The 78 Best Places to Drink and Stay in Toronto

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

Bentwood chairs, a marble bar, and jazz on Sundays give this College Street cocktail bar the plausible deniability of a Parisian café. The drinks are where things get interesting: curry leaf and rum, cognac stirred with masala chai, combinations that sound like a dare and drink like they were inevitable. North America's 50 Best Bars places it at number eight, and the hospitality matches the ambition. The garden patio fills up fast.

1. The 50 #55 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. The 50 #8 · North America's 50 Best Bars
3. The Pinnacle Guide 1 Pin

The Four Seasons brand started in Toronto, so the Yorkville flagship carries a certain pressure to get things right. This glass tower hotel earns its Forbes Five Star with quietly luxurious rooms recently renovated to nod at the Canadian landscape, a Daniel Boulud restaurant on site, and service that reportedly sets the standard for every other property in the chain, which is either reassuring or a lot to live up to, depending on your mood.

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

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

Yabu Pushelberg designed the interiors, and the suites average six hundred square feet, which tells you where this boutique hotel sits on the spectrum. The Hazelton is Yorkville's idea of a grand hotel, all heated bathroom floors, a private screening room that fills up during film festival season, and a lobby that skews Gatsby without apologizing for it. Forbes Five Star and two Michelin Keys. Celebrities apparently appreciate the discretion, though the bar patio is very much the opposite.

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

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

Rooms at the Park Hyatt run from large to genuinely enormous, with skyline views that remind you exactly where you are in the city. This is a full-service luxury hotel at Bloor and Avenue Road, steps from the ROM and the theater district, and it plays its role without apology: feather beds, a proper spa, a rooftop bar, and a restaurant doing upscale Canadian cuisine. It holds a Michelin Key and a Forbes Four Star.

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

The password is posted on the door, which is either charming or cheating depending on how much you needed the walk. Inside this cocktail speakeasy on College Street, warm amber tones and a bar stocked long enough to require a second look set the scene. The team runs food-forward cocktails, occasionally served with homemade lollipops or mango rice cake, which raises fewer eyebrows than it should. It landed on North America's 50 Best Bars.

1. The Pinnacle Guide 1 Pin
2. The 50 #74 · North America's 50 Best Bars
3. Spirited Awards 2025 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best New International Cocktail Bar – Canada

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

There's no menu at this Bloor West cocktail bar, which is either the most liberating or the most anxiety-inducing news you'll get all evening. The bartenders build something custom around what you're after, or they'll walk you through the house-made liqueurs until the right one finds you. The room shifts from low-key spirits conversation to full party depending on the hour, so arrive accordingly.

1. The 50 #54 · North America's 50 Best Bars
2. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide
3. Spirited Awards 2024 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Bar Team – Canada

Barrel-aged Negronis rest along a minimalist backbar while the kitchen, so to speak, runs on kombucha, lacto-ferments, and house-brewed potions. Mother is a fermentation-focused cocktail bar on Queen West where the drinks lean more mad-scientist than mixologist, in a good way. The chiaroscuro lighting keeps things moody and polished. It landed on North America's 50 Best Bars, which tracks for a room this quietly serious about what's in the glass.

1. The 50 #22 · North America's 50 Best Bars
2. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Cocktail Bar – Europe
3. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

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

The soft-serve ice cream comes spiked, which tells you something about how Bar Mordecai runs its cocktail program. This lively Dundas West bar spans a hotel-lobby-feeling main floor and a karaoke basement, with an events calendar that fits bachata classes, tarot readings, and drag-hosted bingo into the same week. The fizzy wine list runs from Champagne to sparkling sake to non-alc. It landed on North America's 50 Best Bars.

1. The 50 #94 · North America's 50 Best Bars
2. Spirited Awards 2024 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Cocktail Bar – Canada
3. Spirited Awards 2025 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Cocktail Bar – Canada

The worn white cabinets behind the bar hold the spirits like a well-organized medicine cabinet, which feels right for a cocktail bar that started as somewhere to wait for a table across the street and quietly became a destination of its own. Up a short flight of stairs on Dundas West, the room is tiny, warm in winter, breezy in summer, and usually full of people who knew exactly where they were going.

1. Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide
2. Canada's 100 Best #49 · Best Bars
3. Foodism Legendary Icon · ICON Awards · Jen Agg

A whitewashed-brick gallery on Dundas West that turns into a cocktail bar once you push past the dark curtain at the back. The curved bar glows, curated art lines the walls, and the menu reads like a love letter to Toronto, organized like a Yellow Pages from another dimension. The drinks are serious enough that combinations which look alarming on paper arrive exactly as they should. North America's 50 Best Bars ranked it 69th in 2026.

1. The 50 #69 · North America's 50 Best Bars
2. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Cocktail Bar – Canada
3. Spirited Awards 2024 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Bar Team – Canada

A pastel-washed Parkdale cocktail bar where the martinis come topped with a little caviar and the daiquiris are built around caramelized banana. The cocktail menu tends toward the nostalgic and playful, but there's enough craft underneath to keep things interesting. Come evening, the kitchen pivots to Asian comfort food, udon carbonara and stuffed bāo among them. Half-pours served in vintage glassware solve the problem of wanting everything.

1. The Pinnacle Guide 1 Pin
2. Air Canada 2023 · Finalist · Best New Restaurants
3. Canada's 100 Best #39 · Best Bars

Exposed brick and mid-century furniture bathed in warm amber light make this Ossington cocktail bar feel like someone's very cool living room, if that someone also happened to know a lot about Japanese whisky. The drinks program leans Japanese-inspired, the zero-proof options are taken as seriously as everything else, and the food is good enough that you'll order more than you planned. It landed on North America's 50 Best Bars list in its first year open.

1. The 50 #82 · North America's 50 Best Bars
2. Spirited Awards 2025 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best New International Cocktail Bar – Canada

The door says printing shop; the door is lying. Past a psychedelic mirrored hallway, this speakeasy opens into red velvet banquettes and warm rods of light, somewhere between a 1970s supper club and a set from a film that hasn't been made yet. The basement runs centrifuges and rotary evaporators, which is not how most bars do it, and the cocktail menu makes that fairly obvious.

1. The 50 #90 · North America's 50 Best Bars
2. Spirited Awards 2025 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best New International Cocktail Bar – Canada

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

The sinuous cocoon of curved South African mahogany is the first thing you clock, and it's enough to make you forget you're on College Street. Bar Raval is a pintxos bar and all-day Spanish hangout with a Michelin Bib Gourmand, pouring daytime cava, serious vermouth, and sharp cocktails from a tight modern program. The food runs from conservas to late-night snacks, and the room is designed to make leaving feel like a personal failure.

1. Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide
2. Air Canada 2015 · Top 10 · Best New Restaurants
3. Canada's 100 Best #10 · Best Bars

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

A vintage pinball machine throws just enough light to appreciate the chromium-and-formica bar stools at this Japanese rockabilly cocktail bar on Dundas West. Sake cocktails, Sapporo pints, and whisky highballs are the move, with Asahi served at a temperature the bar takes personally. The owner fronts a rockabilly band around town, which explains why the ephemera on the walls feels curated rather than accumulated.

1. Canada's 100 Best #22 · Best Bars

1. The Pinnacle Guide 1 Pin
2. Spirited Awards 2025 · 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

Vintage amps and speakers from the '70s and '80s line the walls of this Japanese kissaten-style bar on Dupont, which pulls double duty as a daytime café before DJs take over at dusk. The cocktail list leans on yuzu, oolong, sake, and Japanese teas, with signatures drawn from famous albums. Rice paper Noguchi lamps and koinobori streamers hang overhead, and the mid-century furniture makes clear that nobody here is in a hurry to leave.

1. Canada's 100 Best #31 · 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

The Martini "My Way" lets you spec your gin or vodka, then choose from olives, twists, caper berries, cocktail onions, or the ominously listed "Monster Munch," for which the menu offers only: Trust Us. This Junction cocktail bar and cafe runs all day, moving from breakfast sandwiches in the morning to caviar and chips after dark, with a deep natural wine cellar and a serious ice program keeping the evening crowd honest. It landed at number 25 on Canada's Best Bars list.

1. Canada's 100 Best #25 · Best Bars

The entrance is through a barbershop on Ossington, which should tell you everything about the vibe before you order a thing. Gift Shop is a compact cocktail bar that runs on classic inspiration, with originals built from combinations that have no business working as well as they do. The Lycheese Martini, which is exactly what it sounds like, rehabilitates the lychee martini with Parmigiano Reggiano. Ranked on Canada's 100 Best Bars list.

1. Canada's 100 Best #27 · Best Bars

The long counter and vintage wallpaper say diner; the cocktail list politely disagrees. This College Street bar leans into the greasy-spoon aesthetic while the kitchen sends out cod with Osetra caviar and the bartenders fold Szechuan peppercorn into a White Negroni. Cold beers are always an option, of course. Regulars fill the stools early and stay a while, which tracks for a place that ranked on Canada's 100 Best Bars.

1. Canada's 100 Best #47 · Best Bars

Frankie Solarik's follow-up to BarChef trades smoke machines for herb jars, mortar and pestle, and a chemist's storefront you walk through to reach the bar. The cocktail menu on West Queen West reads like a compendium of house-made bitters, hydrosols, and foraged botanicals, with drinks built to order from vintage apothecary vessels. The showmanship didn't go anywhere, though, and neither did the '90s hip-hop.

1. Canada's 100 Best #42 · Best Bars

Red lights, mismatched furniture, and a name that does not promise elegance: Sweaty Betty's is an anarchic dive bar on Ossington that predates the neighborhood's cool-kid era by a solid stretch. It reads like a stumble-in-at-last-call situation, which is exactly the cover it's working. The cocktails are made with care, classics alongside house originals, most under eighteen dollars, plus a solid beer list for anyone keeping it simple.

1. Canada's 100 Best #50 · Best Bars

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

1. AAA Three Diamonds

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

Every room in this red brick Victorian hotel on Queen West was decorated by a different Canadian artist and carries a title like an original artwork, not just a number. The result is bohemian-baroque rather than luxury-minimalist, and the vibe holds through the building. The railway still runs close enough to feel it, and the bar stays loud late, so bring earplugs or a tolerance for good company.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

A former Holiday Inn turned Kimpton property, the Saint George sits on Bloor Street just west of Yorkville, which means it's upscale without being precious about it. Nearly 200 rooms across 14 floors manage to feel boutique-scaled, with Frette linens and genuinely attentive service doing most of the convincing. The Fortunate Fox gastropub downstairs handles fish and chips and craft cocktails with equal enthusiasm. The Michelin Guide lists it among its selected hotels.

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

1. AAA Three Diamonds

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

1. AAA Three Diamonds

Every room at The Drake is hung with original art, and the hotel has been the anchor of West Queen West's creative scene for what feels like forever. The Classic Wing leans into vintage and retro, while the Modern Wing runs custom furniture and bold décor to the point of excess, in a good way. A courtyard lounge bar connects the two, and a live music venue downstairs keeps things from ever going too quiet.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

The neo-Gothic facade on a quiet Yorkville side street gives nothing away about what's inside: 28 suites done in warm cream minimalism, Frette sheets, limestone bathrooms with Jacuzzi tubs, and 24-hour butler service. A Bentley ferries guests around, which may explain why this boutique hotel has become the de facto base for Toronto International Film Festival talent. The Tea Room runs afternoon service by day and a champagne and caviar bar by night.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. AAA Three Diamonds

A broadcast-ready recording studio in the lobby bar is either bold or completely on-brand for the W, and here it reads as both. This hotel lands in Yorkville with the chain's signature riot of color and sculptural architecture, a rooftop restaurant and bar from Akira Back, serious fitness and wellness facilities, and public spaces that pull in the neighborhood as much as the guests. Selected by the Michelin Guide.

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

1. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Bar Team – Canada

Dried leaves hang from the ceiling, carved masks line the walls, and the pink lighting will make you look either very healthy or very unwell, depending on how many barrels deep you are. This Parkdale tiki bar runs a barrel-rating system on its cocktail menu, and nothing clocks in below two out of five, which tells you something about the room's general intentions. Rum is the obvious throughline, served in every vessel short of a fishbowl.

1. The 50 The 50 Discovery

1. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best New International Cocktail Bar – Canada

1. The 50 2025 · Most Admired Hotel Group Award

The marble bar top, tin ceiling, and tile floor make Geraldine feel like it's been on Queen West since long before Queen West was Queen West. It hasn't, but the New Orleans-themed cocktail bar wears the illusion well. Green walls and floor-to-ceiling windows that fold open frame a long, narrow room where the bar along the left wall is clearly where the action is. Cajun and Creole food runs in the background, but the bar stools are the point.

1. Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide

The hotel had a colorful past before its transformation into one of Queen West's anchor addresses, and the lounge bar still carries that energy: loud, packed, and moving fast. Artists in residence leave their mark on the walls, so the room always looks like something is happening, because it usually is. A cocktail bar where the drinks share equal billing with the scene, and where the crowd tends to arrive already in a good mood.

1. Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide

1. The Pinnacle Guide 1 Pin

A converted row house near U of T, with a backyard patio and ten seats at the bar, The Harbord Room is a cocktail bar that somehow manages to be a neighborhood spot and a destination at once. The staff is young and unstuffy, the room keeps its tables low and its energy lower, and the whole thing sits at the edge of a residential block like it landed there by accident and decided to stay.

1. Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide

An unmarked brown door on College Street, opened only by membership card, is all the warning you get. Inside, a narrow staircase climbs to a small, dimly lit speakeasy with dark wood, ten bar seats, and two tucked-away seating areas. It's a members-only cocktail bar, though out-of-towners willing to email ahead have been known to get in. The kind of place that makes you feel like you know something most people don't.

1. Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Spirited Awards 2024 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best New International Cocktail Bar – Canada

1. Spirited Awards 2024 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best New International Cocktail Bar – Canada

1. Spirited Awards 2024 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Hotel Bar – Canada

Groupings of clocks, plates, mirrors, and pictures cover the walls of this lively Queen West bar, giving it the feel of a well-curated storage unit that somehow works. High ceilings and a wall of windows that open when the weather cooperates keep things from getting claustrophobic, even when the room fills up and the noise climbs. The cocktail menu holds its own, and the kitchen out back means you can actually eat.

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide

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

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

Absinthe comes out the traditional way here, slow drip and all, which tells you where this New Orleans-inspired bar's priorities lie. The cocktail list splits into classics and signatures, and the Louisiana-comfort food is priced like the neighbourhood actually lives here, because it does. Live blues on weekends keeps things from getting too precious. The kind of bar that already has regulars who know the staff by name.

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide