The Best American Food in Canada

The rotisserie chicken here gets an overnight brine before it even sees heat, which tells you something about how seriously this neighborhood restaurant takes comfort food. Chairs hung as wall art and a lively patio give the room an easygoing, slightly offbeat feel. The Michelin Guide has it selected, and Vancouver Magazine named the crew among its premier picks. Order the chicken, add a biscuit, and leave room for the cheesecake.

A slim vintage diner on Roncesvalles that's been around forever, The Ace holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand for doing brunch better than most restaurants do dinner. The sourdough hits the griddle in the morning and the smell makes the lineup feel shorter than it is. The French toast, a thick brioche square with caramelized pears and whipped ricotta, is the kind of thing that makes people rearrange their Sundays.

The brisket here is cooked low and slow over oak until the smoke does exactly as much work as it should, no more. This is a Central Texas-style BBQ shop in Toronto, with all the markers: smoked meats by the pound, saucy sandwiches, and weekly specials that tend toward the Flintstones end of the portion scale. The pitmaster brought the method up from Dallas, and the regulars who've figured out the beef rib schedule consider that a personal win.

A red neon sign cuts through the dust of a massive waterfront construction site, and inside the old bank building behind it, the smoker is a repurposed shipping container on the patio. This is a serious barbecue joint, Michelin Bib Gourmand, running Texas brisket and St. Louis ribs alongside wings and sausage links that regulars know to order first. Come on a weekend and the meats sell out, which is either a warning or a recommendation depending on your planning habits.

Nashville-style hot chicken spot in the Junction, with a Michelin Bib Gourmand to its name. The chicken is dry-brined for two days before hitting the fryer, and the spice tiers run from approachable to ghost-pepper territory for anyone with something to prove. Bone-in birds are fried to order, so budget the half hour. The deep-fried pickles are a solid move while you wait in a bare room that rattles with rap at full volume.

A former presbytery turned BBQ restaurant, this Sainte-Marie spot is built around pork from a single local farm, smoked and barbecued in-house and sauced from multiple directions. The chef, who came up through Laurie Raphaël, keeps the room simple and the sharing plates generous. The Michelin Guide awarded it a Bib Gourmand, which tracks: the food punches well above what you'd guess from the bill.

Thinly sliced, peppery halal brisket piled onto soft rye with yellow mustard is the whole point of this no-frills deli tucked into a Scarborough strip mall. The chef spent close to two decades at Montreal's Schwartz's before landing on his own recipe, and the brisket earns that apprenticeship: marinated for days, smoked for hours, finished in a steamer. The poutine is also there, against all medical counsel. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand.

The bright yellow facade on Queen East marks an old-school diner that smokes its own bacon, bakes its own biscuits and donuts, bottles its own hot sauce, and grows its own vegetables, which feels almost unreasonably committed for a place serving hash browns. Breakfast is the main draw, but the kitchen holds up through lunch and dinner too. The Michelin Guide gave it a Bib Gourmand, which for a neighborhood diner is a little like your local corner store winning a design award.

A mounted deer keeps watch over the exposed brick and forest-scene walls at this snug Little Portugal restaurant, which is either on-brand or very on-the-nose, depending on your mood. The chef built the menu around locally sourced game, so Ontario venison shows up alongside foraged and seasonal produce. The room is cozy and chef-driven, the kind of place where the hunting ethos runs from the decor all the way to the plate.

Surf photography covers the walls and the blue décor commits hard to the bit at this Hawaiian comfort food spot on Macleod Trail. The menu leans into plate lunches, poke, Spam musubi, and huli huli chicken, with tropical cocktails that come alcohol-free if you'd rather. It's the kind of casual, shareable-plates place where the servers know the menu cold and nobody's in a hurry to rush you out.

A circular bar anchors the room at this casual American comfort spot in the thick of Toronto's financial district. The menu leans into familiar territory, pulled pork mac and cheese, braised short ribs, hearty vegetable casseroles, with enough tweaks to keep things interesting. Sofas and traditional tables share space with a screened patio when the season cooperates, which suits the after-work crowd just fine.

Duck confit on pancakes is the kind of move that sounds like a dare until you're halfway through and quietly reconsidering your whole morning. Argo is a neighbourhood diner on Ontario Street where the soups taste like someone actually waited, the fried chicken and waffles show up with conviction, and the servers have the easy warmth of people who've seen you in this booth before. Vancouver Magazine gave it a Gold Medal for Best Casual, which tracks.