Fluffy’s opens at a moment when new cafés are increasingly asked to do more than pour coffee. From the start, Jérôme and Eduardo have framed the project as something in progress: a place shaped through adjustment, listening, and showing up consistently. The result is this Verdun café–bakery.

The menu keeps things focused. Coffee anchors the drink program, with pour-overs alongside familiar espresso-based options. Donuts are made in-house and entirely plant-based, treated as a companion to the coffee rather than a novelty. The atmosphere follows suit—cozy, modern, and intentionally low-pressure.

Palmieri arrives with a clear point of view: Italian-inspired, but not performative. Opened in December, the café frames coffee as a slower ritual, one meant to stretch a moment rather than rush it. The result feels considered rather than romanticized: "Sip. Slow. Live. Slow" isn’t branding here so much as instruction.

Inside, the atmosphere leans warm and convivial, with a coastal palette that brings a hint of summer into the colder months. The menu stays approachable, pairing espresso-based drinks with pastries, viennoiseries, and light sandwiches. Standouts like cappuccino alongside citrus-forward desserts reinforce the café’s easy balance between comfort and polish.

When Les Joyeux Naufragés opened its doors in late 2025, it quickly became a neighbourhood fixture rather than a novelty. Manu André, already well known for Le Loup Bleu, chose a quieter commercial corner near schools and daycares, betting on daily rhythms over destination traffic. That instinct paid off.

The café draws inspiration from sailing and the idea of a shared refuge, expressed through a bright, maritime-inspired space by Nony Famili and a colourful mural by Aurore Danielou. The menu matches the mood: coffee drinks, viennoiseries, sandwiches, grilled cheese, and lunch-friendly plates that are easy to return to during the week.

Maison BaultBerri is the 2,500-square-foot café that serves as the main entrance to Empire's new Berri Street location, created in partnership between Phil Grisé and longtime friend Laurent Dagenais. Named as a nod to the building's Archambault heritage, the café operates on different hours than the retail space—opening earlier and closing later to serve the neighbourhood beyond just shoppers.

The menu features hot and cold beverages (matchas, coffees, smoothies), sandwiches, salads, soups, and pastries, all made with fresh daily ingredients from local suppliers. Designed by Daniel Finkelstein's studio Finkel', the space balances warmth with a subtle edge—low lighting, comfortable seating, and a layout that welcomes students looking to work, friends meeting for coffee, or shoppers needing a place to relax.

Velora isn’t shy about what it does best. Walk in and you’re met with a counter lined with Tres Leches cakes—pistachio, saffron, dulce de leche, coconut—made the slow way and soaked until it reaches that just-right softness. The place runs on the kind of pastry that usually comes with a long lineage, and you can feel that in everything from the Biscoff tiramisu to the Persian sweets tucked between the cakes. The coffee’s there to keep pace with the sugar, but dessert is the headliner (plus solid savory options like a Dutch baby shakshuka). Montreal gets a lot of new cafés, but few arrive this fully formed.