Founded in Montreal and the first-ever sub-brand of Fuwa Fuwa, Café Noya offers a fresh take on Japanese cuisine in a unique coffee and bar place. It serves comfort home-cooked meals.
Café Noya comes across as a cozy, casual udon cafe in downtown Montreal that fits studying or casual meals. The menu centers on udon and onigiri, with beef udon and creamy miso mushroom udon among the popular bowls, plus flavorful onigiri such as unagi and salmon; several notes mention rich broths and chewy noodles, though some dishes are criticized for being bland or undersauced and portions can feel small for the price. The drinks and desserts, especially matcha based options and mochi, are often highlighted as standout items and a welcome complement to the savory bowls. The service is described as friendly and efficient when not too busy, but a few reviews report slower service, inconsistent knowledge about Japanese dishes, or hiccups with order accuracy. The space is repeatedly praised for its cute, welcoming vibe and good atmosphere for studying or hanging out, while a few comments mention it feeling cold or busy and noisy at times. Overall, the place is seen as a reliable go to for satisfying udon and onigiri with quality matcha and pleasant staff, with some room for value improvements and portion sizes.
Personnel très désagréable; ils sont très lents & se permettent de s engueler avec des livreurs devant les clients alors que ceux ci font un travail difficile; à éviter absolument
Mar 16, 2026
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I LOVE Café Noya. As you can tell by my pictures, I come here quite often & I've eaten a lot of items here & love all of it. The food here is so satisfying: hearty, tasty & yet not too fatty. Perfect balance as Japanese food always achieves.
The chicken katsu onigiri is seriously addicting (I could eat A LOT of those). You also can't go wrong with the creamy miso udon. Honestly, everything they have tastes fantastic. My go-to, though? Spicy chicken rice with extra beef. I could eat that every day (& I almost do lol).
The location is also very convenient if you take public transportation as it's right next to Peel metro.
I'm telling ya'll, Café Noya is a gem. I love the food, I love the staff. It's my favourite place to eat at after work.
high traffic for students ! but to me that just means its probably cheap & good 😂 solid bowl of udon, nothing crazy, & nice selection of drinks. Quite small so can get full quite fast depending on when you go.
Really nice matcha cafe close to McGill campus. Will be back to try their dishes. Only thing I wish is for more tables to sit, it's a bit cramped in there.
Wasn't planning to eat here today, but walked by while going to were I was supposed to eat & we had to stop here instead! The place looks super cozy & nice, the onigiris were really good, specially the unagi one, had to order it again. Special mention to the crab croissant, great stuff too. I only wished to have some soy sauce on the side, I didn't asked if they had any, so might as well. Clean bathroom & good music. Felt very welcomed! Will definitely eat here again.
they have lots of seating available so you're always sure to have a spot! the food tastes great & there's a diverse selection of drinks on the menu that ranges from teas to lattes. my personal go-to is the passion fruit black tea, which is amazing during summer.
i've encountered a couple minor problems like staff not calling out my order when it was finished so i had to wait 20mins for a drink before i had to ask them myself, but nothing too dramatic.
I was quite disappointed by this place because my expectations were high. I initially wanted to rate this place 2/5 but my partner liked his dish so I give 1 more star.
I ordered a matcha tiramisu. They had a very nice dessert shelf so I was excited for it. Turns out it was just cream cheese on top of the matcha, nothing close to the tiramisu flavor. The matcha in itself was good, but nothing exceptional.
For the udon, I took the miso & mushrooms one. As one of the other comment was mentioning, the miso flavor was lacking & it was more creamy udons. I took an extra tempura shrimp (+3$), & I had to look for the shrimp in all of the fried paste. Absolutely not worth the extra. Noodles were good.
My partner really liked his beef udon on the other side.
Generous portions, but I think it is more of a student café/snack bar rather than a restaurant. Prices were very correct, especially for the onigiris.
Nice & refreshing menu. The food was delicious, but not something I would come back for. Our'don' bowl had 70-80% rice & significantly smaller portions than the other places I have tried. The drinks were standard, have had better matcha. Also, if you expect tip for counter service, at least put up a happy face or place the food on the table in a'gentler' way
Mar 7, 2026
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Waited about 30 minutes to receive my order even though there were only three customers in the restaurant. The taste was okay, but the long wait time was disappointing.
J'ai bien aimé presque tout ce que j'ai essayé! À part le riz au boeuf, très fade, sans sauce & sans légumes. & le onigiri au boeuf aussi… le croissant au porc est excellent ainsi que la crème brûlée au ube! J'adore leurs mochis aussi! Seul bémol, tout est extrêmement cher & les portions ne justifient pas leurs prix. C'est dommage car s'il faisaient juste être un peu plus généreux ou s'ils enlevaient 2$ à chaque plat ou du moins à certains plats, ça ferait toute la différence! Overall je ne suis pas déçue, j'y vais souvent, mais certaines choses méritent d'être améliorées.
The dishes are ok.
If you are used to Japanese food, stick to the udon & don't have omu rice or other dishes (lack of flavor, rice cooking is not the best)
Dango are served fridge temperature & the Sakura mochi rice is super hard.
The staff is nice but has little to no real knowledge about Japanese food despite the fact that this cafe claims to be a Japanese cafe (on several occasions, they did not understand when I asked for something like a hanami dango, correcting me'the 3 color)
The food portion is relatively small for the price, especially the udon was pretty small. The drinks are more reasonable, I would recommend the drinks more than the food. The rice had a lot of rice on the bottom but little topping.
On the plus side, there was plenty of seating available on a Saturday afternoon, & the staff were friendly & welcoming.
