Ruelo Patisserie

If it weren’t for my groupon I’d give it a 1 star. I’d rather come here and spend my money on the macaroons and wouldn’t waste it on afternoon tea even if it’s a groupon.
Lack of customer service. Waitress inattentive, most of the pastries or baked goods were dry.
I’d rate the Scarborough location higher, ³⁄₅ for the variety of scones and pasties tasted better as well

We went on Mother’s Day. And we saw a lot of people were lining up to buy the cake which is a good sign for us. We ordered two pastries — banana coffee tart and white chocolate tart. We were so amazed by them. Both have two or three layers for the fillings. And they all get blend in your month with one bite! The pastries are not too sweet and you will feel it’s light. I will go to buy their macaroons next time when I pass by.

I come here multiple times a year. There arent too many choices uptown to get macarons and cakes. I wouldn’t necessarily come for their macarons. They are nothing special and sometimes stick to your teeth which is a big no no !
I love most of their cakes ! My favourites include: green tea red bean sesame, RUELO (tastes like ferrero rocher), pistachio black currant (doesn’t really taste like pistachio but tastes good still as a cake), guava strawberry and white chocolate exotic. My very very favourite would be the green tea red bean sesame. These three ingredients just go so well together. There is a bit of a crunch to the cake with a thin layer of red bean, not too much! This would be my go to at ruelo.
I’ve also tried their afternoon tea. Nothing special. I would probably not pay the price to go unless it was the only choice around.
I would come for their cakes, not their macarons !
Service is slow and sub par. Not very polite but hey if you jsut grab and go its fine!
I would give this bakery a 3.5 but since I come so often I guess it gets the 4 :)

I had the mont blanc which is chestnut flavor and the their specialty called ruelo. Ruelo was my fave out of those two, it’s just so good!!! Gotta try it! Ruelo is made of layers cake, it has crème Brûlée, praline and I believe dark chocolate mouse, it melts in your mouth! Mont Blanc it’s made out of chestnut topping and it wasn’t that sweet. The price it’s high but very good sweets. Loving it and would recommend it.

This is always my favorite pastry shop. Every birthday, I’ve always had their cakes. This Valentine’s Day cake that i received today is awesome. It’s beautifully made, and it tastes great.

Menu:
(Includes cakes and macarons list, they have more stuff at the location.)
What we had: various flavours of macarons, Ruelo cake, green tea red bean sesame cake, strawberry yuzu cake, white chocolate lemon cake (not listed on their website)
Taste: ¹⁰⁄₁₀
Can we give ¹¹⁄₁₀? We absolutely love their cakes, especially the Ruelo cake. That’s our favourite cake in the whole world. It’s like Ferrero Rocher made into a super decadent cake. Their cakes are consistent masterpieces and look elegant. Their website has descriptions of the cakes so we will not go into detail in our review. The only cake that we weren’t big on was the green tea red bean sesame cake because it was not sweet enough for our taste. If you like a cake that’s very light tasting and has low sweetness, you may like the green tea cake.
The macarons here are good as well; the Ruelo macaron is Laura’s favourite. One of the more recent flavours we’ve tried is the strawberry yogurt, which had the yogurty tartness and was interesting. We really really really want to try the Cream Cheese Orange flavour, but we never see it available in store. :(
Value: ⁵⁄₁₀
Not going to lie, the goods are expensive. Like we’ve said about the other location:
The servings they list on their website are waaaaaaaay off. The small cake is supposed to serve 6 – 8 people? More like 6 – 8 mice, and that’s being generous. We can each decimate a 5′ mango almond cake on our own. (Not proud of it, but true facts.) That being said, their cake prices are cheaper and tastier than Nadege, and their single serving cakes are not too expensive (around $ 6, forget exact price).
Service/​Convenience: ⁸⁄₁₀
This location is in Time Square, and if you’ve been there, you know that finding parking is almost impossible. Once you manage to find parking, finding the store front is easy. We never tried their afternoon tea thing, but from the times we bought cakes and macarons, the staff here are very friendly and efficient.
When we came here to get Laura’s bday cake, the staff did not have a cake available but they were very accomodating; they were able to assemble the cake in 15 minutes.
Would go back? Yes, this is Laura’s go-​to cake store for special occasions.
Would recommend to friend? Yes, the cakes, and macarons if the friend is into macarons.
Similar places: Nadege Patisserie

I came here for the Tea Time for Two deal on Groupon (~$ 30) as many others did. I still think it was overpriced for the food we got, so I think my rating leans more towards a 2.5 stars.
In terms of what you get on this deal, obviously you get a choice of tea. This part was nice as the server brought out a fancy wooden crate of tea leaves for you to pick and choose from. I thought there was a good variety of selections. The tea itself wasn’t memorable, I think I got some kind of green tea.
Next you get your tiered presentation of little delicacies. There was a tier of savoury snacks. They were tasty, but they felt like they were once in a box down the frozen aisle at Costco. The next tier above were the scones. They tasted like regular scones and unfortunately, they weren’t very warm. They came with a tiny dish of cream and jam. The last tier were the sweets. I don’t know about you, but I like my crème brûlée warm (like my scones), and this was not. That’s fine, some places serve it cold. However, the macarons had a strange greasy feel to them. For a dessert that’s supposed to be light and soft, this threw me off. Definitely not among the best macarons I’ve had.
Another thing was the atmosphere. The person behind the dessert counter was talking on the phone or to a customer in Chinese the whole time, and it kind of reminded me of a HK café. This was really accentuated by the fact that the place is quite small so you can very clearly hear the conversations around you. This pretty effectively destroyed the high tea feel I thought I was going to experience.
All in all: meh. Would I do it again, even with the Groupon? No. The quality and quantity just didn’t justify the price. Everything seems like it came from a package beforehand. Maybe their pastries would be good for take-​out but the dine-​in experience was disappointing.

I picked up a Mango Almond cake here for a birthday recently. I had ordered it as soon as they opened on the same day. The cake itself was pretty good. Their prices are higher then average but the cakes looks very pretty. The mango almond cake was a hit with the family, I would definitely order their cakes again. They have a large variety of chocolate cakes and also some with unique flavours such as pistacio/​blackcurrent so I look forward on trying those.

I come here quite often for macarons and cakes throughout the year, as it’s one of the best ones in Markham. I feel like other places have decent macarons now, but other places sell more cakes and other specialties, so Ruelo is still one of the better locations in Markham area.
They have a wide variety of macarons, each macaron is different in price, which I find quite interesting. I wonder if some ingredients of the macarons are significantly more expensive than others. Nevertheless, they’re still within the $ 2-​$ 3 range per macaron.
If you purchase 6 items, and you don’t have tax! The macaron flavours that they offer here and I recommend are
— Ruelo (if you are a chocolate lover, I’m personally not one, but if you like chocolate, go for it)
— Green Tea Sesame (I don’t really taste the sesame much)
— Rose Lychee Raspberry
— Pistachio Raspberry
— Early Grey (Sigh, I wish they would combine it with a non chocolate center)
They also sell delicious small cakes, though they are pretty expensive, about $ 5-​$ 6 each.
My favourites for the cakes include the green tea red bean sesame, mango almond, strawberry yuzu and the hazelnut.
I personally think the people who work here are quite rude, well coming here ever since it opened, I think they got more rude over the years, they didn’t use to be this rude.
I remember coming here when no one knew much about it yet, basically when it first opened and when they offered their high tea set for $ 10 per person. There was slightly less stuff as now, for instances, the bottom tier did not have salmon sandwiches, but the normal Old English sandwiches they used to have.

Purpose of visit: Bought a Groupon deal ($ 27.50) for afternoon tea
Afternoon tea comes with:
— 2 choices of tea (pot)
— 2 macaroons
— 2 crème brûlée
— tiramisu?
— scones
— sandwiches
— i don’t remember the rest
It was actually a pretty good deal. The treats were decent — macaroons were soso. I’ve had way better. The tea was alright. Nothing special. I recommend the jasmine tea (my fav!).
In the end, we were pretty full (but that’s because we ate before coming). Their service was only ok. Not good but not horrible. If not for the Groupon deal, I don’t think we would ever come here for tea time. And I they should really use better looking teapots and cups. It felt very «cheap» and dirty.

Decided to spend my overdue date with my bestfriend at Ruelo’s afternoon tea. Service was mediocre to none from the beginning to end. ie. No welcome at the door, long wait to be served, tea selection was limited, did not offer refills unless asked.
I actually thought inside was a lot bigger but it’s actually quite tight. So my friend and I tend to feel interrupted by other people’s conversations that were sitting next to us. I kinda wished that the tables were more spaced out but the max capacity was at 10ppl.
My friend and I both agreed that the two tiers of food was dry and not very appetizing. Desserts were pretty sweet but still delicious.
overall: I wouldn’t suggest afternoon tea at Ruleo since we left half of it untouched. You’re better off just picking out your desserts and taking it home.

Service: 0
Food: 2
Décor: 0
Let’s start off with the décor — this place is the smallest high tea place I’ve ever seen.
1) not relaxing
2) tables are so small you can’t even sit properly
3) people walk in and out no one is really there to serve you
4) food is not great
5) high tea and macarons are overpriced
6) waitresses are rude
When we asked for more cream cheese, they said they have to charge $$. When we asked for more jam, they said the same thing. When we asked for more water because the tea pot was relatively small, they said have to charge money for HOT
What’s the definition of high tea?
High tea generally means you should be able to enjoy your food and tea for as long as you want and not be thirsty in the end. I don’t think it’s worth my money and time.

Ruelo Patisserie is a small dessert and café spot in Times Square on Leslie and Highway 7. They serve a wide variety of cakes, teas, drinks, and the like. It’s rather small with only a few tables, but the place is real clean and has a nice décor and interior.
We just came from dinner but the girlfriend loves her post-​dinner cakes, so we stopped in to grab a slice. I ordered the Pina Colada, while Anna got a slice of Hazelnut cake. The Piña colada was a slice of cake that was coated in coconut flakes and stuffed with tiny pineapple chunks and a wafer. It was very good, but the inside was a tad too sweet. The hazelnut cake was the best as it was moist and the crust at the bottom was perfect.
The place itself is located within that inner area so be sure to make your way in for the parking and such. The lady behind the counter was nice and the service quick. You can also preorder larger cakes for pickup. Definitely a place worth checking out.

So far, this location seems nice. It is quite small with 16 variety of macaron flavours as well as 27 different cake flavours. My friend suggested this location and so I went in before work and got three macarons. To my surprise, it was quite moist and loved the rose lychee raspberry flavour, pistachio raspberry and the ruelo’ chocolate praline. I have noticed they also offer afternoon tea which I might come by some day to try with my friend.

It’s a nice little patisserie/​café that seems like a hidden gem amongst the rest of the places at Times Square Mall.
First time at Ruelo was just to drop in for a quick coffee with a friend. I ordered a coffee, friend got a cappuccino, and we both got a couple of different macarons each. The girl in the front told us to take a seat, and a couple minutes later she brought out our order.
The macarons were a nice texture — nice crunch on the outside, good chew on the inside. Had a ganache filling which I prefer to buttercream fillings.
We tried the «Ruelo» (milk chocolate ganache with a praline center), pistachio raspberry, blueberry lemon, rose lychee raspberry macarons. Nice interesting flavour combinations, all well done. The blueberry/​lemon one was a little TOO blue… colour stuck to our teeth.
Second time at Ruelo was to use a Groupon for Afternoon Tea (62% off). Very pleasant experience with this. Had to make a reservation a couple weeks in advance. Girl on the phone was very nice over the phone, even when I had to reschedule a couple times. Café was nice and quiet on a weekday, although there were several customers coming in and out for take-​out orders/​purchases.
When we sat down at our reserved table, the girl brought us a tray of small tea tins for us to choose our tea from. Some of them smelt sooo nice. Our tea came out first, then within 10 – 15 minutes the girl brought out our 3-​tiered afternoon set & explained what each item was. That was really nice that she did that so we knew exactly what we were about to eat. All the food was created with attention-​to-​detail and care, it was very good! The middle & top tier were quiet heavy on the stomach, but yummy! The only thing I didn’t like in the set was the green tea sesame macaron — too much sesame flavour and too much green food colouring.
Overall, this place is quite nice & I’ll definitely come back here once in a while.

I was a bit disappointed with this location as opposed to the mcnicoll one. Got the Groupon and overall not a bad experience. The employees were very nice.
Foodwise — everything was a lot smaller (scones, bread) and didn’t taste as fresh as the mcnicoll site. Apparently the owner works at mcnicoll so that could be why!
The macarons were not good. Bad consistency and just tasted wet. However the dark chocolate cake was really good!
If you’re going to get the Groupon, get the mcnicoll location! Its a lot bigger venue and just better food in taste (even though its the same)

I’ve been here twice in the last year and both times used a groupon for their afternoon tea at the Richmond Hill location.
You definitely have to make reservations well in advance because they usually sell quite a few of the groupon deals and the place holds no more than 20 people or so at a time.
The afternoon tea snacks were good, but I’m not sure how fresh they are. It would have been nice if they made mini sandwiches as well.
The price was very reasonable for what we got. I don’t think I’d want to pay full price for it though. The experience isn’t the same as fancy afternoon or high tea places. The place is very white and it felt like just sitting at any café.

This place isn’t amazing. nor bad. If you’re looking for a birthday cake or some snacks, this would make a decent visit. Their macarons aren’t that great though so if you’re looking for those, I wouldn’t come here; colours look a bit scary, like really artificial and I couldn’t really distinguish the flavours.
Cakes I liked were the strawberry yuzu, white chocolate exotique, and pistachio blackcurrant. Ordered the pistachio blackcurrant in 9″ — think they cheaped out on the garnish. For a cake that size you’d think they would put 1 or 2 more macarons or a few more berries on top to balance it out a bit… but they didn’t. The cake looked kinda sparse… but the taste made up for it. One of my two fave flavours in one cake — I’ll give you some slack for this one, Ruelo. The Strawberry yuzu and White chocolate exotique looked pretty cute and was good too; the flavor was unique in terms of the yuzu, and the flourless chocolate cake for the white chocolate was better than expected. For people who like white chocolate you can give this one a try.
Most recently tried their Green tea red bean sesame, which was a bit sweet on my part, but overall the cake was good too, especially the sesame flavor which really came through. I didn’t like the shape though (I don’t like rectangular cakes) and asked if I could change to a regular circle, they said no (even I offered to pay extra). Didn’t really understand why not…
Service isn’t great at this place so I wouldn’t suggest having tea here, which Groupon does offer (all the time). If you want a cake or whatever here, just order, pay, get out, and you’ll be a happy camper.

I’ve been here once on a date and once to pick up some macarons.
On the date we just got tea and shared macarons. It was actually kind of awkward because we got like 6 and each one we shared, like one of us would take a bite and then the other. Not really something I’d ordinarily do with someone I barely know but anyhoo…
It was my first time trying macarons and I was very pleased. My favourites were the green tea, earl grey, and blueberry lemon. I saw online that they have a balsamic flavour as well which I would love to try! Would definitely come back here :)

I bought a groupon (about $ 31.10 for two people tax included) because I wanted to try high tea. I know it’s not going to be anything like the authentic high teas but we went for fun.
You must book a reservation, and when we went inside it’s a pretty small store. 4 tables, and it looks like an average chinese bakery. Chinese-​run, and lots of people drop in (during a wednesday afternoon) for catering and pick ups.
We get to choose 2 types of teas between this list:
–Jasmine
–Jasmine Green tea
–Earl Grey
–Earl Grey Kusmi
–Detox
–green st petersburg
–st petersburg
–spice chocolat
–green maicha
–anastasia
–russian evening N50
–rooibos
–english breakfast
Teas are in little tins made in France and she lets you smell them before you choose. We chose violet (more earthy) and green st petersburg (sweet and fragrant fruity taste).
The teas came in glass pots and big glass cups. I thought the cups would be smaller and more ornate. we didn’t have a server. they only bring the tea and food.
After a while, the tray came with 3 tiers:
starting from the bottom up:
–smoked salmon on scone with greens, butter and lemon
–shrimp, what seems like canned mangoes, cilantro on a cracker
–wrapped prosciutto with greens and oil
–small savoury tart with onions
second tier:
–raisin scones, blueberry jam, cream cheese
–puff pastry with cranberries and chinese coconut (the yellow ones in chinese coconut buns)
top tier:
–pink macaroon: bitter chocolate with very sweet raspberry jam. at first, it tastes like a brownie, then the raspberry kicks in
–green macaroon: some weird coconut mint flavour… i don’t know
–green tea mousse: layers of cake, red beans, and mousse. this is the only dessert that wasn’t sweet.
–crème brule: impressed, the top is crunchy, unlike others where it’s just colour on the top. creamy and truly a treat.
Good experience but I wouldn’t come back because the place is small and not true tea, and the food is only so-​so. The only good thing was the crème brûlée.