“Just like Granny does it,” boasts the café’s sign.
It’s a bold statement given the diversity of grannies out there and the retroactively rose-tinted glasses that many of us wear when gazing back to our childhood time with our grandparents.
In my case, my grandmother was indeed a good cook and a good baker and certainly supplied me with many enduring memories of outstanding Sunday dinners and holiday treats. Of course, the grandmother in question was also Latvian, which meant she had a lineup of dishes hailing from traditions sometimes significantly removed from those of many of my Canadian peers.
My burgeoning palate was not always equipped to handle some of her dishes. In fact, one of them, appetizingly called galerts, has had an enduring effect, leaving me on shaky terms today with anything gelatinous in texture.
Galerts is like a Latvian hybrid of aspic and headcheese, featuring slowly cooked pork hocks with carrot and celery. The meat of the hocks is stripped from the bone, chilled to set in its own rendered juices, which turn to thick jelly once cooled, and then served with horseradish and a healthy dose of smugness from the cook, who is able to actually choke back this dubious concoction. Imagine savoury, grey-ish Jell-O with strips of heady pork and you’ll approximate this treasure.
Proud as I am about the fortitude of my adult constitution, I have to admit to wincing slightly as I relive the galerts experience in my mind as I write these words.
Fortunately, at the recently opened Baker and Baron Café in North Vancouver, which throws down the “just like Granny” challenge in their tagline, the selection of grand-motherly specialties has been carefully curated and includes only the crème de la crème from the octogenarian repertoire, culling dubious traditions in favour of popular goodies like Sunday roasts, quiches, sandwiches, soups, scones, pies, cakes, muffins, cookies and crepes.
I recently visited on a rare free weekday afternoon with my wife DJ and our littlest one, who was fast asleep in the stroller and therefore wasn’t able to coo with delight at the delicious looking lineup of baked goods on display.
Baker and Baron, the latter half of the name referring to both the famous cut of beef often on offer in the shop, as well as to co-owner and roast master David Goelst, the self-appointed “beef baron,” is a most welcome addition to a strip of Marine Drive that is relatively barren in terms of casual dining options. Barbara Goelst, the other half of the owner/operator duo, is the eponymous baker. Her efforts, which some days get underway at three in the morning, help establish the business as equal parts café and rustic diner, with heartier meals living comfortably alongside quick and cheerful coffee fare.
Barbara approached DJ and I mid-meal to check in and revealed that her signature scones are made in the tradition of her native South Africa, and remain unsweetened, allowing them to be fitting vessels for both sweet and savoury toppings. DJ sampled a scone and found it to be a wonderful buttery, springy, delicate creation, with strawberry jam (made in-house) and cream, a perfect accompaniment to a cup of strong brewed tea.
The breakfast menu, which features a thoughtful and tempting cross-section of specialties geared towards diverse palates, represents great value with nothing priced over $10.
I weighed my options from the roast meat-oriented sandwich menu, tempted by a B.C.-raised Lamb sandwich with mint pesto, a Slow Cooked Beef Brisket sandwich with soggy potatoes and onions, and a Montreal-style smoked meat on rye with mustard and pickle.
I opted for this last sandwich as I’m a sucker for rye bread (the other sandwiches are served on ciabatta) and found the smoked meat to be excellent, though I wished it were stacked a bit higher. I should qualify this last comment because I definitely approach smoked meat with a bias having lived in Montreal for 13 years.
In Montreal, the meat on a smoked meat sandwich tends to be piled ridiculously high between two slices of comically small rye bread. Here, as in most other parts of the world, the meat is better distributed between larger (read: normal) slices of bread.
My Belle Province background made me predisposed to do a double take of the Baker & Baron version, but ultimately the smoked meat was exceptionally good and locally sourced, as I understand it from Barbara, who, along with David, work the front-of-house between cooking duties to provide the warmest, most welcoming guest service I have encountered in 2017.
My visit with DJ prompted me to return a second time to do a deeper dive of the menu. I took my son, The Boy, for a late morning breakfast and this time the Baker and Baron knocked the meal out of the park, surpassing an already very good first impression with their tasty, 100 per cent made-in-house Scone Stack.
The dish is made with roasted tomato, poached eggs, and goat’s cheese loaded atop one of the brilliant, aforementioned scones and served with beef sausages. The combination works a treat and is a perfect incarnation of the baker meets butcher philosophy of the café.
The Boy’s breakfast, crepes with Nutella, peanut butter and banana, delivered exactly what we hoped: light and fluffy, golden-brown, ultra-thin crepes bursting with sweet filling. My son was a fan.
A takeout order of rice pudding, served in Mason jars, proved to be truly outstanding and most assuredly worth another visit. Or several. The Baker and Baron Cafe is located at 1093 Marine Dr. in North Vancouver. 604-770-2425
Chris Dagenais served as a manager for several restaurants downtown and on the North Shore. A self-described wine fanatic, he earned his sommelier diploma in 2001. He can be reached via email at [email protected]. North Shore News dining reviews are conducted anonymously and all meals are paid for by the newspaper.