! It was easily the best croissant I have ever had in my life. The pastry was comprised of so many individual layers that absolutely melted in my mouth and the almond filling was entirely delectable. It was the perfect balance of almond flavour and creamy texture, without being too overpowering.

I look forward to going back and to be perfectly honest, I’m probably going to be ordering exactly the same thing.