When it comes to eateries, Commercial Drive has the continents pretty well covered. So it’s shocking that until recently, there wasn’t a French bakery to be found on the Drive. Enter Bakery Sate, the passion project of Eric Ho, who opened the shop with his wife in July 2014. “I was an engineer for 13 years but in 2012 I decided to close my business to pursue this passion of mine,” he says with a smile.
Eric has always loved baking and cooking for family and friends, but it was his business trips to France four or five times a year in his former life that gave him the opportunity to learn everything he could about French baking and pastry culture. The pastry program at Vancouver’s Pacific Culinary Institute helped him master French baking techniques, which he hones 12 hours a day in the shop’s spacious kitchen.
