The Best Places to Drink and Stay in Downtown

The chef's counter overlooking the kitchen is the seat to book at this sleek, third-floor tasting menu restaurant from Patrick Kriss. Six or ten courses move between European and Asian sensibilities without announcing the pivot each time. The bar takes walk-ins and treats them accordingly. A Michelin star sits on the shelf. Somehow the room, all burgundy and diffused light, never tips into solemnity.

1. Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide
2. Michelin Guide 1 Star
3. AAA Three Diamonds

Tableside martinis have been a feature of this jewel-toned, Art Deco cocktail bar inside the Fairmont Royal York for longer than most regulars have been alive. The cocktail menu takes its plot points from Michael Ondaatje's Toronto novel "In the Skin of a Lion," so drinks arrive with actual literary backstory, which is either charming or a lot, depending on your mood. North America's 50 Best Bars ranked it nineteenth on the 2026 list.

1. The 50 #19 · North America's 50 Best Bars
2. The Pinnacle Guide 1 Pin
3. The 50 Ketel One Sustainable Bar Award 2026 · North America's 50 Best Bars

A 40-ton metal tree outside sets the tone: nature and city, held in deliberate tension. This Forbes Five Star, Michelin Key hotel sits in Toronto's financial district but reads more like a sanctuary, with carved wooden screens, cascading waterfalls, and rooms so generous that the standard category runs larger than most hotels' suites. The fifth-floor spa has a hammam and a 20-meter pool with floor-to-ceiling views over the city below.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
2. Michelin Guide 1 Key

The saltwater infinity pool sits high enough to make the whole city feel like a backdrop, which gives you a sense of the register this Forbes Five Star hotel is operating in. Classic St. Regis butler service, suites that feel more like borrowed condos than hotel rooms, and a spa that hands you champagne after your treatment. Louix Louis on the 31st floor and the Astor Lounge keep guests from ever needing to go far.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
2. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

The cocktail menu arrives as a fabric-swatch book, sourced from a textile shop up the street, which tells you exactly the kind of cocktail bar this is. Each drink comes tethered to a chapter of Toronto history, wars and labour movements and immigration woven into the tasting notes. It lands on North America's 50 Best Bars list, and the ambition never crowds out the fun: they also do craft-cocktail Jell-O shots, which is the right call.

1. The 50 #29 · North America's 50 Best Bars
2. The 50 Best Cocktail Menu Award
3. Foodism Mixology Icon · ICON Awards · Élise Hanson

Floor-to-ceiling windows look out over the financial, entertainment, and waterfront districts from every one of the 263 rooms, which run among the largest in the city. The design skews more contemporary than you'd expect from the Ritz name, though the marble bathrooms and the service stay entirely on brand. The CN Tower, Roy Thomson Hall, and three pro sports arenas are all a short walk away, which keeps the lobby interesting.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
2. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

Three thousand live plants line almost every surface of this eco-luxury hotel in King West, which means the lobby smells like a greenhouse and that is entirely the point. Rooms run crisp and contemporary with organic textures doing the warmth-lifting, while Harriet's Rooftop handles sundowners above the neighborhood. The Michelin Guide awarded it one key, which suggests the whole sustainability-meets-pleasure argument lands.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Recommended
2. Michelin Guide 1 Key

Twenty seats below a Dutch-Indo restaurant, this subterranean speakeasy is decorated with 1970s Nederlandse kitsch, Funko Pop dolls, and enough knick-knacks to make a flea market blush. The cocktails lean toward the unexpected, carrot-cake-infused whisky being the kind of thing that shows up without apology. The barman runs the room with a reputation for bespoke pours and a soft spot for single malts. Canada's 100 Best ranks it among the country's top bars.

1. Canada's 100 Best #8 · Best Bars
2. The 50 The 50 Discovery

A single word above a heavy black door on Queen West is all the signposting BarChef bothers with. Inside, brick walls, dark wood, and dimmed lighting pull every eye toward the bar, which is exactly where Frankie Solarik wants you. The specialty is what the menu calls modernist cocktails, and the theatrical production values are not incidental to the drink. Aged bottled cocktails and punch bowls round out a list that takes itself seriously, and somehow gets away with it.

1. Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide
2. The 50 The 50 Discovery

1. The Pinnacle Guide 1 Pin
2. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Hotel Bar – Canada
3. Spirited Awards 2024 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Hotel Bar – Canada

1. AAA Three Diamonds

The "no cutlery" rule wasn't an accident, it was the whole point. 416 Snack Bar is a candlelit neighborhood bar on Bathurst where the industry crowd figured things out fast and never really left. There's no cocktail list to speak of, just a well-stocked bar happy to make the drinks people kept asking for. Ranked among Canada's 100 Best Bars, it lands its vibe by knowing exactly what it is and quietly ignoring everything it isn't.

1. Canada's 100 Best #38 · Best Bars

A lobby floor that appears to float, suspended from concrete arches by metal rods, is a strong opening argument for a hotel. The Ace Toronto sits in the Garment District, designed with curvaceous brick and retro-futuristic bones. Rooms lean unpretentious: bare wood, vintage-ish furniture, efficient without being sparse. Patrick Kriss runs the restaurant downstairs, and a 14th-floor bar handles the panoramic-view duties. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Key

Some rooms here were designed by Lenny Kravitz, which tells you roughly what you're getting: a 96-room boutique hotel in the Entertainment District where the interiors swing between opulent and rock-and-roll. Four bars and restaurants run from a casual Parisian café on the lower floors to a California-Baja rooftop on the 44th. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Key

Yoga mats and bamboo slippers in every suite signal the commitment to calm at this all-suite boutique hotel tucked into Toronto's financial district. The Zen design runs floor to ceiling, earthy tones and clean lines throughout, and full-length windows open onto the skyline and Lake Ontario. A steakhouse sits just off the lobby, and Spa Zen handles anything the city still has left on you. Selected by the Michelin Guide.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

Once the tallest building in the British Empire, the Royal York now plays underdog to the glass towers crowding Front Street. It's a grand old railway hotel with all the ceremony that implies: sweeping public rooms, a spa with a 50-foot pool, and enough dining options that you never have to leave. The Michelin Guide lists it among its selected hotels. Modern comforts are there; the bones are clearly what people come for.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

Glass-walled showers face photos of shirtless athletes, which tells you most of what you need to know about this boutique hotel next to Scotiabank Arena. The Montreal-based Germain group brings Euro-chic to what is otherwise a steel-and-glass office district, pairing loft-style rooms and Egyptian cotton with a lobby lounge that serves cocktails and tapas to anyone pre-gaming a Leafs night. Selected by the Michelin Guide.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

Goose-down duvets and bedside reading lamps signal what kind of boutique hotel this is: one that treats comfort as a design principle rather than an afterthought. Le Germain sits in Toronto's entertainment district, steps from theaters, restaurants, and Scotiabank Centre, so the location does real work. Rooms run warm-toned wood and rich textures in a modernist vein. PUNCH and the Mercer Lounge bar are both on-site when you don't feel like wandering far.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

Nobu's first Canadian hotel squeezes just 36 rooms into the downtown Entertainment District, which makes it feel more like a private club than a chain outpost. Pale wood, floor-to-ceiling windows, and stone bathrooms with soaking tubs carry the brand's minimalist Japanese aesthetic throughout. Corner suites get the skyline; lake-facing ones get glass fireplaces. The Sakura Lounge, a tea house-inspired retreat, is kept for guests only, which is a rare thing this close to TIFF headquarters.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

A Dale Chihuly glass sculpture in the lobby sets the tone: this Wellington Street West boutique hotel pairs modernist furniture and neutral tones with soaking tubs and Molton Brown products in the bathrooms. The location sits in Toronto's rough equivalent of midtown Manhattan, which means it works equally well for theatre-goers, shoppers, and the suits. Stylish without being difficult about it, which, depending on your tastes, is either the point or the whole problem.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

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.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. Spirited Awards 2025 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Hotel Bar – Canada
3. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Hotel Bar – Canada

1. Spirited Awards 2025 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Hotel Bar – Canada
2. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Hotel Bar – Canada

1. The 50 2025 · Most Admired Hotel Group Award

1. The Pinnacle Guide 1 Pin

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

A garage-door window folds open along Queen West when the weather cooperates, turning this narrow cocktail bar into something between a room and a street corner. Grey-and-green walls, yellow chairs, and a small raised library nook with a sofa and an aquarium give it the feel of a well-curated living room. The bar industry tends to hold its parties here, which tells you something about the drinks program without requiring further argument.

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide