The Top 100 Places to Eat and Drink Near Actinolite
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Rank 1. Actinolite
Contemporary New American
Chef Justin Cournoyer forages and ferments his way through a seven-course tasting menu that shifts with the season and his network of local suppliers, each plate marked by restraint and precision. On Ossington's residential stretch, the kitchen's homemade sourdough and self-garden herbs suggest a cook more interested in what the land offers than what the menu promises.
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Rank 2. 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 Cocktail Bar – Canada
- Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Bar Team – Canada
- 50 Best 2026 · #54 · North America's 50 Best Bars
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By day, a café for lingerers nursing matcha and espresso; by night, a listening room where DJs spin vinyl through a custom sound system. The cocktails follow Japanese kissaten principles—sessionable, seasonal, built from yuzu, oolong, sake—while mid-century furniture and rice paper lamps suggest a space designed for unhurried contemplation.
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Rank 4. 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 5. 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 6. 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 7. 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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A narrow room with a long bar pulses with the energy of a true neighborhood bistro. Chef Diego Reyes executes the canon—duck confit, onion soup, steak frites—with meticulous care, and the wine and cocktail programs match that precision. French bistro cooking without pretense or apology.
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Rank 9. 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 10. FK
Contemporary
At FK, a sun-filled room on St. Clair feels less restaurant than refuge, built around a kitchen that chases the season's best ingredients—garlic-scaped bread, soft-shell crabs, morels—without pretense. The Cornish hen glazed in smoky barbecue and braised oxtail tortellini, served small enough to start, prove that honest cooking and patient pacing are not flaws but features.
- VineRoutes 2025 · Award of Distinction · Restaurant Awards
- Air Canada 2011 · Finalist · Best New Restaurants
- Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
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Rank 11. Good Behaviour
Dessert
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Rank 12. 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 13. 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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- World Culinary Awards 2025 · Nominee · North America's Best Landmark Restaurant
- VineRoutes 2025 · Vine Award Winners · Restaurant Awards
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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 16. Takja BBQ House
Korean Barbecue
On College Street, two chefs have rebuilt Korean barbecue around sourced proteins—Kansas hanger steak, Guelph rib-eye, Australian wagyu aged in-house—grilled tableside with practiced restraint. The sides matter as much as the meat: house-fermented ssämjang and kimchi, seafood pancakes crowned with uni, cocktails and natural wines that honor the cuisine rather than distract from it.
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Rank 17. Alma
Asian
Anna Chen works in a tight shoebox on Bloordale, where scallion bao meets stracciatella and radish cakes arrive with aggressive garlic-chive paste—Chinese enough, fusion enough, labels unnecessary. Wontons swim in chewy noodles, miso cheesecake closes things sweetly, and natural wine pours with a server's casual confidence.
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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 2024 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Bar Team – Canada
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Rank 19. 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
- Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Restaurant Bar – Canada
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Rank 20. Conejo Negro
Caribbean
A narrow College Street corner where Creole, Caribbean, and Latin flavors converge in shareable plates of firecracker shrimp and fried chicken with smoked hot honey. The wood-benched backyard patio, strung with warm light and ringed in greenery, feels designed for crews who plan to linger.
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Rank 22. 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 2024 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Cocktail Bar – Canada
- Spirited Awards 2025 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Cocktail Bar – Canada
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Rank 23. Electric Bill
Australian
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Rank 24. 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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Rank 25. Itacate
Mexican
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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 Bar Team – Canada
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Rank 27. Bar Isabel
Spanish
On College Street, Bar Isabel serves unfussy Spanish tapas with real conviction—the pork secreto, glazed in honey and apple cider, exemplifies Grant van Gameren's restrained approach. Half portions invite exploration, while the drinks list pivots smartly between craft beer and Sherry cocktails.
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Rank 28. Maven
Polish-Jewish Eastern European
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Rank 29. Kiss My Pans
Singaporean
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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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Rank 31. 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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A Dundas West bar where Japanese rockabilly aesthetics—vintage pinball, chromium stools, curated posters—meet sake cocktails and Japanese whisky served with rock-star deliberation. Owner Hideki Saito's band the Ichi-Bons occasionally play, lending authenticity to a seventeen-year romance with mid-century cool.
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Rank 34. DaiLo
New Asian/French
At DaiLo, chef Nick Liu treats the sharing table as theater: whole fried trout arrives glossy with nam jim and soy, while Hainanese chicken harbors black truffle beneath its skin, paired with foie fat rice. Hand-folded dumplings shift with the seasons, and the cocktail list matches the kitchen's generosity of spirit.
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Rank 35. Casa Paco
Spanish
Rob Bragagnolo's small house restaurant delivers a tasting menu of crispy socarrat rice and briny seafood—P.E.I. tuna aged in-house, John Dory confit—drawn from his years cooking in Spain and Italy. Sundays pivot to family-style paella, served with mussels and uni from a wine list devoted to obscure regions.
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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 37. 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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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 40. 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 41. 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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An izakaya on Dundas West where the open kitchen turns out precise renderings of Tokyo home cooking—yuzu fried chicken with an exact crackle, tebasaki wings dusted with pepper, sashimi that speaks for itself. The room carries a deliberate shabbiness; the beer and sake list rewards curiosity. Finish with taro ice cream melting into Tokyo Toast.
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Rank 43. Opus Restaurant
Global
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Rank 44. RASA
Contemporary
A gastropub where the kitchen moves with infectious energy, unburdened by a single cuisine. Chickpea fritters with lemon mascarpone sit alongside truffle gnodi and lamb vindaloo dumplings; a beef cheek burger on house-made brioche arrives slathered in gochujang mayo. The portions are generous, the flavors assertive, the whole enterprise designed for repeat visits.
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Rank 45. 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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Two veteran chefs run a fish counter on Dundas West that doubles as a sixteen-seat restaurant, offering seasonal preparations of undervalued Canadian lake fish—whitefish katsu arriving as sandwich, rice bowl, or noodle dish depending on the day. The operation feels less like a restaurant than a fishmonger's love letter, minimal menu and all.
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Rank 47. 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
- Canada's 100 Best 2026 · Recommends
- Chinese Restaurant Awards 2025 · #12 · Elite 30 Canada
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Rank 48. Enoteca Sociale
Italian
A marble counter curves through this Roman trattoria like an embracing arm, the kind of place that makes solo diners feel instantly adopted. Nearly everything arrives from the kitchen's own hands—charcuterie, pasta, even the arancini—but what matters is the cacio e pepe, silken and obsessive, the dish most tables refuse to leave without.
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Rank 49. One Restaurant
French/Italian
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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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Basilio Pesce's narrow room seats barely two dozen, each table angled toward the kitchen where lasagne sheets are layered by hand. Truffle and maitake crown the ricotta ravioli; black cod arrives Livornese-style with Saltspring mussels. The wine list moves unhurried through price and temperament, a nod to the fact that Italian comfort food, when executed here, asks for patience and respect.
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Rank 52. 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 53. Butter and Spice
Bakery
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Rank 55. 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 56. Parquet
French
A French bistro on Harbord that abandons cliché through graceful design—marble bar, forest-green ceiling, patterned floors—and assured cooking that makes mushroom beignets feel essential. The cassoulet and steak frites arrive as they should: rich, satisfying, unironically French.
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Rank 57. 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 58. 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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Rank 59. 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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A narrow room on Ossington where Tom Thai has spent two decades threading pan-Asian and Latin flavors into ceviches with startling clarity and beef preparations—grilled steak tataki meets chimichurri, beef cheek swims in red curry—that feel less like fusion than conversation between two kitchens. Order small plates and share.
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Rank 61. Café Boulud
Luxe French
- AAA Four Diamonds
- Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Recommended
- Air Canada 2013 · Finalist · Best New Restaurants
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Rank 62. Gia
Italian
The narrow dining room—high ceilings, exposed brick, herringbone floors—hums with the quiet confidence of a chef who happens to cook without meat. Jenny Coburn's house-made pasta, especially the mushroom agnolotti in brown butter, tastes like it needs no justification at all.
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Rank 63. TOCA
Traditional Italian
- Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
- AAA Four Diamonds
- Air Canada 2011 · Finalist · Best New Restaurants
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Rank 64. 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
- Canada's 100 Best 2026 · #7 · Best Restaurants
- World Culinary Awards 2025 · Nominee · North America's Best French Cuisine Restaurant
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Rank 66. 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
- World Culinary Awards 2025 · Nominee · North America's Best Mediterranean Cuisine Restaurant
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Rank 67. 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 68. Reign
Canadian
- AAA Four Diamonds
- The Pinnacle Guide 2026 · 1 Pin
- VineRoutes 2025 · Vine Award Winners · Restaurant Awards
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Rank 69. Restaurant Pompette
French/Italian
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Rank 70. Giulietta
Italian
Rob Rossi's Dufferin Grove corner treats Italian cooking as both comfort and craft, moving from charred octopus to faultless pizza with unhurried confidence. The room itself—stylish but lived-in—mirrors what the kitchen does: it settles you in like an old friend, then makes you forget you came for anything but this.
- Air Canada 2018 · Top 10 · Best New Restaurants
- Canada's 100 Best 2026 · #89 · Best Restaurants
- Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
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Rank 71. 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 72. 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 74. 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 76. Viaggio
Italian
A neighborhood Italian kitchen that swaps convention for invention: smoked pastrami crowns pizza, tagliolini tangles with charred octopus in smoked dashi butter. The tiramisu—part soufflé, part pancake, finished with espresso maple syrup—alone justifies the trip. Housed in a historic building with a handsome room and garden-lit deck.
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A narrow Junction diner where the chalkboard menu reads like comfort stripped to its essence—cheeseburger, steak, mushrooms on toast—yet each plate arrives with the precision of chefs who've forgotten more than most will ever know. Walk-ins only, affordable wines, no reservations to soften the transactional thrill of what amounts to a small, exacting argument against unnecessary ornament.
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Rank 79. 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 80. Bar Banane
Cocktail Bar
The bar at this Ossington Avenue institution draws a stylish crowd beneath jewel-toned walls and propulsive music. Cocktails arrive with precision—a shrimp preparation chilled to glassy perfection—while the kitchen works through luxe proteins and truffled preparations with equal conviction. It's the kind of room where sophistication and swagger coexist without apology.
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Rank 81. Gift Shop
Cocktail Bar
Behind a barbershop on Ossington, a dimly lit bar where the playlist runs deep and the cocktails chase complexity through unexpected ingredients like shōchū and Parmigiano Reggiano. Nine years in, it has settled into the role of a place you return to, not discover.
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By day a butcher shop, by night a narrow wine bar where the knife work on steak tartare matters as much as the meat itself. The namesake 48-ounce côte de bœuf and steak frites anchor a Parisian-leaning menu; the butcher's table, scrubbed clean, opens for private bookings. French wines by the glass at the zinc counter.
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Rank 83. 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 84. 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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- 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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You thread through a coffee shop into a narrow dining room where binchotan grills anchor an airy kitchen, and Thai cooking snaps with fresh herbs and chilis across a menu built for sharing. The fried calamari salad and beef tartare with fish sauce show a kitchen that thinks beyond rote execution.
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Rank 87. 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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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 89. 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 90. 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 92. 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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Sweaty Betty's wears its dive-bar roughness—red light, mismatched chairs, anarchic spirit—like armor against the Ossington strip's polish, a standby since 2004 that rewards those who look past the stumble-in allure. Cocktails are built with precision, beers span a thoughtful roster, and the kitchen moves beyond the usual with vegan options, all priced to encourage return visits.
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You enter through a chemist's storefront into Frankie Solarik's apothecary bar, where cocktails materialize from house-made bitters, crushed herbs, and vintage jars lined across the backbar. The drinks—layered with basil, fennel, and unexpected botanicals—arrive with just enough showmanship and '90s hip-hop to remind you this is still BarChef's second act.
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Rank 95. 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 96. 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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Rank 97. Dreyfus
French
A narrow townhouse on Harbord conceals a French bistro where dim light and Italo-disco underscore cooking that moves between exuberant and refined—sweetbreads with paloise, lobster with bone marrow, always pommes dauphines. Chef Zach Kolomeir's wine program rewards curiosity, and the kitchen pivots with the seasons, making each visit feel conspiratorial.
- Air Canada 2019 · Top 10 · Best New Restaurants
- Canada's 100 Best 2026 · #19 · Best Restaurants
- Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
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Rank 99. 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 100. Lai Wah Heen
Cantonese Chinese
- Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Recommended
- Chinese Restaurant Awards 2025 · Top 50 Honourees · Elite 30 Canada