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What’s on the menu at Gateau Ghost, a Korean-Parisian bistro that started life as a bakery

Jayden Park’s bakery and brunch spot now does dinner

By Lindsey King| Photography by Shlomi Amiga

| February 24, 2025

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A table set with Korean-French dishes and drinks at Gateau Ghost in Toronto

Name: Gateau Ghost Contact: 974 College St., gateaughost.com, @gateau_ghost
Neighbourhood: Dufferin Grove
Owners: Jayden Park and Randall Papineau Chefs: Executive chef Jayden Park and sous-chef Owen Nam Accessibility: Fully accessible

Jayden Park first made a name for himself by crafting over-the-top madeleines during the pandemic, selling them through an online shop and at pop-ups. His petite sweet treats were so popular that Park landed himself a brick-and-mortar café and bakery, where he started offering brunch dishes alongside his baked goods. Not content to stop there, Park recently launched his latest venture: a dinner menu that incorporates staple Korean ingredients into French bistro classics.

Chef Jayden Park, chef and co-owner of Gateau Ghost, stands in front of a wall

In the fall of 2022, Park was riding high on the success of his virtual pastry shop. Gateau Ghost had a devoted following, and Park was selling out weekly. One day, entrepreneur Randall Papineau noticed Park’s page on Instagram and—recognizing the chef’s chic sensibility and creative spirit—messaged him about taking Gateau Ghost from a pop-up to a permanent space. Over dinner at Union, Park pitched his dream: a cozy Korean-influenced pastry café. “I put together a mood board for the first time in my life,” says Park. “It was full of Pinterest screenshots of pastries and interior design.” But, as the conversation unfolded, the vision for Gateau Ghost expanded. Why stop at a daytime-only café? Why not go for a full-service, morning-to-midnight restaurant?

By February of 2024, they’d signed a lease on the former Barocco x Nino space. This was followed by a three-month-long renovation led by Conik Studios, which Papineau also co-owns. Gateau Ghost opened its doors later that spring with a lineup of Park’s signature madeleines and a playful brunch menu that felt like a natural extension of Park’s baking, featuring dishes like ricotta french toast, cereal-crusted shrimp toast and sticky madeleine toffee pudding. Then came the next challenge: dinner.

A closeup of savoury madeleines, covered in a shower of parmesan cheese

The Food

Over the holiday season, Park and his team tinkered and tested, plating dish after dish—but something wasn’t clicking. “A lot of those dishes were good ideas,” Park says. “But I kept asking myself, Is this Gateau Ghost?” Eventually, they scrapped the menu entirely and started from the top.

The second time around, Park leaned in to his roots and spent more time considering which dishes diners loved the most. He led with his heart, making food that reminded him of his time living in Korea. He also incorporated his experience working in Toronto and Montreal kitchens, but with a Korean perspective. Now, after months of fine-tuning, the dinner menu is just right—it captures the same sentimental and indulgent spirit that made Park’s pastries a sensation in the first place.

When dinnertime hits, Park wants the vibes to be immaculate. He wants friends to feel like they’re living their best lives and couples to have anniversary-worthy dates. “Dinner has got to be cute,” he says. “My boyfriend sent me a reel titled ‘Girlypop Restaurant,’ and I didn’t realize until that moment that that’s us—a vibey place for being cute in dim lighting.” “Phone eats first” is almost an unspoken rule: every dish lands on the table ready for its close-up. “People already loved taking photos of the food and bringing their dates here during the daytime,” says Park. “I didn’t want to disappoint them for dinner.”

Gai lan dressed in a torched garlic perilla vinaigrette and gochugaru. $16

An order of smoked kimchi arancini and torched scallion aïoli — What began as a brunch special ended as a dinner staple. The internet demanded that these smoked kimchi arancini return to the menu, and Park smartly obliged. Inspired by late-night hankerings for fried rice, these deep-fried balls are equal parts kimchi and rice, stuffed with green peas and gooey mozzarella and served with a side of torched scallion aïoli for dunking. $19

Three crostini topped with ground tenderloin mixed with roasted gochujang, pickled pear, capers, chives and perilla oil — The steak tartare is an ode to yukhoe, Korea’s spicy raw beef dish. Here, Blackbird crostini are topped with ground tenderloin mixed with roasted gochujang, pickled pear, capers, chives and perilla oil, which balances the richness of the beef with a subtle vegetal bitterness. $24

Miso peanut roasted flat cabbage is made with flat cabbage topped with peanut-miso beurre noisette and finished with slivered almonds and chives — The miso peanut roasted cabbage is made with flat cabbage (a delicate variety that’s halfway to lettuce) steeped in a salt-sugar brine for over 12 hours before being roasted in the oven and finished on the grill. “A lot of cabbage dishes have great sauce, but the cabbage itself lacks flavour. With ours, I wanted to make sure every bite is seasoned,” says Park. It’s topped with peanut-miso beurre noisette (a classic French brown butter sauce, but with a big dose of peanut butter and miso to pump up the nuttiness and umami) and finished with slivered almonds and chives. $19

Underneath a lacy tuile is a lineup of mandu, fried dumplings filled with pork and crab, and swimming in a gingery pool of crab bisque — Underneath this lacy tuile is a lineup of mandu, fried dumplings swimming in a gingery pool of crab bisque. Park tested a few ravioli recipes but ultimately took inspiration from family outings to Korean restaurants and elevated the dumplings of his childhood. These ones are filled with pork and king crab meat. And the shells don’t go to waste: they’re roasted and then steeped in the sauce for complexity. $38

Tsukune, a Japanese-style chicken-and-pork meatball stuffed with pickled chilis and basil, roasted, coated in tare sauce, torched and topped with a quail's egg and basil — Park’s favourite dish on the dinner menu, the tsukune is a Japanese-style chicken-and-pork meatball stuffed with pickled chilis and basil. After roasting, the tsukune is coated in tare sauce, then torched for an extra charred note. The raw quail egg in the centre cooks just enough from the tsukune’s residual heat. $29

Sliced bavette steak served with a red wine jus, potatoes and a torched scallion aïoli — For the steak and mochi pommes dauphine, an eight-ounce cut of bavette is seared to order and doused in brawny red wine jus. But, instead of pairing it with classic frites, Park’s potato side is a crispy-on-the-outside, chewy-on-the-inside invention that owes its interesting texture to mochi flour. “We only came to the final recipe for the mochi pommes dauphine after many tries,” he says. “There was a point when I thought, *Maybe we should just do frites*, but we kept working on it. Now that we have it, I’m really happy. They represent Gateau Ghost’s identity well.” On the side: more of that torched scallion aïoli. $46

A Korean short rib is plated with pommes purée and finished with toasted sourdough crumbs and herbs — Not for the faint of heart, this spicy Korean short rib gives big main-character energy. With this dish, Park wanted to create something that was actually spicy. “When I started going to Korean restaurants in Canada and friends would ask if a dish was spicy, our servers would often say something was ‘Korean spicy’ or ‘Canadian spicy.’ I wanted to make something that was Korean spicy. People really love it. Sometimes you look over from the kitchen and see a diner dripping with sweat, but then they give you a look that means ‘I’m fine.’” After a low-and-slow five-hour braise in a spicy marinade and mirepoix, the short rib is plated over a scoop of garlicky pommes purée and topped with more sauce, toasted sourdough crumbs and herbs. $52

The Drinks

Since opening for dinner, Gateau Ghost has expanded their beverage program, adding local craft beers and a longer list of natural wine. “The biggest reason we have natural wine is because I love to drink it,” says Park. “But our cocktails are a bit more popular.” The team created the cocktail menu by using classic recipes they found on Pinterest and tweaking them to suit their own palates. Then they layered in Korean ingredients to echo the food menu.

The Matcha Blueberry Highball is made by shaking Japanese whisky, matcha, blueberry purée and honey with ice — The most popular cocktail so far is the Matcha Blueberry Highball, made by shaking Japanese whisky, matcha, blueberry purée and honey with ice. It’s strained and topped with soda water and a wheel of dried citrus. $22

A spicy paloma cocktail, made with tequila, orange liqueur, gochujang and grapefruit soda — GG’s Spicy Paloma is made with tequila, orange liqueur, gochujang and grapefruit soda. It’s finished with dried grapefruit and a spicy-salty rim. $19

The Space

Park modestly claims he doesn’t know anything about interior design—what mattered to him was that his guests be comfortable. He worked with Conik to make the most of the room’s long and narrow shape. The front café and merchandise area makes use of the street-facing window and is outfitted with small tables, each the perfect size to fit two cups of coffee (and maybe a couple of madeleines). The café space is followed by an open kitchen with a chef’s table, then a dining room clad in a mix of sable leather banquettes and mid-century-modern-inspired chairs. Tying the three spaces together are bold black lines that echo Gateau Ghost’s adorable line-drawn logo.

Customers sit on a bench in the café portion of Gateau Ghost

People eat in the dining room of Gateau Ghost while chefs work in the kitchen

Baseball caps with little line-drawn ghosts on them

The exterior of Gateau Ghost, a restaurant and bakery in Toronto

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