Eat: Little Pebbles

Little Pebbles is a cute little Japanese cafe on Baldwin St., just near the entrance to the street when entered on Spadina.

They serve coffee drinks, but where they most excel is their desserts. They use Japanese juhakuto sugar, which is sweeter without the calories, and moist than granulated sugar. Their matcha desserts are made using ceremonial-grade matcha, which is typically used for drinking, but you get the most purity and taste as oppose to lower grade matcha where you may have to use more of it.

The cafe doesn’t have very much seating, just 2 seats by the window and 3 seats on the side. They do offer take out and pre-orders of their desserts.

Americano, Cortado and Matcha Roll Cake

The roll cake is moist and not too sweet. I do love that there’s good enough of cream to the sponge cake, so every piece you cut has the cream and cake.

Worth a visit if you’re at Kensington Market.

Edit: You know I had to come back here. 🙂

Osaka-style strawberry roll cake

Edit: Little Pebbles has moved to a new location, but only two stores down from where they were.

Vanilla Earl Grey Mille Feuille – 300 layers of inverse puff pastry, vanilla-infused earl grey custard and Belgian chocolate ganache.

Black Sesame Chiffon Cake ($6) – light and airy black sesame chiffon cake with ceremonial-grade matcha cream

Edit: Little Pebbles recently came out with a line of cannelé, which are little French pastries that have the burnished outer crust and soft, custard-y interior. You can pick them up individually at the cafe, but they have a 6-pack ensemble for $25 that you can pre-order and pick up. Flavours may change, but this was as of July 2019.

Earl Grey (infused with vanilla earl grey tea)

Vanilla Rhum (vanilla beans and 8 years aged gold rhum)

Chocolat (70% Belgian dark chocolate)

Mont Blanc (traditional Japanese-style chestnut purée)

Coffee (infused with espresso, topped with freshly roasted coffee bean)

Matcha (ceremonial-grade matcha)

Personally, I find that it’s better to not get the ensemble. There were some hits and misses, particularly with the flavour and craftsmanship. Flavour-wise, Matcha, the Chocolat and Vanilla Rhum were the best three. For the craftsmanship. the coffee and earl grey aren’t quite there with the air pockets and seems like it had a wetter batter.

If you’re trying cannelés for the first time, I highly recommending getting the vanilla one from patisseries that make it as vanilla is the OG flavour.

Momojito – house-made peach purée, fresh lime, mint and Perrier water. I can attest that the drink isn’t as Instagrammable as Little Pebbles makes it out to be.

Little Pebbles
160 Baldwin St., Store #8
Toronto, ON
M5T 3K7