Montreal bakery Viva Panettone takes artisanal approach to seasonal treat

The Montreal-based bakery Viva Panettone takes an artisanal approach to the 'Everest' of bread-making.

Eric Goeury says that after tasting a true artisanal panettone, the course of his life and career changed.

As a Montreal-based baker with decades of experience, he had mastered every kind of bread, but panettone, a sweet Italian brioche that dates back to the Middle Ages, stumped him.

“Panettone is considered the Everest of making bread, of making brioche,” he said. “It’s the most difficult but it’s the best.”

Goeury, who is from France, started his research and made a series of failed attempts before he got it right.

The fruit of that success is Viva Panettone, a bakery dedicated to the Italian treat. Along with Anthony Daniele, an artisanal baker with Italian roots, they set up an artisanal bakery in St-Leonard, where they make panettone year-round.

Goeury said the most important employee at the bakery is the “lievito madre,” a 100-year-old sourdough starter that comes from Italy.

“Without the sourdough, the madre, there is no panettone,” he said.

He said the starter is different than one used to make sourdough bread, and taking care of it is a full-time job.

“You have to understand her; you have to know her. You have to put her in good form because she can die, she can be sick,” Goeury said.

Each panettone takes about three days to make from start to finish. The bakery also candies the fruit in-house, another time-consuming process.

Over the years, the reputation for their artisanal panettone has grown, and they’re now considered one of the best artisanal panettone producers in North America. Goeury has twice represented Canada at the Panettone World Cup championships in Milan, Italy, where the delicacy is said to have originated.

The weeks leading up to Christmas are their busiest time. Co-owner Marie-Eve Chaume said they’ll be making 50,000 panettone to meet the demand.

“It’s 80 per cent of our business,” she said.

But Chaume said they’re trying to make panettone a year-round treat, and have come up with innovative flavours, such as cacio e pepe and maple syrup, to entice a new audience for panettone. She said, unfortunately, many people have had industrially produced panettone, which can be dry and stodgy.

“When you taste a real artisanal panettone it’s like an experience. Having the chance to bring that to the people across Canada is very important,” Chaume said.

She said you can tell a quality panettone by its shape. It will have a rounded top with some ears and some holes on the bottom. A sourdough panettone will also have a longer shelf life than one made from yeast. Once opened, an artisanal panettone can last up to 30 days, and it’s best eaten slightly warmed.