The Top 100 Restaurants Near Lao Lao Bar
-
Rank 1. Café Boulud
Luxe French
- AAA Four Diamonds
- Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Recommended
- Air Canada 2013 · Finalist · Best New Restaurants
-
Rank 2. 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.
-
Rank 3. One Restaurant
French/Italian
-
Rank 4. 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
-
Rank 5. 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
-
-
Rank 7. Sang-Ji Fried Bao
Chinese
-
Rank 8. Opus Restaurant
Global
-
Rank 9. 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.
-
Rank 10. Lai Wah Heen
Cantonese Chinese
- Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Recommended
- Chinese Restaurant Awards 2025 · Top 50 Honourees · Elite 30 Canada
-
Rank 11. 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
-
Rank 12. Louix Louis
European
- AAA Four Diamonds
- Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Recommended
- World Culinary Awards 2025 · Nominee · Canada's Best Hotel Restaurant
-
Rank 13. 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
-
Rank 14. Planta
Vegetarian
-
-
Rank 16. Maven
Polish-Jewish Eastern European
-
Rank 17. 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
-
Rank 18. 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.
-
Rank 19. Sushi Okeya Kyujiro
Japanese
At the counter, drums thunder overhead while chefs break down whole fish and slice them in real time, each course arriving in rapid succession—kelp-cured botan ebi, grilled unagi with sancho pepper, pressed mackerel. The room moves at the rhythm of the kitchen's energy, a theatrical display of grilling and frying that justifies the premium price by sheer force of spectacle and skill.
-
Rank 20. 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.
-
Rank 21. 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
-
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.
-
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.
-
Rank 24. Reign
Canadian
- AAA Four Diamonds
- The Pinnacle Guide 2026 · 1 Pin
- VineRoutes 2025 · Vine Award Winners · Restaurant Awards
-
Rank 25. 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.
-
-
Rank 27. TOCA
Traditional Italian
- AAA Four Diamonds
- Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
- Air Canada 2011 · Finalist · Best New Restaurants
-
-
Rank 29. 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.
-
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.
-
Rank 31. 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.
-
Rank 32. Adrak Yorkville
Indian
Gilt archways and turmeric velvet booths frame a dining room of theatrical ambition where hand-carved details catch light like jewelry. The kitchen matches that grandeur with precisely seasoned dishes that range from fiery paneer tikka to a fragrant biryani finished under pastry, each plate deliberate rather than rushed.
-
- 50 Best 2026 · #90 · North America's 50 Best Bars
- Spirited Awards 2025 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best New International Cocktail Bar – Canada
-
Rank 34. 苍蝇馆子 Cheng Du Street Food
Sichuan Chinese
-
-
Rank 36. 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
-
Rank 37. 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.
-
Rank 38. 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.
-
Rank 39. Mott 32
Elevated Chinese
-
Rank 40. 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
-
Rank 41. 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.
-
Rank 42. 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.
-
Rank 43. 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
-
Rank 44. 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
-
Rank 45. The Heartbreak Chef
Comfort Food
-
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.
-
Rank 47. 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
-
- World Culinary Awards 2025 · Nominee · North America's Best Landmark Restaurant
- VineRoutes 2025 · Vine Award Winners · Restaurant Awards
-
-
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.
-
Rank 51. 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
-
-
Rank 53. Black + Blue
Canadian
-
-
Rank 55. 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.
-
Rank 56. 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.
-
Rank 57. 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.
-
Rank 58. 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
-
Rank 59. Taline
Armenian
Seb Yacoubian runs this Armenian kitchen with his brothers, the window onto Yonge Street framing him at work with the calm of someone at home. Octopus meets green harissa, Ontario lamb finds eetch—classical technique applied to dishes of perky freshness that taste like they were made to be shared. The olive-toned room, both floors equally inviting, feels like gathering around a family table.
-
Rank 60. 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
-
Rank 61. 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.
-
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
-
-
-
Rank 65. 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
-
Rank 66. 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
-
-
Rank 68. 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.
-
-
Rank 70. 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
-
Rank 71. 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.
-
Rank 72. 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
-
Rank 73. 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.
-
Rank 74. 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.
-
Rank 75. 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
-
Rank 76. 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.
-
-
Rank 78. 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.
-
-
Rank 80. Azura
Mediterranean Cuisine
Warm honeyed light and a central bar frame Chef Adam Ryan's seasonal tasting menu of Mediterranean dishes—striking canapés, a short rib tagine arranged with care—where locally foraged ingredients meet considered wine and cocktail pairings in a neighborhood space that feels both ambitious and unhurried.
-
Rank 81. 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
-
Rank 82. 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.
-
Rank 83. 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.
- Air Canada 2011 · Finalist · Best New Restaurants
- VineRoutes 2025 · Award of Distinction · Restaurant Awards
- Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
-
Rank 84. 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.
-
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.
-
Rank 86. 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.
-
Rank 87. 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.
-
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.
-
-
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.
-
Rank 91. Aloette
New American
A narrow dining room on Spadina hums with the ease of a place that knows exactly what it's doing. Chef Patrick Kriss's diner serves iceberg wedges crowned with puffed wild rice and a burger that needs no introduction, each plate arriving with the care of fine dining stripped of pretense. Lemon meringue pie—tall, browned, unapologetic—sends you out satisfied.
- Air Canada 2018 · Top 10 · Best New Restaurants
- Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
- Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Toronto, Canada
-
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.
-
Rank 93. Maha's
Egyptian Middle Eastern
Maha Barsoom's Leslieville cafe smells of cardamom and butter, a small homesick shrine to Cairo where you climb to the counter and wait without a reservation. The lentil soup arrives in a warm bowl, vinegar onions and charred pita conspiring to prove why she opened the place at all.
-
Rank 94. Kiss My Pans
Singaporean
-
Rank 95. Beast Pizza
Canadian
-
Rank 96. Que Ling Restaurant
Vietnamese
-
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.
-
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.
-
Rank 99. 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.
-
Rank 100. 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.