What Thomas Haas is known for
Thomas Haas, a fourth-generation pâtissier whose great-grandfather opened a bakery in Germany's Black Forest in 1918, opened Thomas Haas Fine Chocolates & Patisserie in North Vancouver in 2004 with his wife Lisa. A second location followed on West Broadway in Kitsilano in 2009, and the shops now sell pastries, cakes, chocolates and viennoiserie.
Thomas Haas is a fourth-generation pâtissier, first introduced to hand-crafting chocolates and pastries in the kitchen of Café Konditorei Haas, opened by his great-grandfather in the Black Forest town of Aichhalden, Germany, in 1918. He apprenticed and worked in Michelin-starred kitchens across Europe to earn the title of Konditormeister, or Master Pastry Chef.
In 1995, Haas moved to Vancouver to become Executive Pastry Chef at the Four Seasons Hotel, where he met his wife Lisa and twice placed in the top three of the North American Pastry Chef of the Year competition. In 1998, he moved to New York to help chef Daniel Boulud open his flagship restaurant, Daniel, on the Upper East Side.
Haas started his own venture with $20,000 in a single basement room fitted with tiles and stainless steel tables, growing chocolate production from 200–300 pieces a week to more than 30,000. He and Lisa opened Thomas Haas Fine Chocolates & Patisserie in North Vancouver in 2004, followed by a second location on West Broadway in Kitsilano in 2009, where the business now sells cakes, tarts, chocolates, pastries and viennoiserie.
How ORBIS reads this city
Best for — Fourth-generation German pâtisserie tradition, chocolates and viennoiserie
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