On the corner of Rue Sherbrooke and Mackay in Montreal, sits a quaint patiserrie and cafe called Nocochi. Nocochi, owned by Shahnaz Bagherzadeh is known for it’s homemade Persian-influenced pastries. In fact, “Nocochi,”(Nokhodchi) means “chickpea” in Persian.

Whenever we travel, we always look for tea houses. When we were in Rome, we fell in love with oh-so-calming, but expensive Babington’s Tea Shop at the Piazza di Spagna and in New York, we finally sought out the coveted Teany cafe, co-owned by one of my favorite people on Earth, Moby, and his now ex-girlfriend Kelly Tisdale. I believe Moby gave ownership of the entire cafe to Tisdale recently.

In this case, we were just looking for a great place to eat on our walk back to our hotel, when we came upon Nocochi. The minute we walked in, I absolutely fell in love. The bite-sized Persian pastries, with their unique flavors and textures brought memories back. Though they haven’t lately, my parents always used to buy the packaged versions of many of the pastries that were behind the glass.

The decor of Nocochi is very modern and simple. White tables and chairs that have IKEA written all over them sit on a white tiled floor across the cafe. Prints mounted on the wall feature closeup versions of their pastries along with vases, that are also filled with whimsical colored sweets. Two section of seating area feature a white quilted couch with single color pillows lined against them. The window panes feature Iranian inspired tea sets and tea cups for passerbys to admire as they make their way down Mackay.

Nocochi’s love of coffee brand Illy is evident, from the beverages they serve to the mugs they serve them in. Either way, I didn’t care. I wasn’t there to drink coffee. Tea is what I’m always after.

The sales associates/baristas wear black with muted baby blue aprons. All of them speak English, and quite well.

We were feeling a bit hungry, so we decided to order some food. In addition to selling pastries and serving tea, Nocochi is a full service cafe with a great selection of food. I ordered a tuna melt and Keeg ordered a mushroom pizza.

As Keeg says, it was absolutely del-eesh-oos! The tuna melt was on pita type bread, which I love and the mushroom pizza had the perfect sauce to bread to mushroom ratio. We had apple juice with our meals and we thought we were really full, until we realized that we wanted tea. What else is new?

The afternoon tea menu at Nocochi is available from 2:30 to 6 p.m., while breakfast is available 8 to 11:30 a.m. I got the chai spice tea with cinnamon, cloves, cardamom and vanilla bean. Keeg got Earl Grey Cremé with bergamot, cornflower and vanilla.

The tea was brought out loose in individual tea pots and let me tell you, it was so good. It had started raining that day while we were walking and by the time we had gotten to Nocochi, we were pretty drenched. The tea (and the lunch) made everything better. After one cup, we switched tea pots and the Earl Grey Cremé was just as good as the Chai Spice.

While we were there, the patiserrie received shipments with Vivel written on the boxes and Farsi written underneath. I was so intrigued, that when I got home, I did a bit of research and found out that Vivel is the company that Bagherzadeh owns which makes the pastries and supplies them to her boutiques, with Nocochi being the only one in the Western hemisphere. They have 4 stores in the United Arab Emirates and also franchise stores in Dammam and Khobar Saudi Arabia.

Nocochi is unique in that it is the only store I believe that operates under a different name than Vivel and has Swiss chef Jean-Daniel, who brings with him 25 years of experience in the hotel and restaurant industry.

Nocochi Cafe Patisserie
2156 Mackay Street
Corner of Sherbrooke and Mackay
(514) 989-7514