Maxim's pastry - gone WAY down hill!!

[Charles Yu]

Had a chance to taste 4 different pastries from Maxims ( 2 locations - 16 and Bayview/Finch and Bayview ) today. Previously, their Tiramisu and black forest cake were both extremely enjoyable. Fluffy and light, not too sweet and using fresh cream only. Today, every one of their cakes, be it mousse, cheesecakes....all looked artificial, tasted wierd and all having 'dry grainy' sponges and/or crust bottom! Chowhound beware!

[Lovemomoe]

I've eaten at both location before. IMO, the Finch location is better than the Richmond Hill one. Don't know why, maybe they have different chef? The above poster said all the cakes origin from Finch, maybe that's why the cake is a day old?

[Royaljelly]

There's some bad reviews about the Finch location too as of late, we're trying to figure out if they changed owners/bakers lately?

http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/696039

[Royaljelly]

Hi Charles,

That's quite odd that their quality would plunge so quickly... I bought a full sized chestnut cake (our fav) a few weeks back for a birthday party, and everyone commented that it tasted pretty darn good. Perhaps they sold you their one-day old slices?

How did you manage to get to sample their cakes from both locations in one day? Don't tell me you had a sweet tooth and drove to both places. :)

[Charles Yu]

Cakes were from the Richmond Hill location. ( though I know all their cakes originate from the Finch kitchen ). You might be right, the slices might be day old, actually more like 'days' old!

[Chris Lau]

I also had 2 bad experiences with Maxim's Richmond Hill location. I bought 6 strawberry meringues and ate same day purchased. All 6 tasted really stale and you can tell it was days old.

The second time I gave it another try and bought strawberry shortcake. We cut into it that night and found MOULD in the cake!!! The cakes from Toronto location seem fine but this Richmond Hill location I will never buy from again.

[325i]

I agree the place has gone downhill quite a lot. The cakes I had there within these few months were not fresh and tasteless. Maybe because of over expansion after they moved to the bigger shop at their Finch location?