The Best Mediterranean Food in Canada

The menu isn't printed, because by the time you sit down it's already changed. Edulis is a tiny tasting-menu restaurant behind a candy-striped awning on Niagara Street, run by a husband-and-wife team whose culinary frame of reference is the old Michelin-starred dining rooms of Spain and France, framed posters of which line the walls. Phones away, table yours for the night. It holds a Michelin star and a spot on North America's 50 Best.

The gilded logo on the window and a permanent haze of wood smoke inside tell you what this Griffintown restaurant is about before you've sat down. Deep gray walls, long bar, and shiny wood surfaces set a moody, modernist tone for wood-fired Mediterranean sharing plates. The kitchen leans heavily on local and plant-forward produce, with fire as the organizing principle. A Michelin Selected Restaurant.

A former foundry in Griffintown, with ceilings high enough to lose a secret and exposed brick that somehow looks intentional, is now one of the more atmospheric Italian-Mediterranean restaurants in the city. The Carrara marble bar is a fine place to sit alone and feel cosmopolitan. Crudos lean bright and citrusy, pastas run deep and rich, and the menu is short enough that everything on it earns its spot.

A stylish Mediterranean small-plates restaurant where the mezze menu is designed for mixing, matching, and ordering one more round before you've decided you're done. The room leans into cool lighting and a central bar that keeps things lively, and the cocktail list holds its own alongside the food. The crowd skews toward people who know how to split a bill twelve ways without drama.

The line outside on weekend mornings is its own kind of landmark, and the smell of Belgian waffles from the kitchen doesn't help anyone's patience. Café Medina is a brunch spot with a Mediterranean lean, the sort of place where regulars shuffle to the counter without looking at the menu. Egg dishes carry the morning, and the orzo paella with chorizo and a fried egg on top has a way of ending the debate over what to order.

Stacks of firewood against the dark brick walls signal what this small-plates Mediterranean spot is actually about: wood-fired proteins and serious cooking from the Alo Food Group, Patrick Kriss's team. The room inside the Ace Hotel runs dark and sleek, with big windows cutting the mood just enough. The menu ranges from carpaccio to roast chicken and lamb, and regulars know to save room for the coconut cream pie if it's on.

A tufted banquette, honeyed lighting, and a bar planted dead center set the tone at this Danforth Avenue tasting menu restaurant. The kitchen leans Mediterranean but follows the seasons, with locally foraged ingredients arranged like the chef has a point to prove about presentation. Esoteric wines and gin-forward cocktails fill out the evening nicely. The crowd across from the music hall tends to settle in and stay a while, which is rather the idea.