While spring may be on the horizon, we’re not quite ready to abandon our winter wear quite yet. Since hot chocolate may be the world’s coziest cool-weather beverage, it’s high time to find Toronto’s best. Whether the family’s out taking a brisk walk or merely running errands, you’ll want to make time to thaw on-the-go over one of the city’s sweetest cocoa creations.
Bobbette & Belle
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One of Toronto’s cutest bakeries, awash in pastels and stocked to bursting with glorious pastries, also happens to be home to one of its most popular and most dangerously satisfying cups of cocoa. Made to order, the shop’s hot chocolate perfectly balances sweet milk chocolate with rich cocoa powder. To gild the proverbial lily, it’s then capped off with a house-made, vanilla marshmallow that’s blow-torched to a golden caramel hue until simultaneously crisp, melty and flawless. Prepare to become a regular. Open Tuesday to Sunday from 9 am to 6 pm for take-out only.
Chocosol Traders
At Chocosol Traders, cacao is celebrated as a true “food of the gods.” Here, you won’t find run-of-the-mill bars, muddled with sweeteners and bloated with gratuitous fats. Chocosol’s artisanal bars and drinking chocolates contain 65% to 100% cacao and are flavoured exclusively with natural ingredients like cherries, vanilla and spices. Opt for the Aztec blood, a drinking chocolate softened with raw cane sugar, featuring a blend of five chilis and ground achiote, and don’t be surprised if you start to feel as powerful as Montezuma himself. Open daily 12 pm to 6pm and offering curbside and window service.
Delight Chocolate
Family run, Delight is a quaint spot that easily lives up to its name. Offering handmade treats crafted from organic, fair trade ingredients, it’s no wonder Delight’s popularity hasn’t waned since opening in 2004. Kids will revel in shelves lined with all manner of caramels, cookies, seasonal chocolates, cakes and pastries. But after a chilly stroll along Dundas, nothing will call to them more than cream-based hot chocolate in flavours ranging from peanut butter to bittersweet orange. Open Tuesday to Sunday until 6pm. Offering curbside pick-up or take-out.
Eative Film Café
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Kensington Market is the perfect spot for an early-morning scavenge. And, once you’ve picked up cheese, artisanal bread, fruit, veg and, perhaps, a vintage tee, Eative is the perfect place to revive the family’s waning energy with Japanese street eats and creative hot chocolate variations. How will little ones react to pureed banana or golden melon mixed into their mug? We think they’ll love it but there’s only one sure way to find out.
Prologue Café
Steps from the Ted Reeve Community Arena, this casual coffee shop is the place to let kids have dessert first with a pre-dinner hot chocolate. Adorned with whipped cream and crunchy chocolate pearls, this hot chocolate is also the stuff winter weekend memories are made of. Open for take-out or order online for pick-up.
SOMA Chocolatemaker
In the early aughts, Toronto was a city devoid of Douglas-Fir-infused truffles and dainty baci di dama brimming with more roast hazelnut flavour than reasonable for their tiny size. Happily, Soma brought us these treats and more, all born from an ardent devotion to bean-to-bar chocolate making and a mad-scientist approach to creativity. Soma’s hot chocolate, in five flavours ranging from malted milk to gianduja and spicy Maya, is sublimely rich and deeply chocolatey; the type of cold-weather elixir kids will cling to fondly even when they’re old enough to pick up the tab. Curbside pick-up and take-out window shopping available.
Sweet Jesus
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If you’ve ever seen kids fashion their own ice cream sundaes, you’ll understand the more-is-more ethos at Sweet Jesus. Everything that comes out of the chain’s kitchens is so excessive, piled high with sugary adornments like cotton candy and apple fritter pieces, it feels as though creative five-year-olds may be in charge (not a bad thing, when you have tiny tots in tow). Here, three flavours of hot chocolate pack an über-sweet wallop thanks to add-ons including cake batter and dark chocolate whipped cream. If ever there was a “once-in-a-while food,” this delicious indulgence is it.
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Category: restaurants
