Upscale French bakery and sweets maker Ladurée has opened a retail presence at the central Oval in the Yorkville Village shopping centre in Toronto. The space which includes a display ‘carriage’ and display walls will be open for several months while Ladurée further strategizes its Toronto operations.
When it opened last week, the Yorkville Village Ladurée Carriage was already seeing exceptional foot traffic from visitors to the shopping centre. The high-density Yorkville area is home to a wealthy demographic and is also a draw for high-end shoppers from abroad.
Ladurée’s Canadian licensee Olesya Krakhmalyova said in an interview that a priority for the Toronto market will be the construction of a pastry laboratory which will serve the Yorkdale Ladurée storefront as well as any others in the city with Ladurée freshly made pastries and cakes. Ladurée’s Vancouver pastry laboratory opened in the summer of 2018, complete with a chef from France. A Toronto pastry laboratory will need to have certain technical characteristics to accommodate a specific oven and other pastry making equipment which will be brought from France according to Ms. Krakhmalyova.
In March of 2016, Olesya Krakhmalyova opened Ladurée’s first Canadian storefront in Vancouver at 1141 Robson Street. A second store opened in December 2018 at Toronto’s Yorkdale Shopping Centre. A location that opened in February 2020 at the Exchange Tower in Toronto’s Financial District has yet to reopen due to the pandemic and reduced office foot traffic. The brand also operates Ladurée Carriage pop-ups at Square One in Mississauga, at Holt Renfrew in Vancouver and now at Yorkville Village in Toronto.
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.
The Yorkville Village Ladurée boutique installation was executed by Toronto-based construction firm Elevate Build Inc., the brainchild of industry veteran Paul Belanger.
