Uncover our favorite restaurants in Toronto, Canada. From charming neighborhoods to downtown hotspots, taste the city’s culinary treasures.
A veteran travel writer once told me to never compare cities or destinations. “From San Francisco to Shanghai, it’s the Paris of this, the Paris of that,” she said. “There is only one Paris. Describe a place on its own merits.” Rules are meant to be broken, though, and in Toronto’s case, it carries its long-time association with New York City.
“Like NYC, Toronto is this incredible weave of urban villages that form a connected, cohesive whole,” said Trevor Lui over lunch at Fat Bao (28 Bathhurst Street. highbellgroup.com/fat-bao-stackt/), his “neo-Chinese small plate” concept near Fort York, where Toronto was founded in 1793. “Those community pockets are where you find the city.”
The only son of Chinese immigrants from Hong Kong, Lui’s food journey began as a child working the grill in his family’s Cantonese-Canadian restaurant, Highbell. After catering hotel, convention center, and casino events, he traveled throughout Canada and Europe, gathering ideas along the way. Inspirations include L.A.’s Roy Choi, “godfather” of the food truck movement, and Albert Adrià of El Bulli fame, with whom Lui once cooked.
Back home, he opened his debut restaurant, Taiwanese street food-inspired Kanpai Snack Bar, where we first met in 2016. Other concepts followed as Lui maintains strong ties to the meetings industry. Highbell Hospitality Group is his vehicle for catering myriad high profile events and developing culinary concepts like Fat Bao. In 2021, he co-founded Quell, a culinary talent agency focused on fostering opportunities for diverse culinary professionals. He is also currently Vice Chair of the board of directors of Destination Toronto, the city’s destination marketing organization.
Trevor Lui (Photo: Fete Chinoise)
“One stamp I can put on what we show travelers around the world about Toronto is how food and culture permeate our com munities,” Lui said. “I want to move beyond traditional talking points and get visitors out into our neighborhoods.”
Toronto’s kitchen kinship with NYC includes global-spanning variety. More than half (53%) of Torontonians were born outside of Canada, representing 250-plus communities and more than 180 languages and dialects. More mosaic than melting pot, the associated menus around town will fill your culinary passport many times over.
In his award-winning 2021 memoir/cook book The Double Happiness Cookbook: 88 Feel-Good Recipes and Food Stories, Lui emphasizes how personal stories influence creating and cooking dishes. Partnering with Highbell’s Hawaiian-born executive chef and culinary director Eva Chin, who brings her Samoan and Singaporean heritage and global resume to the table, Lui channels his past with inventive baozi like the Filet “Ah” Fish.
“Our family loved the Filet-O-Fish from McDonald’s,” he said. “It was our value buy for fish.” His version features house-battered white fish and custom tartar sauce with mustard greens on a steamed bun topped with caviar. NYC, his frequent escape, inspired the Chopped Cheese, a bao riff on a ground beef sandwich with cheese found in Brooklyn and Bronx bode gas. The KFC (Korean Fried Cauli) is Chin’s nod to her time running the kitchen at Toronto’s renowned Kōjin by Momofuku. Other savory bites include the Salt & Peppa Dry Rub chicken and poutine of steamed chicken dumplings in Japanese style curry.
Fat Bao’s home, Stackt Market (stacktmarket.com), a classic Toronto hub for “bringing people together,” is constructed entirely from shipping containers. Reviving a long vacant former smelting plant and slaughterhouse site, the 100,000- square-foot complex is North America’s largest modular marketplace, housing pop ups, creative incubators, retailers, and food and beverage vendors. Fat Bao shares a 200-seat covered patio with a Belgian Moon brewery. Amenities include basket ball and pickleball courts, and cultural programming.
Toronto’s original community-focused shipping container market, Market 707 (707 Dundas St. West. Tel. 416-392-0335. mkt707.ca), features Ethiopian, Syrian, Japanese, Thai, Filipino, Vietnamese, and other global cuisines
Near Stackt in downtown’s King West neighborhood, Waterworks Food Hall (50 Brant Street. waterworksfoodhall.com) is a globally-inspired culinary destination that debuted in summer 2024. Devoting eight years to researching food halls around the world, founder Eve Lewis realized her European-style “community hub” in a retooled 1930’s machine shop for water systems
Exposed brick walls, steel beams, and soaring skylit-ceilings featuring hanging spherical art installations set an evocative stage for artisan fare from across the map. Otto’s Berlin Doner serves German comfort food. The Arepa Republic celebrates the arepa, Venezuela’s essential grilled, white corn meal, round sandwich. Karak Stuffed Naan & Chai Café is for savory Pakistani treats. Other draws include the glam Civil Works cocktail bar on the mezzanine level and Hong Kong-born celebrity chef Susur Lee’s legendary Asian-French fusion flag ship Lee Restaurant relocated here in a standalone space.
Kensington Market (kensingtonmarket.to), in the neighborhood where Lui was born, is the apotheosis of Toronto’s multicultural heritage. From early Scottish and Irish settlers and the Eastern Europeans of “Jewish Market” days, waves of immigrants from The Azores, Central America, East Asia, Italy, and other locales have made this national landmark neighborhood of Victorian-era homes, alley ways, and side streets their home. Evoking yesteryear London, NYC’s Lower East Side, or even Haight Ashbury, this eclectic, colorful hive harbors nearly 100 restaurants, cafes, and bars. My favorites include El Trompo (277 Augusta Avenue. Tel. 416- 260-0097) for beef tongue tacos and margaritas, and Venezuelan-owned NU Bügel (240 Augusta Avenue. Tel. 647-748-4488. nubugel.com) for wood-fired bagels and menu items like the Smoked Trout Sandwich with sweet horseradish jam.
The market rubs shoulders with Chinatown, where old school anchors include Hong Shing (195 Dundas St. W. Tel. 416-977-3338. hongshing.com), serving a diverse regional menu including dim sum, seafood, and sensational Ma La chicken wings, fried and tossed in a face numbing blend of sichuan peppercorn, black cardamon, cumin, and fennel.
Over the past decade, Toronto has surpassed NYC in high-rise development with the most completed or planned skyscrapers in North America. Visionary mega-projects include The Well (thewelltoronto.com/eat). Comprising seven interconnected towers, this 7.7-acre mixed-use campus integrates multiple culinary components.
Six restaurants with outdoor patios lining the Well’s linear park include British-influenced The Dorset and Southern French-driven La Plume. Perched on the 38th floor of the Well’s main tower, Aera (8 Spadina Avenue. Tel. 647-258-5207. aerarestaurant.com) is an upscale steakhouse with a chef’s table for four, sushi counter, cocktail bar, and scenic rooftop terrace. The lower-level Wellington Market is an expansive European-style food hall with two full-service restaurants, East Tea Can for Middle Eastern fare and BHC Chicken for Korean street food.
As the Toronto of tomorrow takes shape, old guard institutions proudly maintain their posts. Anchoring Old Town since 1803, globally renowned St. Lawrence Market (92-95 Front Street East. Tel. 416-392-7219. stlawrencemarket.com), Toronto’s first city hall and then a prison, is essential to the city’s identity. More than 100 vendors can be found here, including all-day breakfast spot Paddington’s Pump, my go-to for their peameal bacon sandwich.
Tableside Beef Tartare at Cluny Bistro & Boulangerie (Photo by Jeff Heilman)
Steps away, the iconic Flatiron, or Gooderham Building, was headquarters of the mighty Gooderham and Worts Distillery (1832 and 1990), about 15 minutes away by foot. Once producing half of all spirits in Canada, the industrial icon was reborn in 2003 as the Distillery District (55 Mill Street. thedistillerydistrict.com). Featuring North America’s best-preserved collection of Victorian Industrial Architecture, the mixed-use cobblestone campus’s culinary collection includes coffee, chocolate, oysters, tacos, tapas, pizza, sake, craft beer, and spirits. I lunched at Cluny Bistro & Boulangerie (35 Tank House Lane. Tel. 416-203-2632. clunybistro.com), an exquisite rendition of a classic Parisian bistro with gorgeous interiors and warm service.
Each bite was memorable, from the escargot on sourdough toast and “Earl Gray Teacup” chicken liver pâté to the hearty poutine of hand-cut chunky potatoes and braised beef cheek in beef jus topped with melted raclette cheese.
The party continued at Coffee Oysters Champagne (214 King Street West. Tel. 416-408-4044. sipshucksip.com), a unique two-tiered Entertainment District experience that uncorks in a glam pink and gold space serving oysters, light fare, and Canada’s largest sparkling wine list.
Coffee Oysters Champagne (Photo: by Dan ei l Neuhaus)
Following bubbles and delicious Black Magic Oysters from Prince Edward Island dressed in cognac ponzu, green onion, and pickled chilies, I proceeded to stage two, à toi (sipshucksip.com/a-toi), a speakeasy-style lair modeled after a 1920’s Parisienne-inspired hotel lobby bar. Without giving too much away, absinthe, Green Chartreuse (hard to come by in Canada), a beguiling burlesque performer, and mind-blowing session with two mentalists in a hidden room were involved.
Housed in a 180-year-old Entertainment District warehouse, Toronto nightlife king Charles Khabouth’s flagship restaurant, Byblos Downtown (11 Duncan Street. Tel. 647-660-0909. byblosdowntown.com) delivers eastern Mediterranean sizzle in family-style plates, including house-made labneh, whole char-grilled branzino, and harissa roasted half chicken.
The high notes kept coming on my tour finale with Aashim Aggarwal, a local food writer, content creator, and tour guide through his Seed. Eat. Repeat platform (@seed.eat.repeat). Moving to Canada with his family from India at age seven, he started business school before becoming a food champion after working on a farm. During the pandemic, he set out to taste the cuisine of every nation represented in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA).
“To date, I have mapped 94 of the approximately 130 available GTA countries, and visited nearly 2,000 GTA restaurants, with another 6,000-plus on my radar,” informed Aggarwal, who can customize any tour city-wide.
That day, we embarked on a whirlwind taste of Ossington. Once a hub of Vietnamese and Portuguese eateries, this West End neighborhood has evolved into a hip haven of independent restaurants, bars, and coffee shops. Ossington Avenue, or the Ossington strip, is one of Toronto’s hottest culinary corridors for locals and visitors alike.
Up first was a Toasted Chai Piña Colada cocktail made with lemongrass rum at fer mentation-driven Mother Cocktail Bar (874 Queen St. West. Tel. 416-537-1928. motherdrinks.co), which made North America’s 50 Best Bars list in 2022 and 2023. After popping into Middle Eastern driven Azhar Kitchen + Bar (96 Ossington Avenue. Tel. 647-503-1098. azhartoronto.com) for hummus, muhammara, labneh, and babaganoush, we hit packed Pizzeria Badiali (181 Dovercourt Road. Tel. 416- 531-5555. pizzeriabadiali.com) for NYC style slices, before finishing with dessert at one of Canada’s top restaurants, Taverne Bernhardt’s (202 Dovercourt Road. Tel. 416-530-0008. bernhardtstoronto.com).
As Lui told me during this visit, “never underestimate the power of a shared meal.” That is among Toronto’s gifts to the world, and having never dined at the same GTA restaurant in three decades of visits, I am looking forward to the next round.
