A good cookie is one of life’s simplest pleasures: crisp outside, soft and chewy inside, made with real butter and eaten while it’s still a little warm. It works with an afternoon coffee, after a long walk or as a reward for running errands on a grey November Saturday. To find the best cookies in Montreal, we relied on Tastet’s cookie list, updated in September, and picked ten bakeries and cafés across the city.
The list covers a bit of everything, from classic chocolate chip to playful seasonal flavours, and from tiny neighbourhood bakeries to beloved Montreal institutions. Many of these spots also make excellent pastries and breads, so a cookie run easily turns into a full bakery crawl.
The best cookies in Montreal: 10 spots
1. Café Névé (Plateau)
Known for excellent third-wave coffee, Café Névé at 151 rue Rachel Est is also famous for a gigantic, decadent chocolate chip cookie. There are now several locations, including on Saint-Viateur Est and Mont-Royal Est.
2. Boulangerie Cheskie (Mile End)
On the edge of Mile End and Outremont at 359 rue Bernard Ouest, Cheskie is famous for its chocolate babka, but its golden windows are packed with cookies too: black and white, chocolate, confetti. You don’t have to choose just one.
3. Bernice (Saint-Henri)
Cakes and cookies are the specialties at Bernice, 5135 rue Notre-Dame Ouest. The chef-owner trained in kitchens in Manhattan and Montreal and bakes in a back-to-basics, American style that takes you straight back to childhood.
4. Mlles Gâteaux (Villeray)
Pastry chefs Isabelle and Fanny run Mlles Gâteaux at 363 rue Villeray. Try the raspberry ghost cookie, the white chocolate O’coeur sandwich cookie, the chocolate or the oatmeal raisin. They also make personalized cookies for special occasions.
5. Hof Sucrée (Outremont)
On the ground floor of 400 avenue Atlantic, Hof Sucrée is both a café-bakery and the production workshop of the Hof Kelsten family. Generous cookies are made on site, perfect with a coffee.
6. Dépanneur Le Pick Up (Mile-Ex)
An iconic, bohemian Montreal spot at 7032 rue Waverly. Le Pick Up is best known for its sandwiches, but its chocolate chip cookie is one of Tastet’s favourites.
7. Helico (Hochelaga)
At 2009 avenue De La Salle, this café and pastry shop offers a classic milk chocolate and fleur de sel cookie or a cookie of the moment, alongside one of the city’s best brownies.
8. Cocoa Locale (Mile End)
A little bakery out of another era, Cocoa Locale has delighted Mile Enders for over 15 years at 4807 avenue du Parc. The menu changes almost every day, so there’s always a new flavour.
9. Automne Boulangerie (Rosemont–La Petite-Patrie)
Classic chocolate chip or ginger with big sugar crystals: either way, the cookies at 6500 avenue Christophe-Colomb have that perfectly chewy texture.
10. Crèmerie Dalla Rose (Saint-Henri)
Known for ice cream sandwiches made with homemade cookies, this ice cream shop at 4609 rue Notre-Dame Ouest also sells the cookies on their own. The blondie is a favourite, and the double chocolate and butter cookies are very good too.
Bonus addresses
- Arthurs Nosh Bar (4621 Notre-Dame Ouest): shortbread-style butter cookies with icing and edible confetti.
- Mandy’s: famous chocolate chip cookies at its eight locations, including on Crescent.
- Olive et Gourmando (Old Montreal): Belgian chocolate and pecan cookies, with the recipe in its cookbook.
- Feuilleté café (2450 rue de Bellechasse): generous, indulgent cookies.
- Gluten-free: Jaimée Sweets & Cie, where most creations are gluten-free, and Cookie Stéfanie, which Tastet gives a special mention.
Want to bake your own?
Tastet has also published cookie recipes from some of the city’s best-known cooks and chefs: chocolate pinoli cookies from Marc-Olivier Frappier of Vin Mon Lapin, cocoa hazelnut cookies from Stefano Faita, chocolate and fleur de sel cookies from Clément Tilly, and molasses sandwich cookies from Cheryl Johnson of Montreal Plaza. A rainy Sunday and a hot oven: there are worse ways to spend November.
Cookie tips
- Ask what came out of the oven last; a fresh cookie is a different experience.
- Buy one extra for tomorrow, then warm it for a few minutes in the oven.
- Many bakeries sell out by mid-afternoon on weekends.
Craving more sweets? Our pastry shop picks and café roundup pair perfectly, and our brunch list has more weekend ideas. Find more in our Food section. Bonne dégustation!
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- More Montreal food on MTL365
Photo: Mshuang2 / Wikimedia Commons, CC0
Sources: Tastet (best cookies), Tastet (Bernice), Tastet (Mlles Gâteaux), Tastet (Hof Sucrée), Tastet (Le Pick Up), Tastet (Cocoa Locale)
