The Top 100 Places to Eat and Drink Near ARDO
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Rank 1. ARDO
Italian
In a King Street corner that catches the afternoon light, ARDO trades fussiness for a Southern Italian ease—chickpea fritters and arancini emerge golden and unselfconscious, while a dry-aged beef ragu and grilled octopus with marinated artichoke suggest a kitchen that knows when to restrain itself. The cannoli arrive as a small statement of competence, ricotta creamy and unfussy.
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Rank 2. aKin
Asian
Chef Eric Chong's aKin assembles a 10-course tasting menu at a spare, elegantly lit counter, reimagining classic Asian dishes with ingredients sourced across Canada. A raw oyster arrives with jellyfish and horseradish buttermilk; madai, grilled over binchō-tan, meets sauerkraut and mala consommé. His cooking balances spice with lightness, precision with invention.
- Michelin Guide 1 Star
- Air Canada 2025 · Top 10 · Best New Restaurants
- Canada's 100 Best 2026 · #27 · Best Restaurants
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Rank 3. Don Alfonso 1890
Elevated Italian
Forty stories above Toronto, floor-to-ceiling windows frame the city and waterfront while Davide Ciavattella's eight-course tasting menu commands the view. Wild-rose tagliatelle with eel gelato sits alongside seared duck and porchetta with honey glaze—a vision that layers Amalfi Coast tradition with local precision. This is a room built for occasions that demand a certain formality.
- 50 Top Italy 2025 · #10 · The Best Italian Restaurants In The World
- AAA Four Diamonds
- World Culinary Awards 2025 · Nominee · World's Best Fine Dining Experience
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Rank 4. Louix Louis
European
- AAA Four Diamonds
- Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Recommended
- World Culinary Awards 2025 · Nominee · Canada's Best Hotel Restaurant
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Rank 5. Library Bar
Cocktail Bar
A jewel-toned Deco den in The Fairmont Royal York where tableside martinis have been poured for half a century, anchored by a literary obsession with Toronto's own history. Beverage director James Grant crafts cocktails inspired by Michael Ondaatje's novels with the precision of a 2021 World Class champion.
- 50 Best 2026 · Ketel One Sustainable Bar Award 2026 · North America's 50 Best Bars
- Spirited Awards 2026 · Top 10 Nominee · Best International Hotel Bar
- 50 Best 2026 · #19 · North America's 50 Best Bars
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Rank 6. Reign
Canadian
- AAA Four Diamonds
- The Pinnacle Guide 2026 · 1 Pin
- VineRoutes 2025 · Vine Award Winners · Restaurant Awards
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Rank 7. Canoe
Contemporary New American
A sleek tasting room suspended above the city, where the kitchen's ambition matches the view. Wild Pacific halibut arrives with Savoy cabbage and champagne cream; lamb saddle comes paired with its braised shoulder. Service operates with the precision of a practiced institution, and the tarte au sucre closes the evening with quiet confidence.
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Rank 8. SAMMARCO
Steakhouse
Sammarco arrives as a steakhouse unafraid of elaboration: oxblood leather banquettes and gold leaf frame Ontario beef dry-aged sixty days alongside composed salads and theatrical seafood. The tableside Martini trolley and polished desserts suggest a restaurant that treats restraint as a suggestion, not a doctrine.
- Canada's 100 Best 2025 · #7 · Best New Restaurants
- Canada's 100 Best 2026 · #37 · Best Restaurants
- Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
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- Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Hotel Bar – Canada
- The Pinnacle Guide 2026 · 1 Pin
- Spirited Awards 2024 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Hotel Bar – Canada
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Rank 10. TOCA
Traditional Italian
- Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
- AAA Four Diamonds
- Air Canada 2011 · Finalist · Best New Restaurants
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Rank 12. Lucie
French
Yannick Bigourdan named this French restaurant for his grandmother, and her influence settles into the warm dining room like soft light filtering through pendant fixtures above an open kitchen. The cooking is rooted in classical technique but tilted toward the present—the cocktails, too, carry a French sensibility.
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Rank 13. Restaurant 20 Victoria
Contemporary Mexican
In a compact financial-district room with an open kitchen, chef Rafa Covarrubias delivers a tasting menu of vivid, finely executed Mexican cuisine—bluefin tuna with salsa macha, crisp-skinned Pekin duck with chilmole negro. The space is polished yet unstuffy, the service unhurried and warm, the experience calibrated to feel both sophisticated and genuinely at ease.
- Air Canada 2022 · #1 · Best New Restaurants
- Michelin Guide 1 Star
- Canada's 100 Best 2026 · #10 · Best Restaurants
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Rank 14. Yan Dining Room
Chinese
Chef Eva Chin serves an eight-course tasting menu three nights weekly, weaving seasonal Canadian ingredients through regional Chinese traditions with restless fusion sensibility. The private dining room demands advance planning but rewards with dishes that feel both rooted and inventive.
- Air Canada 2025 · Best Concept · Best New Restaurants
- Air Canada 2025 · Top 10 · Best New Restaurants
- Canada's 100 Best 2026 · Recommends
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Rank 15. Jacobs & Co
Steakhouse
A sleek steakhouse in CIBC Square where bookmatched veneer and marble converge beneath a live pianist's touch. The kitchen moves deftly between raw bar seafood and an austere selection of aged beef—striploins sourced from Canada, Australia, Japan—while warm popovers studded with garlic and oregano arrive unbidden. This is a room built for the kind of meal that wants both ambition and grace.
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At Civil Works, thematic cocktail menus unfold like curatorial projects—the current program traces Toronto's Garment District through drinks named after its history and served on fabric swatches sourced from nearby mills. The ambition never curdles into pretension; a mad-scientist spirit animates even the Jell-O shots, each one a small experiment in flavor and concept.
- 50 Best 2025 · Best Cocktail Menu Award
- Spirited Awards 2026 · Top 10 Nominee · International Bartender of the Year · Elise Hanson
- 50 Best 2026 · #29 · North America's 50 Best Bars
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Rank 18. Lai Wah Heen
Cantonese Chinese
- Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Recommended
- Chinese Restaurant Awards 2025 · Top 50 Honourees · Elite 30 Canada
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Rank 20. GEORGE Restaurant
Contemporary
A red brick room with industrial bones and bistro polish draws a steady crowd to Queen Street East. The kitchen executes a disciplined hand—seared halibut arrives over potato puree with crispy lardons and peas—while the chef's spontaneous tasting menus reward repeat visits. Half pours and modest wine glasses suggest a place that respects restraint as much as appetite.
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Rank 21. Bar Goa
Indian
The dining room at Bar Goa exudes a sense of purpose without pretension. A Goan prawn curry arrives creamy and perfectly calibrated, while a crab-laden appam and Punjabi goat shank with keema pao reveal a kitchen that understands regional Indian cooking with genuine depth. There's a seven-course tasting menu if you want to surrender the evening to their vision.
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Rank 22. Sushi Yūgen
Omakase Sushi
At an eight-seat counter in the rear, Kyohei Igarashi orchestrates a kaiseki-inflected omakase of eighteen courses sourced entirely from Japan, where seasonal rarities like okoze arrive alongside a wine list tilted toward rarefied white Burgundies and Japanese whiskies found nowhere else in the country. The precision feels less like service and more like a conversation conducted in fish.
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Rank 23. Madrina Bar y Tapas
Spanish
In the Distillery District, Madrina occupies a converted industrial space where Catalan traditions meet contemporary swagger. The tapas menu swings between anchored classics—pan con tomate, rice pudding croquetas—and inventive riffs that trust their ingredients more than theatrics, backed by a Spanish wine list and a gin section that takes itself seriously.
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Rank 25. Mott 32
Elevated Chinese
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Rank 29. Cherry Street Bar-B-Que
Barbecue
A 1920 bank marooned in construction now radiates warmth through its red neon, where pitmaster Lawrence La Pianta's Southern barbecue traditions—brisket, ribs, charred wings—emerge from a shipping-container smoker on the patio. The snappy sausage and judicious smoke speak to years spent on the Kansas City circuit, though weekend visitors should arrive early before the meat sells out.
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Rank 30. Black + Blue
Canadian
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A basement room painted in bold hues serves som tam with the fermented fish funk of Isan tradition, the salted-crab version a textbook example of the form. Grilled pork jowl arrives succulent and charred; the heat scale climbs to eleven for those who want it. No liquor, but drinks flow from the adjacent café—a straightforward operation that trades comfort for conviction.
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Rank 32. Alo
Contemporary
Patrick Kriss's renovated dining room pairs European technique with Asian flourishes across a surprise tasting menu, the marble chefs counter offering ringside views of an unhurried kitchen. The bar treats walk-ins like regulars, and the whole place hums with the confidence of a restaurant that has learned not to take itself seriously.
- Michelin Guide 1 Star
- World Culinary Awards 2025 · Nominee · North America's Best French Cuisine Restaurant
- Canada's 100 Best 2026 · #7 · Best Restaurants
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Rank 34. White Lily Diner
Creative
A bright yellow corner diner where the kitchen smokes its own bacon, bakes biscuits and donuts from scratch, and grows vegetables out back—a working reminder of what diners can be when they commit to doing things right. The hash browns arrive impossibly light, sandwiches built on house bread justify their own meal, and breakfast anchors a menu that treats every hour with equal care.
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Rank 35. PAI
Northern Thai
A former nurse named Nuit Regular cooks family recipes and street food in a mod bohemian room that fills nightly with people studying the sprawling menu. The North Thai dishes—khao soi, kanom jin nham ngeaw, gaeng panang—arrive fresh and portioned for sharing, each one calibrated with care.
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Rank 36. Alder
Wood-Fired Mediterranean
Dark brick and tall windows frame Patrick Kriss's Mediterranean kitchen at ground level of the Ace hotel, where a serious brigade works a wood-fired program around roast chicken, lamb, and beef. The cucumber salad—shaved fennel, dukkah, hazelnuts—outshines its reputation, and the coconut cream pie arrives almost weightless.
- Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Hotel Bar – Canada
- Spirited Awards 2025 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Hotel Bar – Canada
- Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
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Rank 37. DaNico
Fine Dining Italian
A historic bank vaults into fine dining: dark walls, linen, plush seats, and irreverent art strike an unlikely balance between formality and playfulness. Chef Daniele Corona's Italian cooking—anchored by Ontario produce and refined with almost kaiseki precision—reveals itself in details like spaghettoni boiled in mushroom extract and crab finished tableside with Sicilian olive oil.
- 50 Top Italy 2025 · #3 · The Best Italian Restaurants In The World
- AAA Four Diamonds
- Michelin Guide 1 Star
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Rank 38. R&D
Fusion
In a Chinatown storefront born from a mentorship between two televised chefs, R&D serves dim sum and mains that blur continents without apology: sou pastries harboring foie gras, bao stuffed with kimchi and galbi, lobster poached in butter and finished with dashi. The cooking is playful rather than precious, more interested in what works than what's proper.
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Rank 39. Evangeline
Cocktail Bar
- Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Hotel Bar – Canada
- Spirited Awards 2025 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Hotel Bar – Canada
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Rank 40. Aanch
Indian
A modest room on Wellington Street houses a kitchen that moves with quiet confidence through the landscape of Indian regional cooking. Chicken 65 arrives deep-fried and urgent; vindaloos burn with Goan spice; butter-rich dal bukhari and garlic naan anchor the menu. The plating gestures toward refinement, but what matters here is the cooking itself.
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Rank 41. Café Boulud
Luxe French
- AAA Four Diamonds
- Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Recommended
- Air Canada 2013 · Finalist · Best New Restaurants
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Rank 42. Osteria Giulia
Ligurian Italian
Candlelight softens cream walls and blond oak at Chef Rob Rossi's assured dining room, where a poised staff moves with quiet confidence. The menu pivots on Liguria's seafood traditions—vitello tonnato arrives ethereal, snow crab tagliolini gleams with bottarga—while a deep Italian wine list and exceptional cocktails complete an experience of real refinement and warmth.
- 50 Top Italy 2025 · #50 · The Best Italian Restaurants In The World
- World Culinary Awards 2025 · Nominee · World's Best Italian Cuisine Restaurant
- Michelin Guide 1 Star
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Rank 43. 苍蝇馆子 Cheng Du Street Food
Sichuan Chinese
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Rank 44. One Restaurant
French/Italian
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Rank 45. Quetzal
Mexican
A 10-metre grill dominates this sleek dining room where chef Steven Molnar builds nearly every dish around open flame and ember, from daily-ground corn tortillas to grilled secreto and charred scallops with popcorn and Tajín. Eight years in, Quetzal's upscale Mexican cuisine rewards the discipline this primal cooking demands, its flavours crackling with smoke and sophistication.
- 50 Best 2025 · #11 · North America's 50 Best Restaurants
- Michelin Guide 1 Star
- Canada's 100 Best 2026 · #4 · Best Restaurants
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Rank 46. Pompette
French Cocktail Bar
A Parisian-style cocktail bar where bentwood chairs and a marble counter frame drinks built on unexpected flavors—curry leaf and rum, masala chai with cognac. The bartenders' research and restraint make even their most baroque combinations feel effortless and clear.
- 50 Best 2025 · Art of Hospitality Award
- 50 Best 2025 · #55 · World's 50 Best Bars
- 50 Best 2026 · #8 · North America's 50 Best Bars
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Rank 47. Edulis
Spanish Mediterranean
A modest house on Niagara Street where Michael Caballo and Tobey Nemeth cook the tasting menu with the discipline of classical European dining, phones off, table yours for the evening. Impeccable seafood and house-cured charcuterie speak to their debt to Spain and France, down to the crusty red fife bread and langoustine tartare that justifies the ritual.
- Air Canada 2012 · #1 · Best New Restaurants
- Michelin Guide 1 Star
- Canada's 100 Best 2026 · #5 · Best Restaurants
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Rank 48. Enigma
Contemporary
Sam Corkum, an Alo alumnus, commands this Yorkville kitchen with restrained sophistication—a scallop arrives with potato chowder and spicy XO oil, nothing wasted. The eight-course tasting menu unfolds with Nordic and Japanese influences in careful balance, each plate a study in complementary flavors and deliberate texture.
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A two-floor Chinatown spot with a terrace where young staff and lively crowds make eating feel like an event. Southern Thai curries deliver serious heat alongside gentler noodle dishes, each plate arriving with the kind of speed that keeps the inevitable line moving.
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Rank 51. Bar Raval
Spanish
The mahogany cocoon wraps around communal tables where diners lose hours over house-cured jamón and pintxos, the room itself as essential as what arrives on the plate. Smith's kitchen and Figueiredo's drinks program—vermouth-forward cocktails, a deep sherry list—keep the place vital across its second decade.
- Spirited Awards 2026 · Top 10 Nominee · Best International Restaurant Bar
- Canada's 100 Best 2026 · #10 · Best Bars
- Air Canada 2015 · Top 10 · Best New Restaurants
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Rank 52. Sushi Masaki Saito
Omakase Sushi
Masaki Saito presides over a hinoki counter in a temple-like space, his hands moving with the deliberation of ritual as he seasons rice and sources treasures from Japan's waters with connections few chefs possess. Each piece—whether topped with uni or buried under white truffles—arrives as a small revelation, the evening orchestrated to make you forget everything beyond this room.
- Michelin Guide 1 Star
- World Culinary Awards 2025 · Nominee · North America's Best Japanese Cuisine Restaurant
- Canada's 100 Best 2026 · #52 · Best Restaurants
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Rank 53. Scaramouche
Traditional French
Descend into what feels like a basement and emerge into a dining room suspended above the Toronto skyline, where Keith Froggett's classical French kitchen has held steady since 1983. Foie gras terrine with sour cherry, rabbit loin wrapped in bacon—the menu trades novelty for rigor, each plate an argument for why some things need not change.
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Rank 55. Ricky + Olivia
Creative
The dining room sprawls in cheerful compartments, its walls collecting art and whimsy like a cabinet of curios. Chefs Ricky Casipe and Olivia Simpson assemble plates that prioritize pleasure over logic—roasted carrots crowned with bay leaf ice cream, kofta dressed in rhubarb yogurt—and the effect is a restaurant that refuses solemnity.
- Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
- Foodism 2025 · Local Icons · ICON Awards · Ricky Casipe, Olivia Simpson and Adrian Proszowski
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Rank 56. Suite 115
Cocktail Bar
Suite 115 hides behind a publicly posted code, its long bar staffed by owners who craft drinks like an Ackee & Saltfish Martini with theatrical precision. Warm lighting and food-forward cocktails served with playful sides—mango rice cake, homemade lollipops—reward those who enter.
- The Pinnacle Guide 1 Pin
- 50 Best 2026 · #74 · North America's 50 Best Bars
- Spirited Awards 2025 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best New International Cocktail Bar – Canada
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Rank 57. Opus Restaurant
Global
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Rank 58. Civil Liberties
Cocktail Bar
A no-menu speakeasy on Bloor West where bartenders construct custom cocktails from house-made liqueurs—herbal, bright, deliberately unconventional—in a room that swings from nerdy deep-dive to full dance floor depending on the hour. Civil operates like a neighbourhood bar with ambitions beyond the ordinary, unpretentious even when it's intellectually rigorous about what goes in the glass.
- Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Bar Team – Canada
- Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Cocktail Bar – Canada
- 50 Best 2026 · #54 · North America's 50 Best Bars
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A cramped, cluttered shrine to cocktail irreverence that outlasted its parent restaurant by reinventing itself without losing the Absinthe Whip. Fifteen years on, it still mixes housemade classics with playful new drinks like the agave-based Deep Cut.
- Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Cocktail Bar – Canada
- Canada's 100 Best 2026 · #49 · Best Bars
- Spirited Awards 2025 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Cocktail Bar – Canada
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Rank 60. XXX
Cocktail Bar
Down a staircase beneath Little Sister, a 20-seat speakeasy channels 1970s Amsterdam through groovy design and a bar stocked with outlier ingredients—carrot-cake-infused whisky, vermouth, sherry—mixed into high-concept cocktails by H, the barman who redesigned the space in 2023. Intimate, nervy, self-aware.
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Rank 61. Linny’s
Jewish American Steakhouse
A mid-century steakhouse wrapped in golden light, where David Schwartz channels Jewish-American nostalgia through impeccably seared beef brushed with pastrami tallow and whole roasted lamb. The menu's intelligence—from chicken liver mousse on dark rye to kasha varnishkes—cuts through richness with pickles and a bar that builds cocktails from deli ingredients.
- Air Canada 2025 · Best Cocktail · Best New Restaurants
- Canada's 100 Best 2026 · #14 · Best Restaurants
- Air Canada 2025 · Finalist · Best New Restaurants
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Massimo Zitti's fermentation-forward cocktails—kombucha, lacto-ferments, house distillates—anchor a bar where technique meets ingredient obsession. The minimal backbar and chiaroscuro lighting frame drinks like the Toasted Chai Piña Colada with a restrained elegance that feels earned rather than affected.
- 50 Best 2026 · #22 · North America's 50 Best Bars
- Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Cocktail Bar – Europe
- Canada's 100 Best 2026 · #48 · Best Bars
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Rank 63. Que Ling Restaurant
Vietnamese
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Rank 65. Sang-Ji Fried Bao
Chinese
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A narrow College Street trattoria where owners Kolomeir and Imola fold Italo-Jewish culinary history into house-made pastas and charcoal-grilled secondi built from local vegetables and proteins. The liver toast—bridging Tuscan and Jewish traditions—and the rugelach on dessert charts suggest a kitchen working in deliberate conversation with two deep roots.
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Rank 67. Simpl Things
Cocktail Bar
Evelyn Chick's cocktails at this pastel Parkdale bar traffic in nostalgic pleasure—Cosmos and caviar-topped Martinis alongside playful riffs like banana daiquiri—with enough polish to satisfy. Chef Cody Wilkes pivots from daytime focaccia sandwiches to evening Asian comfort: creamy udon carbonara threaded with lap cheong and chili crisp.
- The Pinnacle Guide 2026 · 1 Pin
- Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Restaurant Bar – Canada
- Air Canada 2023 · Finalist · Best New Restaurants
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- 50 Best 2026 · #90 · North America's 50 Best Bars
- Spirited Awards 2025 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best New International Cocktail Bar – Canada
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A whitewashed brick gallery conceals a glowing curved bar where a bouncer guards the threshold and the crowd stays cool. The narrative-driven cocktail menu riffs on Toronto deep cuts and Yellow Pages nostalgia, executing even unlikely combinations—say, gin and Greek yogurt—with serious technique. This is a place where the art on the walls matters as much as what's in your glass.
- Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Cocktail Bar – Canada
- 50 Best 2026 · #69 · North America's 50 Best Bars
- Spirited Awards 2025 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Cocktail Bar – Canada
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Rank 70. Le Swan
French
- Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Restaurant Bar – Canada
- Air Canada 2019 · Finalist · Best New Restaurants
- Spirited Awards 2025 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Restaurant Bar – Canada
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- World Culinary Awards 2025 · Nominee · North America's Best Landmark Restaurant
- VineRoutes 2025 · Vine Award Winners · Restaurant Awards
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Rank 72. Mhel
Japanese Fusion Korean
A modest storefront on a residential Toronto street conceals a kitchen where Korean-Japanese small plates rotate with the seasons, each one assembled with quiet precision from imported luxuries. The husband-and-wife team demonstrates particular mastery with fish—witness charcoal-grilled grouper finished with anchovy oil and karasumi—and a thoughtful sake list anchors the experience.
- 50 Best 2025 · #44 · North America's 50 Best Restaurants
- Air Canada 2024 · Top 10 · Best New Restaurants
- Canada's 100 Best 2026 · #30 · Best Restaurants
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Rank 73. Aburi Hana
Kyō-Kaiseki Japanese
Down a Yorkville staircase into austere, drama-free rooms where Chef Ryusuke Nakagawa's modern Kyō-Kaiseki unfolds on historic Arita porcelain—each plate a study in layered technique and color. The maguro flower, a rose of raw tuna in two cuts, and duck breast with foie gras and black truffle announce a kitchen thinking carefully about restraint and indulgence in equal measure.
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Rank 74. MIMI Chinese
Regional Chinese
Lipstick-red banquettes and dim light frame David Schwartz's polished take on regional Chinese cooking, where shrimp toast and four-foot belt noodles arrive with the precision of fine dining. The kitchen handles high-quality ingredients and refined technique without ceremony, leaving room for the chef's judgment and a wine list that knows what it's doing.
- Air Canada 2022 · Top 10 · Best New Restaurants
- Chinese Restaurant Awards 2025 · #12 · Elite 30 Canada
- Canada's 100 Best 2026 · Recommends
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Rank 75. Amal
Lebanese Middle Eastern
Amal's sleek dining room fills with weekend energy from belly dancers and DJs, drawing crowds for modern Lebanese mezze and grilled skewers executed with uncommon refinement. The halal menu balances authenticity with polish, from seared halloumi to a delightful kanafeh finale.
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Rank 76. Bar Mordecai
Cocktail Bar
Bar Mordecai orchestrates controlled chaos across two floors—a polished cocktail den above, karaoke den below—where the drinks swing from guava-chocolate hybrids to boozy soft-serve, and the fizzy wine list spans Champagne to sparkling sake. The calendar brims with bachata classes and drag-hosted bingo nights, creating a place less concerned with quiet romance than spirited revelry.
- 50 Best 2026 · #94 · North America's 50 Best Bars
- Spirited Awards 2025 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Bar Team – Canada
- Spirited Awards 2024 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Cocktail Bar – Canada
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Rank 78. Maven
Polish-Jewish Eastern European
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A no-reservation bar on Bathurst that trades reservations and flair for candlelit informality and unpretentious food. Years of requests softened its stance on cocktails, though the place still refuses to genuflect to mixology theater.
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Rank 80. Prime Seafood Palace
Steakhouse
A pale wood cathedral softened by tan leather and civil-volume soundtrack, Matty Matheson's steakhouse has matured into a serious venue for special occasions and indulgent evenings alike. The Australian wagyu ribeye under black truffle and bordelaise, the Sicilian crudo, the inventive vegetables—each element settles into place with the confidence of a kitchen that knows exactly what it's doing.
- Air Canada 2022 · Finalist · Best New Restaurants
- Canada's 100 Best 2026 · #41 · Best Restaurants
- Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
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Rank 81. Lunch Lady
Street Food Vietnamese
A cavernous room on Ossington hums with the energy of a Vietnamese street kitchen transplanted through Vancouver and now run by Benedict Lim and chef Allan Lu. The late Nguyen Thi Thanh's recipes—crispy shrimp with nuoc cham, eggplant glazed in tamarind and soy—land somewhere between Saigon memory and Toronto appetite.
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Rank 82. No Vacancy
Cocktail Bar
Exposed brick and soft amber light frame a gleaming bar at this November 2024 newcomer on Ossington, where Troy Gilchrist and Kat Yu craft Japanese-influenced cocktails with genuine ambition alongside excellent small plates and a thoughtful selection of beer and wine. The design alone drew crowds; the drinks and food keep them returning.
- 50 Best 2026 · #82 · North America's 50 Best Bars
- Spirited Awards 2025 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best New International Cocktail Bar – Canada
- Canada's 100 Best 2026 · #14 · Best Bars
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Rank 83. Campechano Adelaide
Mexican
A narrow taco counter where heirloom corn becomes fresh tortillas daily, and the kitchen's smoke and clatter fill a austere room of tile and weathered wood. The barbacoa arrives smoky and urgent, the haddock beer-battered and brisk—a place built for speed and appetite, not lingering.
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Rank 84. Fix Coffee + Bikes
Coffee
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Rank 85. General Public
British Steakhouse
Jen Agg's two-storey space channels the swagger of an American steakhouse and the convivial ease of a British gastropub, serving rib-eyes and seafood towers alongside skate wing and curried lamb tartare with flawless precision. The wine list reads like a master class, and an off-menu happy-hour burger suggests depths beyond the printed menu.
- Air Canada 2025 · Finalist · Best New Restaurants
- Canada's 100 Best 2026 · Recommends
- Foodism 2025 · Legendary Icon · ICON Awards · Jen Agg
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Rank 86. Sunnys Chinese
Chinese
Down a narrow Kensington Market hallway, Sunnys occupies a retro diner space where David Schwartz and Braden Chong chart a fiery course through Chinese regions, each dish animated by chili oil and regional heat. The kitchen refuses restraint—tripe glazed in Sichuan peppers, cumin-coated chicken thigh, charred noodles—and servers navigate the spice taxonomy with ease.
- Air Canada 2021 · Finalist · Best New Restaurants
- Canada's 100 Best 2026 · #94 · Best Restaurants
- Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
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Rank 87. Linny’s
Steakhouse
A steakhouse with deli inflections and an old-school convivial hum, Linny's trades croutons for crispy chicken skin and serves challah with house-made sauerkraut and whipped cheese dotted with berry jam. The caramelized apple cake, finished tableside with chantilly cream, suggests a chef who understands that comfort, seasoned properly, never goes out of style.
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Rank 88. Mother's Dumplings
Chinese
Zhen Feng's Chinatown institution rolls and folds dumplings at all hours, from boiled pork and dill to pan-fried varieties worth their soy-tinged dip. You can eat them here or take frozen bags home, and either way you're tasting two decades of the same deliberate hand.
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Rank 89. Fika
Nordic-Inspired
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The counter at Lonely Diner stretches beneath wood panelling and vintage paper, a refuge for regulars nursing cold beers and cocktails that drift toward the savory and strange—Szechuan peppercorn in a White Negroni, black garlic brine in the Martini. Greasy spoon classics get lifted: Atlantic cod arrives beneath yuzu-tartar and caviar. It's comfort food in conversation with itself.
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Rank 91. The Heartbreak Chef
Comfort Food
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Rank 92. Bar Vendetta
Italian
A sliver of a room on Dundas West where Jen Agg's kitchen, barely bigger than a closet, produces fresh pasta and bread at an improbable clip. The ricotta-filled cacio e pepe is the signature, though the oxtail ragu and rosemary focaccia deserve equal attention. White-and-orange tiles, wood, and vintage posters set the scene; many come just for the wine list.
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In a slender room with a storied past, Chef Rebekah Bruce composes small plates where Filipino flavors—coconut, chili, the bite of kinilaw—surface alongside her own sensibility. The scallop arrives silken and sharp; the breads from the wood-fired oven are impossible to resist. Work is precise, portions modest, satisfaction complete.
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Rank 94. The Cottage Cheese
Indian
Sunlight floods the windows of this Kensington Market dining room, where an Indian kitchen takes familiar classics—chaats, curries, claypots—and renders them with uncommon care. The butter chicken arrives vivid and silken; a coastal fish curry tastes of depth and salt. Naan comes crisp and garlicked, though rice proves essential for the generous, well-seasoned sauces that demand mopping up.
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Rank 95. KAPPO SATO
Japanese
Chef Takeshi Sato orchestrates a kinetic counter experience where a young team moves in controlled chaos, guided by his knife work and command of Japanese ingredients flown daily from across the water. Dashi broths anchor clever pivots—tempura mackerel with shiso, seared toro with scallion—that feel less ceremonial than instinctual.
- Air Canada 2023 · #1 · Best New Restaurants
- Michelin Guide 1 Star
- World Culinary Awards 2025 · Nominee · North America's Best Japanese Cuisine Restaurant
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Rank 97. SARA
Contemporary
Sara's austere dining room—phones stowed in table compartments—enforces a kind of secular monasticism around globally inflected shared plates. Butternut squash latkes arrive crowned with smoked ikura and maple kombu; Alaskan king crab swims in nuoc cham and crispy rice. The kitchen moves with evident precision, and half-portions let you chart its range alone.
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Rank 99. Famiglia Baldassarre
Italian
A pasta factory that opens its doors for lunch in a narrow window, Famiglia Baldassarre draws lines down the block for house-made cavatelli and mozzarella served from a few scattered seats. Chef Leandro Baldassarre's daily rotations—ricotta ravioli, chanterelle tagliolini—feel less like menu items than the byproduct of a serious wholesale operation willing to feed the curious.
- Canada's 100 Best 2026 · Recommends
- Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
- Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Toronto, Canada
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Rank 100. Chubby's Jamaican Kitchen
Jamaican
Island cooking arrives on Portland Street with homey curry goat and jerk chicken that justifies the line out the door. Wood smoke and spice marry in dishes humble in appearance but surprisingly deep in flavor.