The Best Places to Eat and Do in Toronto

1. AAA Approved

1. AAA Approved

The panzerotti here is a golden, deep-fried pocket that weighs close to two pounds, stuffed with mozzarella and pepperoni until it barely holds together. This no-frills Richmond Hill pizza joint has been around forever, and the regulars know to keep it simple. Wings and kitchen-sink salads round out the menu, but the panzerotti is the reason the place has a reputation that reaches well past the suburbs.

1. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Toronto, Canada

1. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Toronto, Canada

1. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Toronto, Canada

1. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Toronto, Canada

A cheese vault holding a million dollars' worth of age-ripened wheels is the main character here, and yes, you can tour it. This west-end fromagerie and gourmet grocery has grown into a sprawling emporium stocked with over 500 varieties of cheese alongside charcuterie, truffles, olive oils, and prepared foods. A wine bar sits upstairs for when the tasting gets serious. The kind of place where you arrive for one wedge and leave needing a second bag.

1. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Toronto, Canada

1. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Toronto, Canada

The croissants here leave evidence, buttery and flaky enough that you'll be picking debris off your shirt for the rest of the morning. This Harbord Street bakery has built a following around laminated pastry and long-fermented sourdough, with savory Saturday specials that rotate weekly and draw a line of regulars who planned their whole day around it.

1. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Toronto, Canada

The chef here prefers "thoughtfully remixed" to "Asian fusion," which is fair enough given that his scrambled eggs hide scallops and tiger prawns in the curds. This progressive restaurant in Thornhill runs a modernist, jade-toned room that pulls in a genuinely mixed crowd, from scruffy Gen Z to Birkin-toting regulars. The fried chicken between black sesame waffles with honey butter is the kind of dish that makes you stop mid-sentence.

1. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Toronto, Canada

1. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Toronto, Canada

1. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Toronto, Canada

A kopitiam and cheese shop sharing one address on College Street, which is either a very specific vision or a beautiful accident. The Singaporean-Malaysian menu runs deep, the kind of cooking that earns Michelle Yeoh as a fan without making a fuss about it. Roti prata comes flaky and dip-ready, and the stacked lunchbox format means you can cover a lot of ground in one sitting.

1. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Toronto, Canada

Pastel walls and squeaky vinyl banquettes set the tone at this retro Cuban diner on Ossington, where everything from the bread to the desserts comes out of the kitchen from scratch. The barbecue beef short ribs get a long braise and a guava glaze, and the Cubano runs on slow-roasted pork and house-made baguette. The kind of comfort food that doesn't apologize for being exactly what it is.

1. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Toronto, Canada

1. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Toronto, Canada

1. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Toronto, Canada

1. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Toronto, Canada

Cold noodles made from scratch with sweet potato starch imported from South Korea set the tone before the charcoal even lights. Piggy's is an a la carte Korean BBQ spot in Thornhill that leans into sourcing and culinary culture rather than the all-you-can-eat race to the bottom. The pork ribs are aged in-house and cooked over Korean oak charcoal, and the room fills quickly with people who already know what they're ordering.

1. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Toronto, Canada

A by-the-slice shop on Dovercourt where the dough gets a three-day ferment before it sees any heat, which explains the audible snap when you bite in. The crust lands somewhere between New York and Neapolitan, with a flakiness that has no business being that good in a slice shop. The roster rotates, but regulars come with a preference already locked in and argue about it on the way out.

1. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Toronto, Canada

The highest praise a plant-based restaurant can get is when carnivores leave quietly impressed, and Planta in Yorkville has built a reputation around exactly that. The chef behind it trained in Michelin-starred kitchens and applies that technique to a globe-spanning menu where cashew mozzarella goes on vodka pizza and mushroom "bacon" turns up in the carbonara. Hedonistic is the right word, not virtuous.

1. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Toronto, Canada

A slow-cooked beef broth that takes days to build is the reason chefs have been quietly directing people here for years. This tiny Vietnamese spot sits just off Leslieville's Old Chinatown, the kind of room where the pho does the talking. The broth runs earthy and aromatic, almost medicinal in the best sense, and the bowl arrives ready to customize with chiles, sprouts, and fresh lime.

1. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Toronto, Canada

1. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Toronto, Canada

1. Air Canada 2019 · Finalist · Best New Restaurants

1. Air Canada 2019 · Finalist · Best New Restaurants

A natural wine bar on Bayview with over 120 organic and low-intervention bottles, plus a bottle shop if you want to keep the evening going at home. The food runs tapas-style: shared plates, charcuterie, and seasonal small bites that skew Mediterranean. The room is quiet and minimalist, which makes the wine list feel like the main event, because it is.

1. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Toronto, Canada

Fried chicken is the whole point at this snug 26-seat comfort food spot in Kensington Market, and chef Jerome Robinson has been making that case since a 2018 pop-up built a following before there was even a proper dining room. The mac and cheese arrives buried under deep-fried thighs in Carolina butter sauce, which covers two food groups if you're generous about it. The '90s hip-hop energy from the old Dundas West location made the move intact.

1. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Toronto, Canada

1. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Toronto, Canada

1. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Toronto, Canada

1. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Toronto, Canada

1. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Toronto, Canada

Leather banquettes, brass fixtures, and a room full of people who clearly planned their outfit around the reservation: La Banane is a French bistro on Ossington that leans into the romance of it all without apology. The kitchen plays with classic French forms, pairing one of the city's more ambitious raw bars with a cooking style that wanders toward yuzu and other detours. The banana cake with salted caramel ice cream has its own cult following.

1. Air Canada 2017 · Finalist · Best New Restaurants
2. The 50 The 50 Discovery

1. Air Canada 2017 · Finalist · Best New Restaurants

1. Air Canada 2016 · Top 10 · Best New Restaurants

1. Foodism Rising Star Icon · ICON Awards · Eva Chin

1. Foodism DEI Icon · ICON Awards · Mohamad Fakih

1. Foodism DEI Icon · ICON Awards · Mohamad Fakih

1. Foodism DEI Icon · ICON Awards · Mohamad Fakih

1. Foodism Legendary Icon · ICON Awards · Jen Agg

1. Air Canada 2014 · Top 10 · Best New Restaurants
2. Air Canada 2015 · Finalist · Best New Restaurants

1. Air Canada 2015 · Finalist · Best New Restaurants

1. Air Canada 2015 · Finalist · Best New Restaurants

1. Air Canada 2015 · Top 10 · Best New Restaurants

1. Air Canada 2014 · Finalist · Best New Restaurants

1. Air Canada 2014 · Finalist · Best New Restaurants

1. Air Canada 2013 · Finalist · Best New Restaurants

1. Air Canada 2013 · Finalist · Best New Restaurants

1. Foodism Culinary Icon · ICON Awards · Iván Castro

1. Foodism Legendary Icon · ICON Awards · Donna Dooher

1. Air Canada 2012 · Finalist · Best New Restaurants

1. Air Canada 2011 · Finalist · Best New Restaurants

1. Air Canada 2011 · Finalist · Best New Restaurants

1. Air Canada 2011 · Finalist · Best New Restaurants

1. Air Canada 2011 · Finalist · Best New Restaurants