If you search for ‘best donuts in Vancouver’, Cartems Donuts should be on the list. Cartems Donuts is one of the popular small chain donut shops in Metro Vancouver. Cartems serves quality ingredients and carries creative flavours.

After reading people reviews, I decided to try Earl Grey, Salted Caramel, and Apple Fritter.

Earl Grey:
It had dried flower petals on it. It was so pretty and amazing! It was my favourite. You could taste the tea flavour in the actual donut and not just the icing.

Salted Caramel:
It was a chocolate donut at the base of salted caramel. It was delicious tasting and had a fantastic texture.

Apple Fritter:
It had fresh apples in a sweet cinnamon glazed yeast donut. It was absolutely heavenly!

Whatever you select you cannot go wrong.

📝📝

Dessert : 🍩🍩🍩🍩Should Try!
Service: 👩‍🍳👩‍🍳👩‍🍳👩‍🍳
Kids: 👶👶👶👶👶 Woohoo! (Has a cute kids corner with toys. I just wish they don’t like it. It was on an expensive side for $3+ per donut 😅)
Price: 1/2💲less than $20 for two (we brought three donuts to share)
Presentation: 📷📷📷
Parking: along neighbouring streets parking
Tips:
📝serves donuts with vegan and gluten-free options
📝gets discount if you buy 6 or a dozen.
Would I Return: Yes 🙋‍♀️

When it comes to donuts in Vancouver, you’ll probably hear about Cartems Donuts the most. (Pronounced Car-TEMS.) With their three locations and unmistakable logo, they always seem to be where you are, and their Kitsilano location happens to be right near me. At this point, I have visited many times and have tasted many a donut.

You can see them on season 5 of You Gotta Eat Here! and catch them on the hilarious Day of Gluttony: 24 Vancouver Restaurants in 24 Hours. The Georgia Straight has named them as #1 Best Doughnut Shop 2017 and Westender calls them the #1 Best Donuts 2017. The people have spoken: These donuts are the shit.

The Kits location is quite spacious with its extremely high ceiling. It’s bright and airy and it almost feels a bit like a donut warehouse. The look is very contemporary and fresh, with pale woods, a massive communal table, pops of greenery, and a very interesting (and large) honeycomb-inspired art installation on the wall. The counter that you order at is only a small portion of the overall space. Each donut flavour is displayed in a glass case and each one looks amazing. You can’t choose just one. They also serve coffee and tea.

On my recent visit, I stopped in on a Friday afternoon and was ready for the full experience! Their full donut selection was on display and I chose the exact ones that I had come to sample. I also grabbed a Latte ($4.25) to drink. Cartems boasts that they get their coffee from Elysian Coffee Roasters, a local roaster. Personally, I have never been extremely enthused about the beverages that they offer. Their chai latte isn’t anything wonderful and I always find myself a tad disappointed in their coffee beverages. I haven’t tried their London Fog yet, and I probably should. The latte that I had on this particular day was fine, but again, nothing outstanding. They do make pretty art on their drinks, however! Mediocre drinks aside, you visit Cartems for a different reason.

Let’s talk about what’s inside the long red box!

It’s donuts!!!

The best thing about these donuts is that they’re made from scratch each day. They proudly use natural, locally sourced ingredients, which are organic whenever possible. They also offer many vegan and gluten-friendly choices. Donuts might not be the healthiest... But these are probably the closest to healthful that you’ll come across. You’ll find two styles of donuts available; yeast and cake. Among them, they carry ten different regular flavours that are usually in stock at all of their locations (unless they sell out). On top of that, they always offer special monthly flavours, which usually consist of three to four bonus donuts.

I selected a 1/2 Dozen (Our donuts are handmade from scratch by skilled pastry chefs, without the use of pre-mix, stabilizers, or preservatives. We make dough throughout the day - $18.00) and stuck to the flavours that interested me the most! In order of how much I liked them, here are the donuts that I got!:

London Fog Stuffie (We infuse whipped cream with some fresh ground organic London Fog tea and stuff it inside our yeasted donut. Glazed with our earl grey glaze and topped with stripes of white chocolate ganache, this donut is the ultimate indulgence.)

I think that this is my favourite donut that they sell overall! I love a stuffie. It’s delicious, dreamy, amazing. The inside is so fluffy and creamy, and it tastes exactly like a London Fog. The whole thing is a pillow of amazing and perfect flavours. It’s the donut of your tea-loving dreams. Must-try!!

Smoked Maple Walnut (A yeast donut topped with our maple glaze and our own spiced walnuts that we smoke ourselves!)

The smokiness of this donut is deliciously amazing. The abundant walnuts add an irresistible crunch and the sweet maple flavour is perfect. It tastes like Canada, in donut form.

Honey Parmesan (Cheese on a donut? Yes! We use honey and pepper in the glaze to give this a perfect tangy/sweet combination.)

This one is just so crazy that it works. It’s also only available on Friday and Saturday. Literal parmesan cheese chunks cover this donut and add a delicious saltiness. Everyone knows that salty and sweet work together perfectly and this is an excellent example of that. Be brave and give it a try!

Earl Grey (Exactly as it sounds, this tasty cake donut is infused with an organic earl grey tea, topped with earl grey glaze and a sprinkling of rose petals!)

This one is touted at their “most popular” donut. The subtle flavour of earl grey is very nice and I especially love the (beautiful) sprinkling of rose petals on top. It’s very good, but a little bit too plain for my taste.

Apple Fritter (Chunks of fresh apples and cinnamon are rolled into our yeast dough, fried to crispy perfection and then topped with a cinnamon glaze. Best fritter in town.)

I mean, it is a pretty good fritter and I really like the real chunks of apple. But I find this one a bit too dense. There’s a whole lot of hard shell and not a lot of soft insides.

As a bonus, I also selected one of the specials for the month; the HB & J (Hazelnut butter glazed yeast donut with blackberry drizzle and hazelnut praline topping.)

Sounds amazing, am I right?? Unfortunately I didn’t enjoy it as much as I had hoped to. I had expected really big and exciting flavours, but it all seemed to get a little bit lost to me. Definitely not as strong as some of their regular items.

If you are in need of donuts in your life (and who isn’t?) Cartems is probably the best place in Vancouver to get them. Golden on the outside, soft and chewy on the inside... These are donuts done exceptionally well. Once you’ve figured out your favourites you’ll be craving them all the time. Plus it’s fun to keep track of the monthly specials on social media, and to pop in to try the ones that sound the most delicious and interesting.(I visited one more time just before posting this and I think I've figured out my true jam: London Fog ($4.00) and London Fog Stuffie ($3.75). A combo made in heaven!)