Top 5 butter tarts in Toronto
Published March 21, 2025 at 3:53 pm
Butter tarts are one of the most undeniably Canadian treats you can get in Toronto, believed to be invented in Ontario with the first recipe appearing in a cookbook from Barrie dating all the way back to the year 1900.
The best butter tarts have a flaky crust and a thick, sticky, oozing filling that tastes of pure butter and sugar, also known as heaven. A truly great butter tart will always leave a slight residue on your plate, napkin or paper bag, even before you’ve bitten into it.
There’s some debate over whether butter tarts are better with additional fillings like nuts or raisins, or if they’re best at their purest with a totally plain filling with nothing added. Either way, as soon as you bite into one you can instantly see why they’ve become a Canadian favourite.
Here’s where to find some of Toronto’s top butter tarts.
5 – Mabel’s Bakery
These are the perfect butter tarts for those who prefer more of the tender, crumbly crust of a butter tart to an overflowing, gooey filling. Still, the filling is perfectly sweet, and there are lots of different options for flavours.
Mabel’s has several locations and two options for butter tarts: pecan and toffee. The pecan version has a nice sticky filling with lots of big, whole crunchy pecans.
4 – Evelyn’s
Butter tarts come bite-sized at this bakery in Liberty Village specializing in whole grain products. You can really taste that with this butter tart, with a very nutty, rich crust with a complex flavour profile.
The crust is perfectly balanced out by a simple filling that’s just the right amount of sweet, with a fudgy consistency that’s just the tiniest bit drippy and syrupy.
The butter tarts at this bakery named for the street where it’s located are larger, rounder and flatter than most. That just means even more surface area for more bites of a tasty butter tart.
The crust is very buttery, crumbly and lightly baked, and the filling is very syrupy and gooey with a lovely caramelized flavour. The top of this butter tart has a very smooth, glassy finish with a slight crackle that’s very satisfying to bite into.
2 – Larry’s Place
Butter tarts from this popular Parkdale coffee shop have a thick but still flaky crust that holds a deep well of very sticky, deeply browned filling that’s bubbly on top and very gooey and moist underneath.
These tarts are available in the morning every day, but you’ll have to be quick to snap one up as they’re typically in high demand.
1 – Ba Noi
Baking production takes place in full view of shoppers arriving at this Bloorcourt bakery to pick up fresh goods.
The cutest teeny little butter tarts from here are super crispy with a tiny sprinkle of salt on top that totally sets off the treat’s sweet flavours. Expect deep notes of caramel, toffee, toast and butter, all from this small but mighty tart from an equally small micro-bakery.
