Hum: Ottawa's weirdest, next-level cookies will win you over

At Ahh!!! Coffee on Bayswater Avenue, a Captain Ron coffee and a chocolate miso gochugaru cookie. Photo by JULIE OLIVER /Postmedia

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Just after Christmas last year, journeyman Ottawa chef Johnny McEvoy lost his dog Rudy.

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Rudy was McEvoy’s best friend for 13 years. McEvoy even named his business, Rude Pizza, after his dog.

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To avoid drowning in his grief, McEvoy sought solace in his kitchen.

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“December 28 is the worst time for a dog to pass away. So to save myself from depression, I started baking cookies,” McEvoy says. He made three or four batches a day and just gave them away to his neighbours.

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Cookie maker and pizza chef Johnny McEvoy in Ahh!!! Coffee, a Hintonburg coffee shop. Photo by JULIE OLIVER /Postmedia

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McEvoy did not make ordinary cookies. How could he, given that he also makes pizzas with kimchi on them?

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Don’t scoff. In March, McEvoy, who previously cooked at such restaurants as Crust and Crate and Foolish Chicken, prevailed over 19 rivals at the 2026 Restaurant Canada Pizza Competition’s creative pizza category with that pie, and he will represent Canada at an upcoming international competition in Las Vegas.

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But I digress. McEvoy, being McEvoy, developed cookies with unheard-of, intriguing flavour combinations. There’s chocolate-miso-gochugaru (that’s Korean chili powder). There’s sourdough toast and butter. There’s also ube (that’s a purple yam)-white chocolate-lime-coconut.

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These are pretty weird cookies. But I quite like them. Especially the first two.

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A white chocolate-ube-coconut-lime cookie at Ahh!!! Coffee on Bayswater Avenue at the corner of Somerset in Hintonburg. Photo by JULIE OLIVER /Postmedia

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Tops for me is the arguably most conventional chocolate-miso-gochugaru number. “I’m a very avid believer that miso makes almost everything better,” says McEvoy. As for the Korean chili powder, it isn’t that much of a stretch if you think of spicy Mexican hot chocolate. “It just fires your taste buds a little bit, it makes you taste things a little differently,” McEvoy says.

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The bread-and-butter conceit behind the sourdough butter cookie brings a smile to my face, too, although I think the cookie that will continue calling my name has chocolate in it.

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Even McEvoy agrees. “I’m more a fan of the chocolate miso. I’m a very simple person,” he says.

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Quirks aside, the bottom line is that McEvoy’s cookies were simply very well made. Their chewy texture was spot on, they weren’t terribly sweet, and their novel flavours added interest without stealing the show.

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Now, you don’t have to be McEvoy’s neighbour to try his cookies. They’re available at his pizza pop-ups (best to check his Instagram page for updates) and exclusively, at the moment, at Ahh!!! Coffee in Hintonburg, priced at $5 each.

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Ahh!!! Coffee, which opened in early March, is owned and operated by Kyle Ratchford, who matches McEvoy when it comes to weirdness. With their similar culinary dispositions, assorted tattoos, dark-black fashion sense and nicknames (McEvoy is better known as Johnny Mac, Ratchford is better known as the Booj), they’re like weirdo brothers from different mothers.