Bakeries – Michael Eats

Great Cookies at Robinson Bread

Published on December 17, 2025 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 6 Brock Avenue, Toronto
Website: https://www.robinsonbread.com/

The sesame, fig, and white chocolate cookie at Robinson Bread appeared in Toronto Life’s list of the top 10 best new cookies in the city, which is all I needed to know.

As you’d expect from the name, Robinson Bread is mostly known for their sourdough loaves, though they do have a handful of cookies and other pastries on offer.

They’re one of those fancy bakeries that refuses to slice their bread, which infuriates me more than I should probably admit. So I have yet to try the sourdough, but based on the quality of this cookie, I have no doubt that it’s tasty.

It’s a great cookie. It’s got a perfect texture, with a nice light crispiness on its exterior and a great chewiness within. And the sweetness is perfectly tuned, with a nice balance between the white chocolate and the figs. But it’s the pronounced nuttiness from the sesame that really makes the cookie stand out. It definitely deserves its place on a list of the best cookies in the city.

Tasty Brunch at Gateau Ghost

Published on December 1, 2025 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 974 College Street, Toronto
Website: https://gateaughost.com/

Gateau Ghost is a charming brunch spot and bakery with a Korean twist (the menu features a variety of brunch standbys that are tweaked with stuff like bulgogi, kimchi, and Korean fried chicken).

I went with Owen’s Sando: “focaccia, caramelized onions, cabbage, jalapeño & cilantro, teriyaki pork shoulder OR teriyaki tofu.” (I went with pork shoulder, of course.)

It’s a solid sandwich with a great balance of flavours and textures: it’s sweet, savoury, crunchy, creamy, and chewy. In particular, the sandwich does a really great job of balancing out its sweet and savoury flavours, and it’s quite satisfying.

That’s not to mention the focaccia, which is clearly fresh and suits the sandwich perfectly. It’s a sloppy, overstuffed sandwich, but the bread holds up to it nicely without overwhelming.

The sliced pork shoulder is a bit on the dry side, which holds the sandwich back from greatness, but otherwise I liked this a lot.

You can also get a salad or fries for a four dollar upcharge; I went with the salad, which looks like the typical vinaigrette-dressed mixed greens you’ll find a place like this, but is actually a big upgrade from the norm, with a punchy zestiness that really works.

As for the bakery side of the equation, they mostly specialize in madeleines that come in various flavours. I tried the opera madeleine, which takes the coffee-and-chocolate infused flavours of an opera cake and crams it into a madeleine. It was really good.

Delicious Cookies at Cosette Coffee

Published on November 28, 2025 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 1715 Bloor Street West, Toronto
Website: https://www.instagram.com/cosette_coffee/

After reading the description of Cosette Coffee’s chocolate chip and walnut cookie (which they call a milky walnut cookie) in this Toronto Life article, I had no choice but to visit. I was obligated. Read that article and look at those photos and tell me you don’t feel the same way. I dare you.

So yeah, got that cookie. It’s a good cookie!

It’s a big, fat cookie with a gooey middle, but unlike some other places in the city (*cough* Crumbl *double cough* Andrea’s), there’s no off-putting rawness in the middle. It’s soft and melty in all the best ways.

It’s also pretty clear that they’re using great quality chocolate, and the big chunks of walnut do a great job of adding some texture and cutting the sweetness a bit. The baker here mentioned in that article that she doesn’t like a cookie that’s too sweet, and yeah, the sweetness here feels very well balanced.

It’s a great cookie, though it does taste like something is missing — not enough vanilla, maybe? But it’s otherwise so tasty, with such an addictive crispy/chewy/gooey texture, that it’s easy enough to overlook this.

I actually wound up coming back on a different day and tried the salted caramel. This one wasn’t quite as fresh as the chocolate chip cookie (it was dense and chewy throughout, with no soft gooiness), but still very, very tasty. Like with the other cookie, the sweetness level is just about perfect, with the addition of a light sprinkling of salt on top doing a great job of balancing thing out the extra sweetness from the caramel.

Quick Bites: Craig’s Cookies, Pink Ice Cream, Barbershop Patisserie

Published on November 25, 2025 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Dark chocolate chip cookie from Craig’s Cookies

I’ve been to Craig’s Cookies a few times since initially trying them back in 2018*, and I’ll admit that I’m not quite as crazy about the place as I was then; since then, I think the flavour of the cookies has diminished somewhat, and the sweetness level has skyrocketed. They’re very, very sweet cookies. Still, they’re far from bad, and on this particular visit I noticed that they have a dark chocolate chip cookie (made with chocolate chips from Soul Chocolate), which is clearly the way to go. The slight bitterness and restrained sweetness of the dark chocolate helps to balance out the sweetness of the cookie itself, and being from Soul, the quality of the chocolate is stellar. It’s a tasty cookie.

*It’s funny to look at my complaint in that review about there being almost no bakeries that specialize in cookies in the GTA. What a difference a few years makes — there’s gotta be like a couple dozen cookie shops in the GTA now, if not more.

Tahini walnut and pistachio ice cream from Pink Ice Cream

Pink Ice Cream is very well regarded and has some unique flavours, so I was pretty excited to try it. I had two flavours: tahini walnut (though I think they might have given me banana peanut instead, because the ice cream had an unripe banana flavour and no tahini that I could detect) and pistachio, and neither flavour jumped out at me as being particularly enjoyable. But people really do seem to love this place (it’s sitting at an impressive 4.9 out of 5 on Google as I write this), so it’s very possible that I’m wrong or they were just having a bad day (it also didn’t help that the freezer was too cold, resulting in very, very hard ice cream). Oh well. You can’t win ’em all!

Holiday cookie from Barbershop Patisserie

You know how I mentioned above that I’m not crazy about the cookies at Craig’s Cookies? Well, you know what cookie I am crazy about? The holiday cookie from Barbershop Patisserie. This has a chunk of chocolate in the middle (along with pistachios and cranberries), but mostly, isn’t particularly crammed with stuff. But the cookie itself is so amazingly good that it really doesn’t matter. Seriously: every cookie shop in Toronto needs to learn from this place. The cookie here has a great flavour, it isn’t too sweet, and it’s got the perfect balance of lightly crispy exterior and chewy interior. It’s cookie perfection.

More Delicious Doughnuts at Dipped Donuts

Published on November 20, 2025 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 1374 Queen Street West, Toronto
Website: https://dippeddonuts.ca/

Dipped Donuts serves some of the best doughnuts in the city. The best? Quite possibly! I’ve written about their Kensington Market location a few times, and I’m happy to say that their second location on Queen is just as good (UPDATE: since I initially wrote this, this location has closed (I have a bit of a backlog), but their initial location in Kensington Market is still alive and kicking).

As usual, every flavour looked extremely delicious. Picking just one was an ordeal.

I went with peach & ginger jelly, which is an intriguing combo that worked out even better than I was expecting.

It’s a great doughnut. The filling is sweet, but with a mild tartness that helps to balance things out. And the ginger is present enough to give the filling some character and a mild bite, but subtle enough to not overwhelm. I’ve had some ginger desserts where the ginger is too aggressive, and let me tell you: it’s a bummer to eat.

And, of course, the doughnut itself is perfect, with a great flavour and just the right balance of chewiness and fluffiness.