Upscale French bakery and sweets maker Ladurée will open a café concept on Cumberland Street in downtown Toronto’s Yorkville area in October. It will be the third Ladurée location to open in the city.
Ladurée’s Yorkville location will be at 162 Cumberland Street, in a 751 square foot corner retail space facing both onto Cumberland Street as well as onto the quaint Village of Yorkville Lane. Ladurée replaces Dice Fruit that previously occupied the space. Ladurée’s location is across the laneway from coffee/gelato shop Zaza and across the street from Nespresso and a new Harry Rosen store that will soon begin construction.
The Yorkville Ladurée will include a sit-down café as well as a range of baked goods, and grab-and-go items. The location will also feature patio seating. The indoor area is expected to have 13 seats (table seating and high bar seating combined) and there will be about 12 outdoor seats.
Fresh baked goods will be available, made by a master chef in a pastry laboratory that opened in the summer of 2023 north of the city. Baked goods will include a range of cakes and pastries, as well as sweets such as its famous macarons, chocolates, teas, jams, and accessories. Also included will be savoury and sweet menu items in the café, including sandwiches.
The fresh baked cakes and pastries will be produced fresh daily from scratch by Ladurée’s French-trained Executive Pastry Chef Alexandra Launay. Customers can pre-order baked goods and pick them up at the location, or choose from the daily selection of cakes and other items already in the store. Ladurée’s Canadian licensee Olesya Krakhmalyova said that the same product will be available in Toronto as in major international markets such as Paris, London, and New York City.
Contractor Elevate Build Inc. is building the Yorkville Ladurée location. The construction company, founded by entrepreneur Paul M. Bélanger, built Ladurée’s other Canadian locations as well as its pastry laboratories in Toronto and Vancouver.
Ladurée Canada worked with Ulf Bergner of Bergner Real Estate Advisors to negotiate the Yorkville lease deal. CBRE’s Urban Retail Team listed the Dice Fruit retail space for lease.
Ladurée’s Ms. Krakhmalyova said, “I have been waiting for the right space and opportunity in Yorkville for sometime. What we envisioned for Yorkville is a chic Ladurée Café.”
Ladurée’s Yorkville café is expected to be busy when it opens. The Cumberland Street location is near the Village of Yorkville Park, a high-traffic pedestrian area that is particularly vibrant during warmer days. The immediate area also boasts a high density of affluent households that support the many upscale businesses in the Yorkville neighbourhood. Ladurée markets itself on having high-quality products, which will resonate with the neighbourhood.
Yorkville is seeing an unprecedented influx of new wealth, with several new condominium projects under construction with average unit prices exceeding $10 million. These new households are part of the current transformation of Yorkville into something rarely seen in North America — a wealthy high-density district that is also home to a high density of luxury stores. Luxury car sightings have become the norm, and top restaurants and salons are scattered throughout the area.
Ladurée has two other Toronto locations. That includes a 1,185 square foot storefront at Toronto’s Yorkdale Shopping Centre that opened in December of 2018, with a 26-seat tea salon. A second Toronto location opened at the Exchange Tower in Toronto’s Financial District in February of 2020, in a 685 square foot space with a 16-seat dining area.
The Toronto locations followed the 2016 opening of Ladurée’s first Canadian storefront at 1141 Robson Street in downtown Vancouver, which spans about 1,100 square feet and has a 23-seat tea salon. There were lineups for weeks after it opened.
The Robson Street Ladurée also has an expanded assortment of cakes and pastries. A pastry laboratory opened just east of the city in the summer of 2018. As with the Toronto pastry laboratory, a French-trained chef works out of the Vancouver kitchen.
Besides permanent retail locations, Ladurée operates several ‘carriages’ in Canada. They feature a range of macarons and other sweets in large mobile displays that can be moved around the country. Ladurée carriages can be found in shopping centres, airports and hotels, depending on the month and opportunity.
Ladurée’s permanent move into Yorkville is part of an ongoing transformation of the area. Luxury brands continue to open stores nearby, and now Cumberland Street itself is seeing increased leasing action with the opening of Ladurée and other businesses such as Harry Rosen’s new flagship store that will open across the street in early 2026. Hazelton Avenue and Scollard Street are also seeing new retail tenants.
Founded in Paris in 1862, Ladurée is best known for its double-decker macarons, selling over 15,000 of them daily. Many Ladurée locations also sell ice cream, sorbets, jams, chocolate and candy, as well as branded accessories. Ladurée was purchased by French business group Groupe Holder in 1993, expanding Ladurée from a handful of locations to dozens of boutiques in 27 countries, including several in the United States. In March 2022 80% of Ladurée was bought by Stephane Courbit through Lov Group. Mélanie Carron became the new managing director, replacing David Holder, the son of the founder of the Holder group.
