According to Monsieur Félix:

After years of success as a pâtissier in my native France, I came to Canada in 1984 to open my own bakery.  I knew that I would prepare delightful and delectable desserts using only the finest ingredients that I could find.  I would bring my knowledge of chocolat and pur beurre to amuse the unrefined palates of the Canadian consommateurs.  When I arrived, I was très surpris to find that Montreal was filled with patisseries operated by my countrymen making wonderful desserts of the finest quality.  The bar had already been set very high.  What could I do to find my niche in this godforsaken country? 

Then one fateful day, I bumped into my old classmate from L’École de Patisserie in Lausanne, Switzerland, Mr. Norton Fleetwood III, who was in from Boston to find his long lost love. He shared with me his dream of making his chocolate chip cookies.  He offered me some to try, but I could not even swallow one morsel – they were truly dégueulasse!  I dragged him into the kitchen, and there the ingredients started to fly – fresh sweet butter, unbleached flour, large whole nuts from the finest growers in the world, and of course, from my homeland – the finest dark chocolate, smooth and creamy milk and white chocolate, coarsely cut in giant chunks, to make an explosion of saveurs that would make the lucky customer shout “MAGNIFIQUE!”

Well, Mr. Norton was so grateful for the brilliance that I shared with him, that he invited me to join him in partnership in a business that he wanted to call, ridiculously, Mr. Norton and Monsieur Félix Cookies.  We battled for many days, and I threatened to return to France with all my secret recipes until he finally relented, and Monsieur Félix & Mr. Norton Cookies was born.

We began making our cookies together in a small shop on Queen Mary Road in Montreal’s Snowdon district in April 1985.  I stayed in the back kitchen, mixing, chopping and best of all, creating wonderful new combinations to surprise and excite the palates of our clientele.  Norton, on the other hand, was in the front of the store, handing out free samples to all the pretty girls, hoping that this would make them look past his portly appearance and dull personality.  One day, he walked into my kitchen with a couple of striking young ladies just as I was looking at the mounds of dark, milk and white chocolate morsels wondering what to create next.  “But of course!” I cried out.  Fired by this wonderful inspiration, the world famous Menage-à-Trois® cookie was created that very day. 

After that, everything happened very quickly.  We opened many stores and began to franchise our concept (Norton’s idea), first across Montreal, then across Quebec, then in Toronto.  Me, I stayed in the kitchen with my beloved chocolat!  For years, I barely saw my American born partner; he was always in a meeting, too busy to share my pleasure of creating delights fresh from the oven.  Then one day in 1998, he came to me and said: “Monsieur Félix, you are right.  (Of course, I knew that, even before he finished his sentence)  We must get back to the kitchen, and spend our time doing what we love!”  It was then and there that we agreed to sell our stores, but never to give up our name or our recipes.  And so the stores were sold to a franchising company that would use our name, but would only buy all of their delicious cookie dough straight from our kitchens.

We took some time to travel the world, looking for new ingredients and new experiences, taking time for simple pleasures and of course, more chocolat! 

And that is how we have arrived at this next special moment in our careers.  We hope you enjoy our famous chocolate chunk cookies, and I can’t wait to hear how much you love them.  Please drop me a line by e-mail to tell me how my cookies make you happy.  If there is something you don’t like, please send it to Norton, because it is surely his fault!


Contact Monsieur Félix: felix@felixandnorton.ca