Location: 1285 Elgin Mills Road East, Richmond Hill
Website: https://laroccakitchen.com/

Is key lime pie the king of pies?  It might be!  The contrast between the tart filling, the sweet graham cracker crust, and the creamy topping is absolutely magical when done well.  I have a hard time saying no when I see it on a menu.

And La Rocca Creative Kitchen — which serves the type of little pastries that look so nice it’s almost a shame to eat them — makes a really good one.

It’s a little bit untraditional.  The typical whipped cream topping is subbed out for creamy Italian meringue, and the crust is made from speculoos cookies instead of graham cracker.

It’s great.  Sometimes a key lime pie’s crust can be too substantial or dry, but this had the perfect level of crunch without getting in the way, and the flavour of the speculoos set it apart from the norm.

The dense, creamy Italian meringue might even be better than whipped cream.  Certainly, it does a perfect job of balancing out the tart key lime custard.

And the custard was just right — it’s sweet and creamy, with just the right amount of tartness.  It’s good stuff.