The Best Butter Tarts in Toronto

Pucks of molten sugar and crumbly pastry as big as your palm, the butter tarts at this East Chinatown spot are destination pastries worth seeking out. Boasting no bells and whistles — just the modest perfection of quality ingredients and spot-on recipes — these feel like a throwback to a simpler time.

This bakery (with locations in East York and at Yonge & Eglinton) makes a dessert recently judged the best butter tart at the Ontario Butter Tart Festival. Order the classic, or dive into the unknown, with butter tarts trimmed with chocolate, sweetened with maple, even flavoured with pumpkin spice.

Bloorcourt is home to this micro-bakery, where a compact team turns buckets of butter, corn syrup, brown sugar and more into dozens of twee tarts. Baked until crisp and burnished, with a fluid centre and chewy edge, these are not to be missed.

Made naturally, without preservatives or artificial flavours, the butter tarts coming out of the oven at this Danforth East bakery are homey and nostalgic in the best ways. Available with or without dried currants, there's one to suit every taste.

Whether or not you avoid gluten, you'll wolf down the tarts from this gluten-free Etobicoke bakery. A range of varieties includes classic, pecan, s'mores and maple walnut, with vegan versions of several also on offer.

Sticky with caramelized sugar skirts, the butter tarts at this family-run spot at Bayview and Leaside are as alluring as every item coming out of the kitchen. Order six bourbon pecan, and make a mental note of the fastest way to get here — you'll inevitably be back.