Manager Nemo Mitic presiding over a busy morning at Paul.

PAUL BAKERY, CAFE & RESTAURANT
A Legendary French Bakery On Robson

By Kevin Dale McKeown
The first sip of orange juice was a bit of a shock to the system. We had forgotten what real, fresh squeezed orange juice tasted like, so accustomed were we to the banal semi-orange taste of the frozen and reconstituted variety more commonly served. And it just gets better.

Paul Bakery & Café on Robson is a 132-year-old legendary French family that, after years of successful international expansion, chose to open its first North American outlet here in Vancouver’s West End earlier this year. The business was founded in 1899 by the Mayot family of agricultural workers in the Artois region of France, where Charlemagne Mayot and his wife ran a small bakery in Croix.

By the mid-20th century, the Mayots’ daughter had married into another baking family, the Holders, and taken over another bakery, previously owned by the Paul family. The Paul name was retained and in 1953 Francis Holder took over the family firm, the third generation since the original Mayot venture. The growth of the business began in earnest in the ‘50s, with outlets in France and Spain. Today there are Paul bakeries around the world, under the stewardship of fifth-generation Maxime Holder. And so Paul continues to be a family-owned company built on the foundations of time-honored production methods passed down through those five generations, a tradition now shared in more than 20 countries, with bakeries in, among other cities, London, Washington, Dubai, and Tokyo.

On the morning of our visit, manager Nemo Mitic presided over a busy cafe counter and sit-down dining room while staff checked for vaccination proof and did an elegant dance while taking and delivering orders and dodging bakers coming out of the kitchen with a stream of aromatic baked goods. Nemo, a native of Serbia, took a moment to answer some questions and we learned that he spent ten years working the cruise ships and is now feeling very much at home after only a year in Canada.

Our recent brunch at Paul was a simple affair, began with the startling orange juice (OMG, this tastes like oranges!), and a simple crepe with Paris ham, Emmental cheese topped with a fried egg, accompanied by a salad. The finale included a seasonal pumpkin tart that had just been launched that day. As a bookend to the orange juice, we enjoyed a plain drip coffee that was as extraordinary in its own way as that orange juice.

I’ll stop banging on now — you’ll have to find out for yourself if you haven’t already.

Welcome to Robson Street, Paul!