La Diperie
4085 Saint-Denis Street | Website
Au Festin de Babette is a classic go-to spot for great hot chocolate in Montréal. Its hot chocolate selection is separated into three categories: dark chocolate, white chocolate and Valrhona Grands Crus. In all, twelve different flavours for you to enjoy, from a classic mix to comforting brews flavoured with spices, orange, nuts or piment d’Espelette.
Au Festin de Babette
4085 Saint-Denis Street | Website
Au Festin de Babette is a classic go-to spot for great hot chocolate in Montréal. Its hot chocolate selection is separated into three categories: dark chocolate, white chocolate and Valrhona Grands Crus. In all, twelve different flavours for you to enjoy, from a classic mix to comforting brews flavoured with spices, orange, nuts or piment d’Espelette.
© C'ChoColat Lounge
C’ChoColat
1255 Bishop Street | Website
C’ChoColat takes toppings to a whole new level! Its crazy and fun concoctions include hot chocolates topped with salted caramel, Oreo bits, marshmallows, and more! Pick from one of its five hot chocolate flavours (including a vegan one) and add some extra toppings for a more decadent drink.
Café Reine Garçon
611 Duluth East | Website
Les Chocolats de Chloé, a much beloved chocolate shop, is now only selling its hot chocolate mixes to go. Don't fret however, because you can enjoy a cup of their vanilla, chaï or mint hot chocolate across the street at Café Reine Garçon. Don’t miss out on this rich and delicious brew.
Le Butterblume
5836 Saint-Laurent Blvd. | Website
In the Mile End, the Butterblume has become one of the most popular in Montréal from day one. Its take on the tartine made on its homemade sourdough bread is now legendary. Its hot chocolate concoction is made with 65% Cacao Barry chocolate, some cocoa and love. Oh, and milk of course, regular or plant based.
Marius et Fanny
2006 Saint-Hubert Street (and other locations) | Website
Half a dozen flavours of hot chocolate await you at Marius et Fanny: white, caramel, milk 38%, Ghana 40%, Guayaquil 64% and Tanzania 75%. The intense flavours include some single origin chocolates. Marius et Fanny also serves special seasonal concoctions.
© Alison Slattery
Automne Boulangerie
6500 Christophe-Colomb Avenue & 1470 rue Bélanger | Website
The Scandinavian-inspired Rosemont bakery serves some of the best bread in the city. Its pastries are also delicious and so is its hot chocolate. Automne uses 64% dark chocolate, cocoa powder, a sprinkle of local St-Laurent salt. You can get yours with regular or plant-based milk. Either way, it’s delicious!
Sophie Sucrée
3770 Saint-Laurent Blvd. | Website
Vegan bakery Sophie Sucrée specializes in pastries and cakes that are dairy free and/or allergy friendly. Its regular hot chocolate is served all winter long and is a scrumptious mélange of chunks of Belgian dark chocolate melted in the client’s choice of (plant based) milk and finished with a pinch of salt. They also have a mint hot chocolate made with their homemade mint syrup and adorned with crushed candy canes. The beverages can be topped with homemade vegan marshmallow or whipped cream.
© Alison Slattery
Hof Kelsten
4524 Saint-Laurent Blvd. | Website
This Mile End Jewish-style bakery has garnered a loyal following since its opening. Hof Kelsten’s flakey pastries and scrumptious breads are some of my favourites, hands down. Their hot chocolate is made by preparing a thick Valhrona chocolate ganache, which is then thinned out with hot steamed milk, in the same manner one would make a latte.
Café Dei Campi
6201 Rue Chabot | Website
Everything at Café Dei Campi tastes delicious. The vegan pastries are some of the best in town, regardless of whether or not they contain butter or eggs. The hot chocolate is no exception and is prepared with extra brute cocoa with vanilla and sugar and your choice of soy, oat or homemade almond milk.
Avanaa
309 Gounod Street | Website
The little Villeray chocolate factory makes its exceptional bars from beans that it sources, roasts and prepares in house. Avanaa’s classic hot chocolate is a rich mix of two 70% chocolates, a little sugar and oat milk. Don’t forget to top yours with a homemade marshmallow. The classic as well as the chaï and maple mixes are available for purchase to make at home.
Janine Café
3900 Wellington Street | Website
The popular brunch and lunch spot also serves several hot chocolates made with a variety of beans, including white chocolate. Try one of Janine Café’s most popular drink made from 58% chocolate or its spiced one, created by adding a warm spice blend and topped with a cinnamon stick. Janine also serves a deconstructed hot chocolate that includes a small teapot with melted chocolate, a pitcher of your choice of milk (cow or plant-based) and homemade marshmallows.
© Alison Slattery - Two Food Photographers
MELK Bar à Café
1206 Stanley Street and 5612 Monkland Avenue | Website
With two coffee shops across the city, MELK Bar à Café is slowly expanding its coffee empire through Montréal. The MELK hot chocolate is made like a latte with a dark or milk Cacao Barry chocolate base and an addition of steamed milk. It can be topped with their homemade marshmallows.
© Ali Inay @inayali
Pikolo Espresso Bar
1635 Clark | Website
This little café in the McGill University ghetto has been a coffee lover destination since its opening. Pikolo’s hot chocolate base is a dairy-free, homemade chocolate syrup made with 54% Callebaut chocolate. A milk of your choice is then added to the syrup base. That same chocolate base is also used in its mochas.
Arhoma
15 Place Simon-Valois and 1700 Ontario Street East | Website
The Hochelaga-Maisonneuve bakery and pastry shop is one of the most loved in Montréal for its baked goods. Arhoma’s hot chocolate is made with Guayaquil 64% dark chocolate. Clients also have the option of having their hot brew made with Arhoma’s boxes and packets of 72.7% dark gold chocolate by Cacao Barry.
© Alison Slattery - Two Food Photographers
Fous Desserts
809 Laurier Avenue East | Website
This popular Plateau Mont-Royal pastry shop is a destination for lovers of all things sweet. Fous Desserts offer 7 different hot chocolate mixes, 4 house blends and 3 made with Valrhona chocolate, including a 65% cocoa one from Papua, with a nice smoky flavour. Try their Chaï mix with Valrhona chocolate, cocoa powder, spices from local shop Épices de Cru and black Assam tea.
Barley, cereal bar
2613 Notre-Dame Street West | Website
This Little Burgundy “cereal bar” serves smoothie bowls, breakfast and brunch items and, of course, cereal. Barley’s hot chocolate is a rich concoction that can be topped with a handful of cereal for that extra sweetness and crunch.
Alice & Theo
3870 Wellington Street | Website
Located in Verdun, charming Alice & Theo is named after the owners' children. It specializes in artisanal ice cream and puff pastries, among other treats. Alice & Theo offer a few hot chocolates, one with 65% dark chocolate and another lighter one made with 41% chocolate. They also offer a matcha and white chocolate latte made with their green matcha sourced directly from Japan as well as a blue matcha with white chocolate and lavender.
L’affaire est chocolat
2350 Rue Beaubien East | Website
Beaubien Street L’affaire est chocolat offers a “hot chocolate bar” where you can customize your hot chocolate. Choose a chocolate (anything from a house brand to a “prestige” gold with different cocoa content), then choose a size and milk percentage, add some “character” in the form of spices, aromas or syrups, and finally, top it off with some extras such as whipped cream or marshmallows. It’s the perfect drink every time! They have 18 chocolates to choose from, including some from Vietnam.
Café Chez Téta
227 Rue Rachel East | Website
At Café Chez Téta, the beloved Plateau spot, specializes in Lebanese delicacies. One of their brews is made by expertly combining a homemade 70% cocoa chocolate ganache infused with anisseed and caraway, for a drink that is reminiscent of sundrenched faraway lands.
M. & Mme Chocolat
273 Rue Beaubien East | Website
This Petite Patrie chocolate shop prepares four kinds of hot chocolates. The first, their Classic, is made with a house mix of 64% dark chocolate, cocoa and oat milk. The second, their Boréal mix, is made with a mix of 64% chocolate and some local spices such as Gorria pepper (our local Espelette), Sweet Gale, and Québec juniper berries. The third is a pure 70% Guanaja chocolate from Valrhona. And finally, the fourth mix is like a “liquid Nutella” but with nothing but great ingredients such as a 64% chocolate and hazelnuts from Piedmont. The four mixes are also available to go in addition to a chocolate bomb that contains a marshmallow.
© Alison Slattery
Café Ferlucci
432 Rue de Castelnau East | Website
Cute Villeray Italian coffeshop Ferlucci has had a loving following since day 1 due to their excellent coffee, their friendly attitude, and their cozy ambiance. Their regular hot chocolate with marshmallows is available all year round. To get into the Holiday spirit, they serve a peppermint hot chocolate available from the end of November to Mid-January. And their spicy hot chocolate with dark chocolate, plant-based milk and notes of cinnamon, chili and ginger makes an appearance for a few weeks towards mid-January.
© Alison Slattery
La Bête à Pain
Ahuntsic: 114 Fleury Street West & Griffintown: 195 Young Street | Website
La Bête à Pain serves some of the best breads and pastries in the city at their two Montréal locations (with a third one in Laval). Their hot chocolate is a mixture of frothed milk with two kinds of chocolate from Belgian chocolate maker Callebaut Belgian.
La Cave à Manger
386 Saint-Paul Street East | Website
La Cave à Manger’s circular croissant may have gone viral on social media but their matcha hot chocolate is just as enticing. It’s made by mixing their white chocolate ganache infused with Camelia Sinensis matcha with oat milk. The drink is then topped with a homemade marshmallow made with the same matcha that’s toasted directly in the cup.
Miette Boulangerie
317 Rue de Lévis | Website
You can find some of the best sourdough breads in Montréal at Griffintown’s Miette Boulangerie. Surprisingly, you can also find one of the best hot chocolates in town made with their very own blend of dark chocolate, cocoa powder, milk and sugar, and topped with a giant homemade roasted marshmallow.
Mayssam Samaha
Mayssam Samaha is a food and travel writer and blogger and the founder behind the blog Will Travel for Food. She travels the world in search of the next culinary discovery. From Iceland to South Africa, she’s already visited over 30 countries and there’s nothing she enjoys more than wandering around a farmers’ market in a foreign city. She is also the founder of the SAISONS intimate dinner series highlighting Québec products and chefs.
