Rosetta

Passion, hope and courage are among the driving factors for many who wish to set up shop in Montreal. Rosetta, a fantastic new Italian/French bakery, café and pastry shop on rue Notre-Dame in Saint-Henri is a highlight of the year where the passion to impress customers with quality and service reigns high. They offer exquisitely prepared food, dynamite customer service and an environment that will have people hooked from the second they open the door.

At the moment Saint-Henri is the latest area of the city going to through a transformation for a better tomorrow. Once completed the neighborhood’s main drag is going to look spectacular but for now, it’s tough to get around making businesses in the area difficult to access. The effort, though, isn’t impossible and the reward for stepping around the orange cones is all the sweeter, especially at Rosetta. Having a deep-rooted sweet tooth, I’ve been looking forward to trying the new bake shop’s pastries, cookies and breads. When I arrived for a brunch-style introduction to Rosetta, the dessert would end up being the perfect punctuation to a decadent meal that was just as savoury as it was sweet.

Everything from the various pizzas and their toppings, to the sandwiches and their fillings are either homemade or locally sources. The family recipes for the apple bread used in the sandwiches, the tomato sauce used on the pizza and the fresh vegetable caponata have been passed down for generations and now we get to enjoy them in store or at home. The spicy pizza topped with a mountain of veggies and melted cheese along with the capicolla sandwich and the homemade focaccia bread drizzled with oil were some of the highlights served to us. Then came the desserts. The homemade macarons, apple pie, crème brule, chocolate covered tuiles and praline and hazelnut mousse were spot on. If you’re a dessert person, you need to get to Rosetta as soon as you can, you won’t regret it.

As much as I found the food at Rosetta to be pretty much perfect, it was the warm welcome that we received from owner, Maria Cammalleri and her team that helped bring the experience to new heights. Her genuine passion for people and her desire to get to know her customers won me over from the get go. She sat with us for a few moments from time to time, explaining that Rosetta is a tribute to her mother, a woman whose hospitality inspired her own desire to take care of her customers.

Rosetta will hopefully have a long life in Saint-Henri. Based on what we’ve seen so far, they are off to a fantastic start.

For more information, visit their website here. 

Image credit: David Major-Lapierre