Proprietors of high-end French food and pastry establishment are on a mission to create joy
“Looking forward from where we started, I’m not sure we could ever have imagined we would end up here,” says Alex Kinsman, who, along with her husband Phil, owns and operates Saving Thyme on Appleby Line.
What began as a catering business in a tiny basement apartment with one burner and a mini convection oven in 2012 now incorporates a restaurant, patisserie, and prepared foods.
While many restaurants suffered through the lockdowns of the pandemic, it turned out to be an epiphany for the couple. “Truth be told, the pandemic was exactly what our business needed in that moment. For five years, we had worked so hard without stopping for a moment to understand what we were doing. When the world ground to a halt, we finally looked up and saw what it meant to people to be able to step in from the streets of Burlington to a little piece of Europe and leave everything outside while they experienced the pure bliss of a perfectly-made croissant. We learned that our mission is not to create great food but to create joy, and this mission has become the centre of everything that is now Saving Thyme,” says Alex.
Saving Thyme specializes in French pastries, bistro fare, and canapés. Although their menu rarely changes, they do use seasonal ingredients for their pastry offerings. As summer comes to an end, the Strawberries and Cream Cake Stack and Mixed Berry Tarts make way for fall flavours like Pumpkin Spice Macarons, Coffee Crisp Eclairs, and Cherry Clafoutis. Alex also hinted that they’ll soon be reimagining one of the most nostalgic Canadian pastries, but for more details, you’ll need to come see for yourself.
The deep-dish quiche comes in a dozen different varieties, like Ham and Jarlsberg and Mushroom Caramelized Onion Parmesan, but the most popular is their take on Quiche Lorraine, made with crispy bacon, sweet leeks, and pungent Gruyère. “Even though we make hundreds of quiches every month, we still hand mix every batch of dough and hand roll every shell. The real secret, though, is a special technique we developed over years of trial and error to seal the shell against the custard so that it stays perfectly crisp while the custard bakes inside,” says Alex.
The prepared foods program at Saving Thyme started during the pandemic as a way for people to enjoy simple home-cooked French meals at home with their families and has now evolved into a range of offerings for all manner of celebrations. Their Thanksgiving menu includes a classic turkey dinner with stuffing, veggies, and mashed potatoes, but it also has things like Beef Wellington and Ratatouille en Croute for those who want something a little more elegant. Leading up to the holidays, they do an advent calendar of handcrafted French treats. On select weekends—and for large groups—they create individual high tea boxes with dozens of beautiful hand-made petit-fours and tartines. “They are one of our all-time most popular offerings and truly one of the things we are most proud of,” says Alex.
“One of the most gratifying things about what we do is becoming a part of people’s traditions. We get to see the same families at each holiday; we do whole tarts for their birthdays, mini pastries for their bridal showers, and canapés to celebrate when the little ones start to come along,” says Alex. “When you get out of bed in the morning on a mission to create joy, it changes everything you do. Every decision you make is measured against how it will impact your team and your guests. For us, this has created an incredibly powerful culture where everyone brings everything they have to the table because they believe in seeing the mission through.