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GuideUpdated July 15, 2026

3 Best Places for Arancini in Montreal

Where to find the best arancini in Montreal — each restaurant rated 4.0★ or higher. Top-rated at 9.8★. Spanning pizza and italian kitchens. Curated by TastyPals.

The best places for arancini in Montreal are Ugo Pizzeria MTL Centre Ville, Restaurant Moccione, Taormina lounge. Start with Ugo Pizzeria MTL Centre Ville if you want the strongest overall first pick.

By Sophie Laurent•3 ranked picks•Published July 15, 2026•Updated July 15, 2026
Methodology•Editorial team
Ugo Pizzeria MTL Centre VilleRestaurant MoccioneTaormina lounge

Top picks at a glance

#1Ugo Pizzeria MTL Centre VillePizza • Montreal • value#2Restaurant MoccioneItalian • Montreal • value#3Taormina loungeItalian • Lachine • moderate

Who this guide is for

This guide covers the highest-rated spots for arancini in Montreal. Whether you're a local hunting your next regular or visiting and want to eat well, these picks are sorted by quality and review depth.

Quick picks

Ugo Pizzeria MTL Centre Ville
Pizza • Montreal
Roman pizza in Montreal doesn't have a long lineage, which makes what Ugo Di Nunzio brought to the Centre Ville worth paying attention to.
Restaurant Moccione
Italian • Montreal
Here's what makes Moccione's premise so interesting: Chef-owner Luca Cianciulli came up at Toque!, Quebec's cathedral of fine dining, then walked away from that world to open something smaller, lou…
Taormina lounge
Italian • Lachine
Thirty years on the lake in Lachine, and Taormina Lounge has never made a case for itself by chasing downtown trends — which is, by most accounts, the whole point.
Browse all Montreal restaurantsBack to Montreal hub
Editorial details
Published: July 15, 2026
Last updated: July 15, 2026

On this page

  1. 1. Ugo Pizzeria MTL Centre VilleView →
  2. 2. Restaurant MoccioneView →
  3. 3. Taormina loungeView →

How the restaurants compare

Ugo Pizzeria MTL Centre Ville
Montreal • Pizza
9.9/10
TastyPals Score
Price
value
Best for
casual night
Mood
Casual
Restaurant Moccione
Montreal • Italian
9.9/10
TastyPals Score
Price
value
Best for
dinner
Mood
Casual
Taormina lounge
Lachine • Italian
9.9/10
TastyPals Score
Price
moderate
Best for
dinner
Mood
Lachine

How we chose

We looked for restaurants that feel like a strong fit for the guide topic, not just the most obvious names in the city. The shortlist favors rooms with clear mood, dependable pacing, and enough distinction to help someone decide faster. Read our full methodology →

Room tone

Lighting, pace, and general energy all need to support the reason someone clicked this guide.

Food fit

We favored restaurants that feel best suited for the moment, not just restaurants with broad reputation.

Useful range

The final list tries to give readers enough variation in neighborhood, price, and style to compare real options.

3 ranked picks

Ugo Pizzeria MTL Centre Ville — Roman pizza in Montreal doesn't have a long lineage, which makes what Ugo Di Nunzio brought to the Centre Ville worth paying attention to. The Napoli-born pizza chef built Ugo Pizzeria around pizza al taglio — the Roman tradition of baking pizza on large rectangular trays, selling it by the slice or cut portion — made with a sourdough base that requires serious fermentation time to get right. At 1100 Blvd. De Maisonneuve Ouest, this isn't a sit-down Neapolitan destination or a New York slice shop; it's a counter-service operation priced at the budget end of the spectrum, which means it lives or dies on the quality of the dough and the integrity of the toppings. That the concept has expanded to multiple Montreal locations suggests the city has endorsed the formula. The menu leans into named pizzas with distinct personalities rather than a generic build-your-own grid. The Pizza Bianca — built on Francesca potatoes and caramelized onions rather than a tomato base — represents the Roman tradition of letting the dough and alliums do the work. The Cinzia brings artichoke hearts and fior di latte mozzarella, the kind of topping combination that signals a kitchen thinking about ingredient compatibility rather than just cheese coverage. The Pizza Barese goes the other direction with savory sausages and mushrooms, earthier and more assertive. Beyond pizza, the arancini have developed a reputation as a standalone reason to stop in, and the Caprese focaccia sandwich rounds out the menu for anyone who wants something hand-held. Nutella pizza exists for the dessert crowd and diners consistently mention it. The move here is to order multiple slices of different pizzas rather than committing to one variety — that's the logic of al taglio eating. The price point makes mixing easy without any budgetary anxiety. Come at lunch when the trays are freshest and turnover is high; late-afternoon visits sometimes mean you're eating pizza that's been sitting. Check delivery availability on DoorDash or Uber Eats if you want it brought to you, but the counter experience is the intended format. View restaurant →
Restaurant Moccione — Here's what makes Moccione's premise so interesting: Chef-owner Luca Cianciulli came up at Toque!, Quebec's cathedral of fine dining, then walked away from that world to open something smaller, louder, and warmer in Villeray with partner Maxime Landry in December 2018. The kitchen's reputation is built on applying that fine-dining technique to the kind of food you eat with your elbows on the table — and by all accounts, the room has outgrown its first location because people kept coming back and dragging their friends along. That's the Moccione thesis right there. The menu rotates seasonally, which means Cianciulli is cooking what's actually available, not what printed well last February. Housemade pasta is reportedly the spine of the whole operation. The Casarecce with rapini, sausage, and pecorino is one of those combinations with centuries of logic behind it — bitter greens, fatty sausage, sharp aged cheese — and diners consistently point to it as the dish that explains what the kitchen is about. The Maccheroni Bolognese is known for a slow, rich, deeply tomato-forward profile, without the creeping sweetness that undermines lesser versions. On the lighter end, the Crudo de Pétoncles and Carpaccio de Boeuf signal a kitchen comfortable with precision raw preparations — the kind of work that tracks directly back to Cianciulli's fine-dining background. The Arancini rounds out the picture as a solid entry point into what the kitchen values: classical Italian technique, no unnecessary flourishes. Practical reality: this is a price-level-one room that fills fast, and the experience reportedly suffers at a bad table, so booking ahead matters. Come with your attention on whatever pasta is current — the menu shifts, and Cianciulli's seasonal logic is the whole point. Order what's on the board that night, not what you remember from last time. View restaurant →
Taormina lounge — Thirty years on the lake in Lachine, and Taormina Lounge has never made a case for itself by chasing downtown trends — which is, by most accounts, the whole point. The room sits against the water with a pacing that regulars describe as genuinely unhurried: the kind of place where a second glass arrives before you've started calculating the drive home. It's run with the attentiveness of a family operation rather than a hospitality group, and the west-end couples who have been filling it for decades seem to return less out of habit than out of genuine preference. The lakeside setting shapes the evening in a way that few mid-range rooms in Montreal manage without manufacturing the atmosphere artificially. The menu leans into Italian classics without apology. The Arancini are consistently cited as a strong opening — crisp-shelled and substantive enough to justify ordering before you've committed to anything else. The Carpaccio di Manzo is reportedly dressed with enough acidity to balance the fat of the beef without overwhelming it, which is the whole argument for the dish. The Cozze Marinara is the one diners seem to point to when assessing the kitchen's discipline: mussels in a broth that takes time rather than shortcuts, served with bread built for absorption. For pasta, the Tortellini Vivaldi and the Gnocchi Vesuvio are the two that split tables most reliably — the former known for a silkier, more restrained profile, the latter associated with a darker, more aggressively sauced approach. A practical note worth heeding: the second-floor event space is configured for large parties, not for an intimate dinner, so request the main floor when booking. Weekends fill with regulars who plan ahead, so calling in advance is less a suggestion than a condition of getting the room at its best. Start with the Arancini; let the rest of the evening organize itself around the water. View restaurant →

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Save these spots to your Montreal list

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Personalized city picksCleaner shortlistsBuilt for iPhone and Android
TastyPalsTonight
Your taste. Our picks.
Smarter follow-through after the guide: better restaurant context, quicker narrowing, less second-guessing.
For tonight
Date night spots with warm rooms and polished service
Next step
Keep exploring in the app when you want a tighter shortlist