A Little Bit About a Lot of Things

JP is under rated. There are so many great little shops and neighborhood restaurants that most Bostonians don’t even know about. Canto 6 is one of JP’s best kept secrets. (Although, they were voted Best of Boston 2007)

Canto 6. Ring a bell? From Dante’s Divine Comedy, the 6th canto of the Inferno is where Dante puts the food obsessed, the gluttons. The bakery says, “Our Canto 6 is a salute to food: the devilishly good, the indulgent, and of course, the divine”.

I love this place. It has a really home-y vibe to it and the baked goods are delicious. When I think of this place, I imagine that it’s like when you are away at school and your mom sends you home made baked goods and you get all nostalgic for home. I say imagine here because my mom can’t bake for her life, so I have no idea what that actually feels like…but if she could bake, this is what I imagine it would be like.

Located across the street from a police station, Canto is a real neighborhood kind of place. There are about 10 seats in the place and on a weekend afternoon, they can be hard to come by.I suggest getting there early before all the good stuff is gone! Oh wait, I take that back, because if you go early, the good stuff might be gone when I get there…so go late, go late go late! They have a menu on their website, but they have other things that vary daily. This past time we had a pear ginger pastry and a piece of chocolate walnut banana bread.

I am never disappointed when I come here. Everything is fresh and flavorful. The service is friendly, what else could you ask for? I love love loved the banana bread. Maybe because I love banana bread in general, but this one was just so moist with a nice crust on the outside, the nuts gave it a nice crunch and the chocolate, well how can chocolate in something be bad?

The fruit desserts here are always good, they have had raspberry squares which I love, fruit tarts, you really can’t go wrong here.  I am quite partial to the monkey bread-cinnamon and sugar gooey goodness. They also serve sandwiches and have bread from Clear Flour bakery in Brookline. They have this dessert called the Bostok (I’ve never seen it anywhere else), a slice of brioche with orange blossom water syrup and home made frangipane, which I would try is I were an orange lover…

So go and discover Jamaica Plain, and stop in for a sweet treat at Canto 6- or don’t, so there will be more for the rest of us!

Canto 6

3346 Washington Street Jamaica Plain

617-983-8688

www.canto6bakery.com

Mon-Fri 7:30am-5pm; Sat-Sun 8am-5pm

Update: March 2010

We have a pistachio shortbread cookie. It doesn’t taste very pistachio or shortbread-like but it is fantastic. It’s thin and has a nice crisp on the outside but is soft on the inside. It’s buttery and sugary!

We also get an apple blackberry tart. The crumb topping is delicious. I’m not really a berry pie kind of gal…and I barely tasted the apple. It reminded me more of a mixed berry tart…so not my favorite.

Tags: bakery, jamaica plain