There’s so much vying for your attention if you’re kept room after dining at some of the best restaurants in Vancouver, chowing down on some tacos or grabbing a quick bibimbap.
Vancouver’s most interesting bakery cases reflect the city itself: French technique colliding with Hong Kong flavours, Lebanese ingredients tucked into familiar bakes, Japanese classics, old-school Chinatown pastries and cardamom-scented Persian sweets.
And the scene is still moving fast. September alone brought two particularly interesting arrivals on the pastry shop front: a chef with serious fine-dining credentials opened a new pâtisserie on Commercial Drive, while an Indian-inspired bakery made the jump into its own Main Street storefront.
Here’s where to surrender to the carbs.
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Commercial Drive’s newest pastry temptation arrived in September 2026, and the résumé behind it is formidable. Founder Jennifer Sun-Young Lee has worked at three-Michelin-starred Le Bernardin in New York as well as pastry shops in Paris and Montreal. Early creations include a coffee-caramel cardamom financier and an elaborate hazelnut Paris-Brest. Go now so you can say you were there before everyone else.
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One of 2026’s most exciting newcomers takes French pastry technique and sends it straight to India. Elaichi recently settled into its new Main Street storefront, where chai, cardamom and nostalgic South Asian flavours make their way into beautifully laminated pastry. Case in point: the chai-and-cookie croissant, stuffed with chai pastry cream, Parle-G butter and biscuit crumble. Oof.
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Fraser Street’s Middle Eastern-inspired bakery is particularly good at making familiar baked goods taste completely new. Think apricot frangipane bars with cinnamon-cardamom streusel, turmeric cookies inspired by Lebanese sfoof, halva cornflake cookies and a vegan brioche cinnamon bun. Vancouver Magazine singled Mishmish out in its 2026 bakery awards, and for good reason.
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French technique meets Vancouver multiculturalism at this longstanding favourite from siblings Betty and Jacky Hung. The kouign-amann remains an essential order, but Asian-inspired creations like the yuzu financiers, golden mochi croissants and the occasional Peking duck situation are what make Beaucoup unmistakably its own thing. There are now several ways to get your fix, including its newest Vancouver outpost inside Time Out Market Vancouver at Oakridge Park.
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Over on East Hastings, Kanadell is where you go when a regular croissant simply won’t do. The Japanese bakery specializes in soft, lightly sweet breads and treats such as melon pan, alongside savoury curry buns, cookies, sandwiches and matcha-flavoured goodies. Its egg sandwiches have developed their own little following too, so go early and go often.
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The aroma of saffron, cardamom, rose and pistachio immediately distinguishes this downtown Persian bakery from Vancouver’s croissant crowd. Come for flaky qottab stuffed with nuts, baklava, pistachio rolls, cardamom cakes and medovik-style honey cake. Better yet, order several things you’ve never heard of and conduct some extremely serious “research” over Turkish tea.
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There’s refreshingly little gimmickry involved here. Red Seal baker Natalie Cumberbirch trained in France (including time at L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon in Paris) and her Commercial Drive shop specializes in beautifully executed French-inspired pastry. The croissants are crisp, airy and unapologetically buttery, exactly the sort of breakfast you convince yourself requires buying another one “for later.”
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Mount Pleasant locals have been getting their pastry fix here since 2020. Melo keeps things elegant without turning breakfast into a museum exhibit: excellent almond and chocolate croissants, fruit-forward scones, quiche and cakes all share the counter. The Bananuts croissant (a banana-and-nut situation that does not believe in restraint) is worth veering off your usual pastry order for.
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Fancy a pastry followed by an English Bay walk? Bisou’s West End location has you covered. The French-inspired bakery turns out croissants, danishes, macarons and sourdough daily, with more maximalist creations including pistachio croissants and cruffins alongside the classics. The Vancouver expansion is relatively recent, giving downtown another very convincing excuse to eat laminated dough before noon.
Main Street gets a Filipino contribution to the pastry crawl at Pamilya’s Delights. This is the stop to make when you want to break away from the French-pâtisserie template and explore the buttery, cheesy, ube-loving world of Filipino baking instead. Add it to a neighbourhood crawl with Elaichi a few blocks away and suddenly “just grabbing one pastry” becomes an afternoon project.
Vancouver is now home to a brand new Time Out Market—a food and cultural hub that brings the best of the city together under one roof. The Market showcases Vancouver's best chefs, restaurateurs, drinks and cultural experiences—all based on Time Out’s editorial curation.
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