Right beside Jean-Talon Market, there's a new dessert spot that's as intriguing as its name. In the southwesternmost corner of Villeray, Nanana is the latest and greatest dessert boutique to land in Montreal.
Opened on July 12, it’s a place that turns the average pastry shop on its head. Nanana is where you want to go to try weirder and wilder high-end desserts that match its Italian Memphis Group-inspired interiors; think of lots of bright pastel colours with a postmodern look that pops.
“We’re doing what looks wild, and what’s inspiring us. It’s chic, high-quality, but very whimsical,” says Nanana’s co-owner Jared Tuck. “We’ll use crazy colours and looks… we’re pushing the boundary and going in whatever direction we feel like at the time.”
It’s a small counter-style spot for takeout plus a 20-seat private back terrasse with unconventional, playground-like seating like swing sets, picnic tables, and benches—perfect for an unconventional menu.
There’s the Bowerbird which resembles a plump blueberry but it’s a dark chocolate tartlet with fleur de sel, cocoa nibs, almond praline, whipped vanilla ganache, and vanilla gel; there’s the Kotone, which is an almond cake with cava jelly, fresh raspberries, whipped hibiscus ganache, raspberry mousse and ruby chocolate; or the Mr. Earl, a choux pastry topped with whipped apricot kernel ganache, earl gray tea pastry cream, and candied and fresh apricots.
Every dessert they make is available as individual servings for around $10, and some can be ordered in a bigger format that can feed six to eight people if ordered in advance.
Nanana also features an ice cream program each summer: Two soft-serve machines are making vegan and non-vegan options with flavours like vanilla and blue raspberry swirl, plus cups of hard ice cream that are topped with soft-serve. For example, they previously served a harder blueberry-lavender sorbet topped with a soft coconut-vanilla vegan option.
“We’ve got a lot of people coming and saying there’s nothing like us in the neighbourhood. They’re really excited to have a high-end boutique for desserts,” says Tuck.
Once the summer ends, Tuck says Nanana will jump into small fried donuts similar to Portuguese malasada that will be fried to order. That’ll go great with the coffee program they’re planning on starting soon, and maybe dessert wine pairings down the road.
It’s a seasonally-inspired menu that changes all the time, and it comes with vegan, gluten-free, and nut-free options to meet as many dietary restrictions as possible, but whatever you decide to eat, they definitely keep customers guessing.
Rather than working with a single chef, Tuck says that everyone on their team contributes ideas. That means their team of chefs who trained in countries like France and Japan as well as Montreal’s culinary school ITHQ can come together and mix techniques.
The project comes from Tuck and his partner Sandra Forcier, who together opened Ratafia, a Little Italy dessert and wine bar that’s up the street and has expanded to include savoury dishes and tasting menus.
The idea began during the pandemic: Tuck and Forcier first tried to figure out how to pivot the plated desserts of Ratafia into takeout (or ‘cake-out’) mode, and Nanana is the result.
They teamed up with two couples who are also die-hard fans of Ratafia: There’s Jean-Dionne and Diane Mamarbachi, who were Ratafia’s first-ever customers, as well as Mathieu Paquette and Caroline Schoofs who discovered Ratafia during the pandemic and loved their vegan options.
“When (Sandra and I) started Ratafia, we always wanted to have a spot where we could go after dinner and have a dessert without finishing our night… so we said, let make a place that has that offering,” Tuck explains.
“Sweetness always puts a smile on everyone’s face. Even if you don’t have a sweet tooth, people have a hard time saying no to something sweet when it’s in front of them.”
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