Two roads meet for macarons
Ruelo’s chef mixes flavours to create her pastry treats
Through her savoury concoctions like wasabi grapefruit, balsamic vinegar and black truffle, pastry chef Jacqueline Lo offers a twist on traditional macarons.
“I like to create different flavours and mix different combinations of food,” she says.
Although Lo only recently opened Ruelo Patisserie on Erskine Avenue near Yonge and Eglinton, she already had four years of experience running her first location in Richmond Hill. Initially, she wanted to learn how to make the dishes more as a hobby but it eventually led to a business venture, she says.
“I had been trying a lot of good pastries around the world in France and in Japan,” says Lo, who graduated from Le Cordon Bleu in Ottawa and trained in Paris after studying computer engineering. “At first I was making them for myself and friends.”
Ruelo, which is the combination of her last name translated in French, which in Chinese means road and her actual last name, also carries sweet macaron flavours like pistachio raspberry, vanilla and crème brûlée and serves daily afternoon high tea, which comes complete with sandwiches. Her main goal for the new digs is for more people to try the products, she says.
“I would like people to try it and be like, ‘oh, this is what a cake is supposed to be,’ or ‘what a macaron is supposed to be,’ ” she says. “What I usually do when I travel is I like to eat so I know what the real thing is like and I think what I make is very close to what I ate.”
In addition to the French pastries, Lo creates desserts like chocolate earl gray and black forest cake as well as multi-tiered custom wedding cakes.
The most rewarding part of her job is creating a wedding cake the bride really likes, she says.
“I really like that moment after all the hard work when they really appreciate their special day,” she says. “It’s really rewarding.”
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