Doux Doux by Château Dionne
[Pork-free] Love, love me doux doux. You know I love you. We enjoyed the canelés at Doux Doux by Château Dionne in Section 17 PJ.
Opened in Feb this year, this café is an offshoot of the popular Château Dionne French fine dining restaurant in Bukit Damansara.
Located just across the Section 17 market, this French pâtisserie offers indulgent French pastries and desserts such as canelés, croissants, and brioche made with Elle & Vire French butter, and Grand Marnier souffle (which seems to be a very popular course finisher at Château Dionne).
Doux Doux by Château Dionne in PJ
Taking its name from the French word for “sweet” and “soft”, this café offers a comfortable space embellished with rattan lamps, perennial greens, and large windows to allow plenty of light into the dining space.
We discovered that the golden hour is the best time to visit this pâtisserie. We not only had the space to ourselves (it was peak dinner time after all), but the large windows allowed an exquisite view of the beautiful sunset – as we dig into our confections and listen to jazzy French tunes playing over the speakers.
Love, love me doux
The canelés are the main draw here, in our view.
We’ve tried a few canelés all around town, and we’ve found that Doux Doux has perfected the contrast between the caramelised crust and the soft, mellow centre, which makes for a very satisfying textured bite.
The canelés here come in six flavours – including the seasonal Mango Canelé which features the highly sought-after Harumanis mangoes from Perlis.
Signature Rum & Vanilla
We’ve tried all six canelés – and our top pick was the Signature Rum & Vanilla (RM10).
Made with proper copper mold, the signature canelé has the perfect crispy and caramelized crust – which contrasted very well with the soft and chewy center.
Compared to the others we’ve tried in town – the contrast was more distinctive. The rum and vanilla flavours were just distinct enough to allow a sweet depth profile.
Those who can’t take alcohol can appreciate the Original without the rum (RM8) – which has a more pronounced vanilla fragrance.
We thought the Cereal Milk Canelé (RM12) is a playful take on the OG, with a bit of crunchy texture on top.
I can matcha feel good!
We were also quite pleased with the Matcha Canelé (RM12).
Made with medium-bodied Ajisai matcha from Niko Neko, the canelé has quite a prominent matcha flavour infused into the custard, made better with some matcha cream on top.
Max has a slight preference for the Valrhona 70% Dark Chocolate (RM12) – perfectly dark and decadent for a nice bittersweet intensity.
Harumanis Mango Canelé
We are less enthused about the Harumanis Mango Canelé (RM12) which somehow lacked the distinctive floral aroma we associate with mangos.
But please don’t take our word for it as we’ve yet to try the Harumanis mango in its pure form – which is said to have a milky, creamy taste. Nevertheless, Doux Doux was very generous with the amount of mango in the canelé.
More than canelés
This café offers more than canelés, and we rather enjoyed the Mini Croissant (RM4) – which was flaky and butter in the right ways – and the Pistachio Salted Caramel Paris Brest (RM28).
The latter features a sweet pistachio cream topped with sandwiched between two pastries that were adequately light and airy.
Doux Doux by Château Dionne
Address: 940 tkt, 1, Jalan 17/38, Seksyen 17, 46400 Petaling Jaya, Selangor
Hours: 10am-6pm (Mon-Thurs), 10am-10pm (Fri-Sun)
Phone: 011-7001 2887
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