24 Best Food Markets and Food Halls in Canada

Quick answer: Toronto’s St. Lawrence Market and Montreal’s Marché Atwater are the two most essential stops, but Canada’s best food market scene runs coast to coast from the 1750-founded Halifax Seaport Farmers’ Market, the oldest continuously operating farmers’ market in North America, to Vancouver’s Granville Island. This guide covers 24 of the best, drawn from over 20 years of visiting them professionally.

I spent over 20 years travelling across Canada as a food product developer, and food markets were always my first stop in any new city not just for the eating, but for the ideas. I also had a booth in a farmer’s market for several years making soups from local ingredients sourced from the market. A great farmers market or food hall will tell you more about what a region actually eats, grows, and innovates with than almost anything else, and scouting them for new product inspiration became second nature long before I ever wrote about travel.

No matter what country I travel to, I still scope out a food market or food hall first but Canada, remains one of my favourite places to do exactly that. Food markets, farmers markets especially, are a genuine microcosm of a community, and they’ll teach you more about a place’s culture than most guidebooks will.

The food hall trend, in particular, is one I can fully get behind professionally as well as personally it’s a genuinely smart, affordable way to introduce people to new cuisines and fusion food, both for the vendor testing an idea and the customer trying it for the first time.

Fast Facts: Canadian Food Markets

What Is a Farmers Market?

According to the Farmers Market Coalition, a farmers market is a public and recurring assembly of farmers or their representatives selling the food they produced directly to consumers. By cutting out the middlemen, farmers keep more of every food dollar spent, shoppers get the freshest and most flavourful food available in their area, and local economies benefit directly.

What Is a Food Hall?

Unlike a food court built around fast-food chains, a food hall typically mixes local artisan restaurants, butcher shops, and other food-focused boutiques under one roof. The concept is common throughout Europe and Asia the most famous examples are the food halls inside London department stores like Harrods and Fortnum & Mason, with piles of confections, rows of tea boxes, cheese counters, and sit-down spots to eat some of the best food in the building.

What Is a Market?

In the traditional sense, a market is simply a physical place to buy food or other products or, for a small farmer or grower, the local gathering point to sell what they’ve produced. Over the years that’s expanded to flea markets, antique markets, street food markets, and food markets specifically. Canada’s best food markets tend to focus on fresh, locally grown products and crafts, and this guide covers a genuine mix of all three formats farmers markets, food halls, and general food markets from coast to coast.

Food Markets and Food Halls in Quebec

Le Central Food Hall, Montreal

A brilliant place to enjoy everything from classic Neapolitan pizza to traditional and new-wave poutine, tapas, pastilla, and excellent South Asian food. No reservation needed just come hungry and ready to discover new chefs, brewers, organic wines, cocktails, and flavoured gins under one roof.

Time Out Market Montreal

The Time Out food hall concept launched in Portugal in 2014, inside Lisbon’s historic Mercado da Ribeira, and Montreal became its fifth global location. Spread across 40,000 square feet, it packs in 16 eateries, three bars, a demo kitchen, a cooking school, and retail space, alongside cultural areas for art installations and live music.

Marché Atwater, Montreal

One of Montreal’s favourite markets, open year-round. The outdoor season kicks off with the first horticulturalists, followed by market gardeners, and the aisles fill with the scent of flowers and herbs alongside the usual market aromas. In summer, head for the Pôle des saveurs a hub of Vietnamese and Reunion Island cuisine, barbecue, tapas, and ice cream, best enjoyed at a picnic table or on the patio facing the Lachine Canal.

Grand Marché de Québec, Quebec City

Quebec City’s newest gourmet destination, giving visitors direct access to over a hundred regional producers and processors. The smell of fresh coffee and warm bread drifts through aisles of colourful, same-morning produce an authentic experience unlike most other markets on this list.

Food Markets and Food Halls in Toronto

St. Lawrence Market

A bustling modern-day farmers market in Toronto and genuinely the best place for a food-obsessed traveller to spend a morning. Expect the best Montreal-style bagels outside Montreal, Canadian cheeses, prairie grains and pulses, and seafood and meat fresh from the source. The Upstairs Gallery adds exhibits on Ontario’s history through artefacts and art.

World Food Market, Toronto

A genuine multicultural spread more than 18 vendors selling everything from dosa and falafel to sangria and biryani. Whatever you’re craving, something here will scratch the itch. Worth checking before you go: the World Food Market occupies land slated for a future high-rise apartment development, and has operated as a temporary use of the site since 2018 while the developer awaits city approval. As of a 2023 report, the site’s owner estimated the market had only a year or two left so it’s genuinely possible this has closed or relocated by the time you read this. Confirm current status before planning a visit.

Afro-Caribbean Farmer’s Market, Toronto

Located on Eglinton Ave. W. in Little Jamaica, running Sundays from July to October. A genuine source of Caribbean and continental African produce, alongside baked goods, fresh juices, and other goods from local, Black-owned businesses.

Kensington Market, Toronto

Less a market than an experience an open-air food and clothing market in downtown Toronto known for its independent spirit, colourful storefronts, vibrant murals, and Pedestrian Sundays events. A genuinely bohemian pocket of the city, open all week.

Food Markets and Food Halls Across Ontario

Byward Market, Ottawa

One of Canada’s oldest and largest public markets. The outdoor market runs May to October, but the indoor vendors and artisans stay open 363 days a year, closed only for Christmas and New Year’s Day. Look up once inside the main building for the large papier-mâché sculpture hanging from the ceiling, and don’t leave without trying a Beavertail.

St. Jacobs Market, Ontario

One of my genuine all-time favourites we made regular weekend trips here from our hometown. St. Jacobs has over 250 vendors across its indoor and outdoor space, and the market itself dates back to 1975, becoming a real showcase for local farmers and the local Mennonite community, who both shop and sell here. Expect proper German pretzels, hand-knitted baby clothes, local cheeses, maple syrup, and a genuinely huge range of organic produce.

The Market at Western Fair, London

I lived in London, Ontario for many years, and it was a genuinely great day for East London when this market opened. Since then it’s become the go-to spot for locals, chefs, and visiting food tourists alike, with over 100 permanent vendors fresh-baked bread (plenty of gluten-free options), sausages like you’ve never seen, strong coffee, Mennonite-grown produce and meats, Nepalese momos, and South American pupusas. Come hungry.

Welland Farmer’s Market

Operating since 1907, this is the largest market in the Niagara region, running year-round with outdoor space for live local entertainment alongside the vendors.

Kingston Public Market

Ontario’s oldest market, dating to 1801, and a genuine piece of Canadian history the proclamation of Confederation and the formation of the Dominion of Canada actually took place in Kingston Market Square. Located right behind City Hall in the historic downtown.

Food Markets Across the Prairies

Inglewood Night Market, Calgary

A modern night market running every second Friday through the summer, focused on locally sourced and handmade goods crafts, vintage clothing, antiques, artisan eats, and barbecue, alongside food trucks, live music, and a family-friendly licensed area.

St. Albert’s Farmers’ Market, Alberta

The largest outdoor farmers market in Western Canada, running every Saturday from June to October. On market days, downtown St. Albert transforms into a genuine outdoor social hub, with live music, food trucks, and over 250 vendors.

Old Strathcona Farmers’ Market, Edmonton

The mission here is simple: “we make it, we bake it, we grow it, we sell it” no resellers allowed. Everything from cheese to woollens to fruit wine is genuinely made by the vendors themselves. Get there early for the green onion pancakes; they don’t last. Open Saturdays only, 9am-3pm.

Food Markets and Food Halls in British Columbia

Richmond Public Market, BC

A genuine hidden gem. The ground floor has a public market with a butcher shop doubling as a Cantonese barbecue counter, while the second floor is a strong lineup of Asian food stalls hand-made dumplings, hand-pulled noodles in proper broth, bubble tea, and rice and noodle dishes, many from family-owned stalls.

Granville Island Public Market, Vancouver

Opened in 1979 with just over 20 full-time vendors; today it’s home to more than 300 businesses across the island, with the Public Market itself hosting over 50 independent food purveyors. Granville Island sits on the ancestral lands of the xʷməθkʷəyˀəm (Musqueam), Skʷxʷú7mesh (Squamish), and Səĺílʷətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) nations, and today includes several Indigenous-owned galleries and stores alongside the market itself. Open daily 9am-7pm, with the Net Loft Shops and Railspur District nearby for local art and design.

Salt Spring Island Market, BC

Salt Spring Island is known as Canada’s “Island of the Arts,” and from April to October, over 140 artists and food producers set up at Centennial Park on Saturdays. Everything sold has to be made, baked, or grown by the vendor themselves what the market calls “The Homespun Guarantee.” A separate Tuesday afternoon market from June through October focuses purely on food, vegetables, and edible flowers from local organic farmers.

Avenida Food Hall & Fresh Market, Calgary

A 22,500-square-foot space with 42 vendors and restaurants, including The Mercantile a replica old-time general store that’s actually 32 separate vendors in one, designed as an incubator to help new food businesses find their footing before they grow into standalone vendors elsewhere.

Food Markets in the Prairies and Manitoba

The Forks Market, Winnipeg

Located at the actual meeting point of the Red River and Assiniboine River, The Forks was designated a National Historic Site in 1974 in recognition of six thousand years of human activity on the site. Beyond the market itself an eclectic mix of food from around the world, specialty shops, cafés, and bakeries the site includes an interpretive park, a skateboard park, and a historic port. Open daily, 7am to 11pm.

Food Markets in Atlantic Canada

No list of Canada’s best food markets is complete without Atlantic Canada, home to the single most historically significant market in the entire country.

Halifax Seaport Farmers’ Market, Nova Scotia

Founded in 1750 by Royal Proclamation, just one year after Halifax itself was established, this is the oldest continuously operating farmers’ market in all of North America not just Canada. It began as a meat and cattle market, drawing produce and livestock from Acadian farms in the Annapolis Valley, and has moved locations several times over nearly 275 years of continuous operation, settling into its current Halifax Seaport home in 2010. Today it hosts over 100 vendors selling fresh produce, seafood, baked goods, and handcrafted art, under floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over the harbour.

Charlottetown Farmers’ Market, PEI

Prince Edward Island’s food scene runs on seafood and potatoes, and Charlottetown’s farmers market is the best single place to experience both alongside the island’s wider producers local cheese, baked goods, and crafts included.

Worth knowing before you visit: a Christmas Day fire heavily damaged the market’s longtime Belvedere Avenue building. It’s currently operating from a temporary home at 614 North River Road the former Sporting Intentions space, now nicknamed “Creekside Crossing” open Saturdays from 9am. As of spring 2026, plans to rebuild the original building were paused pending a federal Crown land lease issue, so it’s worth checking the market’s current location directly before you go.

Fredericton Boyce Farmers’ Market, New Brunswick

A genuine local tradition on the banks of the St. John River, and one of the markets Destination Canada itself names among the country’s best public markets. Expect ultra-fresh produce, great food trucks, and genuinely multicultural fare, alongside hand-knit hats and homemade sausage the kind of market that’s as much a weekly community gathering as it is a place to shop.

Frequently Asked Questions About Canadian Food Markets

What’s the difference between a farmers market, a food hall, and a food market?

A farmers market is specifically a recurring gathering where farmers or their representatives sell what they’ve directly produced, cutting out the middleman. A food hall mixes local artisan restaurants, butchers, and food-focused boutiques under one roof a modern, curated concept that took off in Europe and Asia before spreading to North America. A food market is the broader umbrella term for any physical place where food or produce is sold, farmers market included.

What’s the oldest food market in Canada?

The Halifax Seaport Farmers’ Market, founded in 1750 by Royal Proclamation just one year after Halifax itself was established. It’s the oldest continuously operating farmers’ market in all of North America, not just Canada.

Which Canadian city has the best food market scene?

Montreal and Toronto both have strong claims, each with multiple major markets and food halls covering everything from classic farmers markets to modern curated food halls. Vancouver’s Granville Island and the growing Asian food market scene in Richmond, BC are also genuinely world-class.

Are Canadian farmers markets open year-round?

It varies a lot by region and climate. Markets like St. Lawrence Market in Toronto, Byward Market’s indoor vendors, and the Halifax Seaport Farmers’ Market run year-round, while many outdoor seasonal markets especially in the Prairies and smaller towns typically run from spring through fall.

There you have 24 of the best food markets and food halls in Canada, coast to coast. Do you have a favourite food market in Canada, or anywhere else in the world?

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