Is Paris Baguette really any better outside Korea?

The exterior of the Paris Baguette on Whyte Avenue in Edmonton, Dec. 29 / Korea Times photo by Jon Dunbar

EDMONTON, Canada — Despite its worldwide proliferation, the Korea-headquartered Paris Baguette (PB) bakery chain still gets a lot of flak in Korea, especially among foreign residents. Overly sweetened, inauthentic, low quality, these are the most frequent complaints lobbed at the 1988-founded company. Who puts sugar on garlic bread? Shouldn't pretzels be covered in salt, not sugar? Does PB even have baguettes?

My first visit to a PB was probably in the late 2000s. I gravitated, as a stereotypical white person, toward a pastry with a hot dog sticking out of it and condiments that resembled ketchup and mustard on top, seemingly baked into it. After that experience, I only ever went a few more times, then stopped going to PB for a very long time.

Many, like me, scoffed when PB began its overseas expansion, arriving first in Shanghai in 2004, then Los Angeles in 2005 and, after many other markets along the way, Paris itself in 2014. An audacious move that many consumers expected would not end well.

But it must be doing something right, after celebrating the opening of its 600th overseas store in Toronto last October. I'd been hearing that the chain, managed worldwide by SPC Group, had focused on localization of its offerings in foreign locations, and that what they were getting in other countries was vastly superior to what was available in the domestic market.

So on a recent visit to the Canadian city of Edmonton, I set out to visit the two PB locations in the city to see what it was really like. The conclusion I reached was that, no, it wasn't particularly better overseas, and my findings left me a little surprised.

Friends and family seemed aware of PB, but other than my parents who became familiar with it over multiple visits to Korea, most people seemed mildly surprised that it's actually Korean. (Maybe they shouldn't be so shocked, living in the city that spawned the Canadian multinational restaurant chain Boston Pizza). Everyone there also seemed quite amused by my pronunciation of "Paree Baguette" and insisted that Paris rhymes with Harris, not with Perry. Then again, you should hear how they all pronounce "Hyundai."

It was a little unsettling seeing PB in my hometown, like when the belligerently drunk ajeosshi gets off the train at the same stop as you. PB's first Edmonton location is on Whyte Avenue, which I've always described as the Hongdae of Edmonton, as it is near a major university and had been the epicenter of culture before gentrifying. More recently, a second location opened in West Edmonton Mall, which had been the world's largest indoor shopping center until 2004. The mall store is tucked away in a corner in front of a major casino — an especially poor location, considering Korean nationals can't legally gamble here; they might as well have put it next door to the marijuana dispensary. For the purpose of my inquiry, I visited both PB locations.

The West Edmonton Mall Paris Baguette, located uncomfortably close to the mall's casino (especially for Korean nationals who can't legally gamble here), has a seating area. Korea Times photo by Jon Dunbar

PB in Edmonton seemed less like it was trying to be a Parisian bakery, and was much more of a donut shop — which makes sense for the Land of Tim Hortons. Customers pick up a tray and tongs and help themselves to fresh baked goods. More elaborate orders, such as cakes (which seemed to be a particularly major selling point in Edmonton) and drinks, are ordered at the counter. Both Edmonton PB locations also had plenty of customer seating, something that seems less common at Korean PBs.

The "savouries" offered at Paris Baguette in West Edmonton Mall, Dec. 24, look similar to my memories of PB in Korea. Korea Times photo by Jon Dunbar

Yes, they had those hot dog pastries, the exact thing I have always pictured when I think of PB, and here they're classified as "savouries." Notably, these savouries seemed less prominently displayed here than in Korea. I skipped them and moved on to items that looked better quality.

Of the baked goods at the Paris Baguette Whyte Avenue location in Edmonton, the twisted donuts, upper right, caught my attention. Korea Times photo by Jon Dunbar

There were sandwiches, which I passed over, that reminded me at a glance of sandwiches from Lina's, a French sandwich-and-salad restaurant franchise that SPC acquired in 2022. Could it have been a strategic move? With limited stomach space, I opted not to look closer.

Sandwiches and salads at the Paris Baguette Whyte Avenue location in Edmonton / Korea Times photo by Jon Dunbar

I bought four items, which I brought back to my family for a group review. I got the twisted donut, a staple of Korean street food, but also a baked good similar to what I remember my grandmother baking when I was young. I also got a fancy-looking matcha mochi donut, the last one on display at the time, atop a pedestal under glass. And I picked up a plain-looking coffee bun, which seemed straightforward enough that it would be hard to get wrong, though it might still have a syrupy filling inside, as I've come to expect from Korean pastries. I also ordered a slice of cake, red velvet, in consideration that this is a Korean company and there is a K-pop group named after that cake.

This matcha mochi donut, on display at the Paris Baguette location on Whyte Avenue in Edmonton, Canada, went home with me on Dec. 28 (local time). Korea Times photo by Jon Dunbar

All four were divided into four pieces and shared with my family. We all enjoyed the twisted donut, the coffee bun and the red velvet cake. But we couldn't stand the matcha mochi donut, which tasted so unpleasantly bitter I couldn't comprehend what I was eating. In Korea, I love green tea, and I love it in cakes. Is Japanese matcha that much less pleasant than Korean green tea, or "nokcha"? And why is this Korean company pushing the Japanese version when they could just as easily be using home-grown ingredients and supporting the local economy? That donut was the one downside to an otherwise pleasant experience.

The homeland of PB

But my job was not done yet, as I now needed to refamiliarize myself with Korea-based PBs in order to make a fair comparison, a task I savored much less than experiencing PB in Canada.

After returning to Korea in early January, I finally set about completing this task, one that seemed easy at first, as there are four PBs in my own neighborhood, one of which may have even been newly opened. It surprised me a little that the locations seemed distributed more around residential areas rather than the downtown core, contrasting with Edmonton where they were in the city's two highest-profile destinations.

As I passed by one PB, I decided to keep going, as it seemed smaller than others. The next one I visited didn't have anything that interested me, so I slipped out, unnoticed by staff. Eventually, I ended up at one that looked much larger. I'd heard that some PB locations have kitchens for making fresh goods, while others send orders to the kitchen ones, resulting in presumably fewer fresh products. Is it possible that quality, as well as variety and availability, could differ so much from one PB to another? Regardless, I intended to judge PB in Korea based on its best offerings, not its weakest.

Individual plastic wrap encases all items on display at a Paris Baguette in central Seoul's Yongsan District, Jan. 10. Korea Times photo by Jon Dunbar

At this Korean one, which I'll only say is based in Yongsan, the shopping experience was overall pleasant, maybe even a little easier than in Canada. The major difference I noticed right away was that here — unlike in Edmonton — everything was wrapped wastefully in individual plastic packaging. Maybe this shows contrasting values consumers place in baked goods: Koreans favor hygiene and sterile, while Canadians want it fresh.

I bought three things. I got a Matcha Bon Delicieux sponge cake, aiming to compare it to that despised mochi donut in Canada, and I got a salted butter streusel bun, the closest thing I could identify to that pleasant coffee bun. The "savouries" were on more prominent display in Korea than in Canada, and all the sandwiches looked a little less promising — I skipped those, as I hadn't established a frame of reference back in Canada. Also, they seemed to sell cakes, but not cake slices. What did catch my eye was the freezer, which displayed various frozen goods, including lasagna; I opted for that, even though I had no frame of comparison with the Canadian PBs.

The three items were all pleasing. The matcha sponge cake tasted way more pleasant than the matcha mochi donut in Edmonton, more like how I expected a green tea product to taste. While the streusel bun wasn't really comparable to the coffee bun, I still enjoyed it. The frozen lasagna was what I'd want from a convenience store microwaveable meal — not the best I've ever tasted, but good enough for its price, and I'd try it again.

And yes, later I found that PB in Korea does have baguettes. The one I tried was much shorter than a regular baguette, and contained a totally unnecessary cream filling.

The Matcha Bon Delicieux sponge cake from Paris Baguette in Korea, Jan. 10 / Korea Times photo by Jon Dunbar

I've walked away concluding that both will have things I like and don't like, and with a bit more experience I will be able to find what I want at either of them. Contrary to my initial expectations, I came out of this experience feeling somewhat more positive about PB in Korea. That said, there are many smaller bakeries in Korea now, serving quality products and behaving more ethically, and you're still better off tracking them down instead.

Next, maybe I'll take a closer comparative look at the quality of Tim Hortons in both Korea and its frozen Canadian homeland.