Bà Nội : Bloorcourt’s Beloved Micro-Bakery

There’s no real sign on the front of the building. Just a small piece of wood with the hours and the name written on it. Walk past Bà Nội on Bloor Street and you might miss it entirely if you don’t know it’s there. Walk in, and you find a Bloorcourt micro-bakery that has quietly become one of Toronto’s most beloved places to buy bread, pastry, and the kind of butter tart that ruins all the other ones for you. Bà Nội was supposed to be a restaurant. It became something else, and Toronto is better for it.

A Restaurant That Pivoted into a Bakery During COVID

Chef and owner An Tran grew up in Toronto in a Vietnamese family. The original vision for Bà Nội (the name means “paternal grandmother” in Vietnamese) was a hybrid concept: a modern Vietnamese restaurant and bakery rooted in the food An grew up eating in this city. Then COVID happened.

When the pandemic hit, An was in the middle of building out the space. He didn’t have equipment. Because his project hadn’t yet generated revenue, he didn’t qualify for most government relief. Building a space, as he puts it, isn’t a job in the eyes of the programs. He was bleeding money on bills, loans, and debt while his wife was a few months from giving birth to their second child. It was the most helpless he says he’s ever felt.

The CEBA loan eventually arrived. An installed the equipment he could and started baking sourdough. Without a dining room (or the ability to use one), he sold loaves out of a window. The neighbourhood started biting. Cookies came next. Then butter tarts. Then Hong Kong style milk buns, which An says is the moment things really started flying. Focaccia, seasonal galettes, special seasonal items, and coffee followed. The Vietnamese restaurant never opened. The bakery did, and it has built one of the most loyal followings in the area.

The dining area is the bread prep zone. The bench under the window serves as flour storage. Plants cover the window like greenery growing into the room.

That window is itself a homage. The space used to be a print shop run by An’s father. After a fire next door spread to the building, An’s dad never really replaced his sign. He strapped a paper sign to the window and called it good. People in the neighbourhood ended up loving the plants covering the front. An has carried that forward. There’s a small piece of wood with the hours and “Bà Nội” written on it. That’s it. An will tell you with a laugh that he frames it as nostalgia, but the honest truth is he just hasn’t gotten around to it. Either way, it works.

What to Order

The menu rotates with the seasons and the team’s mood, but a few items have earned permanent fixture status.

The sourdough is what started everything. It’s the loaf An began with when there was nothing else to bake, and it’s still one of the strongest reasons to come in. Built with care in a kitchen that wasn’t designed for breadmaking and somehow turning out better for the constraints.

The Hong Kong style milk buns are the moment the bakery turned a corner with its audience. Soft, slightly sweet, with the bouncy pull of the format. They sell quickly, especially on weekends.

The gooey butter tarts are An’s classic. The kind of butter tart you remember the texture of for days. The brown butter chocolate chip cookies hold up alongside them, and the focaccia is generous and well-rendered.

Seasonal items rotate through. Galettes turn up when the fruit calls for them. Special bakes show up around the holidays and through the year. Coffee rounds out the offering, making Bà Nội a legitimate stop for a morning pastry and a flat white before you keep walking down Bloor.

The bread is excellent, the butter tarts are unforgettable, the milk buns are addictive, and the team behind the counter actually cares about the work. There’s a reason this micro-bakery has held its place in Bloorcourt through the hardest stretch of the last few years.

If you find yourself on Bloor between Ossington and Christie, look for the wall of plants. Walk in. You’ll understand immediately.

Written by Fabie Lubin
Photography by Scott Usheroff (Craving Curator)

Updated on May 11, 2026

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