Exploring Persian baking at Bahar Bakery & Cafe

We all love French bakeries. I could eat a croissant every single day and be a happy man (except for my growing waste line). 

But I’m also interested in a world beyond the classics. What are other cultures doing when it comes to baking? How are they using different ingredients than what you might find at traditional French bakeries?

Enter Bahar Bakery & Cafe at 579 Robson St. in downtown Vancouver.

From the outside it looks like your standard bakery. Glass windows, wooden tables, you might mistake it for just another traditional bakery and walk by. That would be a mistake.

Opened in September of 2023, the cafe goes beyond traditional baked goods, though you can still score croissants. They focus mostly on Persian items, as well as Armenian and Middle Eastern. 

Almonds, pistachios and rose flavours are used throughout. Their sandwiches appear to be made from Barbari bread, a traditional Iranian yeast-leavened flatbread. Lunch options include Kotlet, Persian ground meat and potato patties, and potato Kuku, a Persian version of the Italian frittata.

I hadn’t been to a Persian bakery before, so was eager to try it. They offer baked goods like cardamon cupcakes; Gata, an Armenian coffee cake; Qotta, an almond-filled deep-fried pastry; and Bahar and Barbari bread. 

I ordered a Bishi and a pistachio roll. Based on my cursory research, Bishi is usually Armenian deep fried dough, but this was different. It tasted almost like a croissant, layered like a circle with buttery pastry but lighter, less dense, more crispy. There was a hint of saffron, with sugar on top. It’s a subtle dessert, and won’t satisfy those looking for a rush of sugar, but it showed a high level of craftsmanship. 

Heaping chunks of pistachio filling were barely contained in the pistachio roll. The pastry was a little denser than I imagined, but matched exceptionally well with the filling. It's a dessert for pistachio lovers, of which I include myself. 

The team at Bahar are bringing new flavours to the city, with items that most locals will never have tried. The Bishi and pistachio roll left me wanting more. It’s a place I plan to return to many, many times. If this is how these two baked items were, I can only imagine how good the rest are. 

Their logo includes the phrase “made with love.” After eating there, I can say that the feeling is mutual.