Best Desserts in Charlottesville
Charlottesville, Virginia — updated August 21, 2026
Four independent bakeries, pie makers and ice cream counters in Charlottesville, and when each is actually open.
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Dessert in Charlottesville splits between a serious French bakery, an ice cream counter that has been on the Downtown Mall for decades, and a couple of small operations you have to catch at the right time. None of them are chains, which rules out the fudge shop on Main Street that usually tops lists like this.
Petite MarieBette
The best pastry in town. MarieBette is a proper French bakery doing viennoiserie alongside full breakfast, brunch and lunch menus, and it holds a 4.8 across 294 reviews, which is a serious number for a bakery.
Open Monday to Friday 8 to 5 and weekends 8:30 to 4:30, though the kitchen closes around 2 while the bakery counter keeps going. Go in the morning: the best things are gone by lunch.
Chaps Ice Cream
The Downtown Mall institution, 4.5 across 546 reviews, and the only entry here that stays open late. Sunday to Thursday 11:30am to 10pm, Friday and Saturday until 10:30pm.
Practically, this is the one to remember. Everything else on this list shuts by mid-afternoon, so if you want dessert after dinner in Charlottesville, this is more or less the answer.
Family Ties & Pies
A pie maker rather than a shopfront, and the highest-rated thing on this list at 4.9. They sell pies, brioche, scones and quiche at the IX Farmers Market and at City Market on Saturday mornings, and they are based at 1647 Brandywine Drive.
Treat this as a Saturday morning errand rather than a place to walk into. Call (434) 981-6989 to check where they will be.
Cocoa & Spice
Small, 4.7 across 36 reviews. The review count is thin enough that the rating is promising rather than settled, and it is here on that basis rather than as a safe bet. Worth a look if you have already done the other three.
What we left off
The Pie Chest appeared in the previous version of this guide and has closed. Kilwins also appeared: it is a franchise operating in dozens of states, and pointing you at it is not local knowledge. C'Ville Coffee and the C & O were both listed too, and neither is a place anyone in Charlottesville goes for dessert.