The Best Places to Eat and Drink in Toronto

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.

1. Air Canada 2019 · Finalist · Best New Restaurants
2. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Toronto, Canada

1. Air Canada 2012 · Finalist · Best New Restaurants
2. Canada's 100 Best Recommends

A regional Indian restaurant on Wellington that hopscotches the subcontinent, from Chennai's deep-fried chicken 65 to the fiery vindaloos of Goa. The dining room is quiet and a little sleepy, which makes the kitchen's ambition feel like a pleasant surprise. The chef adds decorative swirls to the plates, a habit the food doesn't need but survives with its dignity intact. An old-school institution that keeps filling tables without making a fuss about it.

1. AAA Approved
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

The wood-burning grill handles jerk chicken here, and the smoke from it is half the reason to walk through the door. This is an easygoing Jamaican spot where the cooking is homey and unpretentious, the classics run deep, and the gravy from the curry goat or oxtail stew can be ordered as a side, which is the kind of menu decision that earns a place lasting loyalty. The Michelin Guide has taken notice.

1. AAA Approved
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Chinese Restaurant Awards #3 · Elite 30 Canada

1. Chinese Restaurant Awards #7 · Elite 30 Canada

1. Chinese Restaurant Awards #5 · Elite 30 Canada

1. AAA Four Diamonds

Wood-burning ovens and banquettes that make every seat feel like a corner booth set the tone at this Italian wine bar in downtown Oakville. It's a sleek neighborhood spot where the pizzas come out blistered and puffy-edged, pasta leans toward things like trecce with crab, and the whole room moves with the low-key confidence of a place that doesn't need to prove anything. A Michelin Bib Gourmand, and easy to see why the locals never quite leave.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

The curved banquettes, low ceiling, and candlelight will convince you it's a cocktail bar, and the drinks are sharp enough to let you believe that as long as you like. The Alo Food Group's French-leaning restaurant in Yorkville leans hard on a charcoal grill and whatever came off a boat, with a wedge salad and banana cream pie showing up like old friends. The room hums with the particular contentment of people who've already ordered a second round.

1. Air Canada 2019 · Finalist · Best New Restaurants
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Sea foam green tile, pink booths, and turquoise stools make this Parkdale Filipino diner look like a fever dream at a thrift shop, and the food keeps pace. Brunch leans into adobo fried chicken with pineapple habanero hot sauce; by evening the cocktail bar wakes up and the kitchen shifts toward pancit and calamansi pie. The Michelin Bib Gourmand crowd arrives dressed for neither occasion and fits right in.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

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.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

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.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

The marble bar running through the middle of this Dundas West wine bar is where solo diners tend to end up, treated like regulars whether or not they are. Enoteca Sociale is a Roman-style enoteca where nearly everything, bread, charcuterie, and the pastas that anchor the menu, is made in-house. The cacio e pepe draws the room's loyalty in a way that tends to settle arguments. A Michelin Bib Gourmand, and the kind of place that fills up before you remember to book.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

You walk through a tiny coffee shop at the front, keep going, and eventually the dining room appears around a small kitchen fitted with binchotan charcoal grills. It's a Thai restaurant on Ossington, narrow and sunlit, with a Michelin Bib Gourmand to its name. The menu is tight and considered, running from sticky rice spring rolls through green curry with fish and red curry with duck, all built around fresh herbs and chilis that mean business.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

1. Chinese Restaurant Awards #16 · Elite 30 Canada

A South Indian restaurant that takes up several bays of a Mississauga strip mall, which turns out to be a good call given the crowds it draws. The dosa menu alone runs to dizzying variety, from the giant Mysore Bhaji Dosa stuffed with aloo masala to more kinds than most of the region has ever attempted. Idlys, vadas, and uttapam come out fresh and fast, with sambar and chutneys alongside. The Michelin Guide awarded it a Bib Gourmand.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

1. Chinese Restaurant Awards #17 · Elite 30 Canada

1. Chinese Restaurant Awards #23 · Elite 30 Canada

1. Chinese Restaurant Awards #23 · Elite 30 Canada

1. Air Canada 2016 · Finalist · Best New Restaurants
2. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Toronto, Canada

A small taco and tostada spot on Gerrard that earns a Michelin Bib Gourmand from a kitchen the size of a closet. The menu leans hard into seafood, with tostadas piled high and tacos built for flavor rather than tidiness. Expect bold, punchy combinations where the Pacific meets Mexico City. Easy to walk past, harder to forget once you've been. Cash-and-carry crowd, fast tables, no fuss.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

The burger patty is ground beef cheek, grilled and stacked on house-made brioche with gochujang mayo, which tells you most of what you need to know about this gastropub. The menu roams freely, chickpea fritters alongside lamb vindaloo dumplings alongside truffle gnudi, and no single cuisine gets to claim it. Portions run generous, flavors run bold, and the Michelin Bib Gourmand suggests the tab stays reasonable while all of that is happening.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

A family-run Georgian restaurant in the Beaches, east of downtown, where the bread boat filled with molten cheese, butter, and an egg yolk is the kind of dish that reorganizes your afternoon plans. The menu runs to dumplings heavy with warm broth and long skewers of kebab, all built for sharing and seasoned like someone's grandmother is watching. The Michelin Guide awarded it a Bib Gourmand, which tracks.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

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.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

A farm-to-table bistro where the farm is not a talking point but an actual 10-acre organic operation the chef-owners run themselves. The menu shifts with the seasons, leaning heavily on vegetables, bright salads, and the occasional fried pork cutlet that earns its place on the bill. Red brick walls, easy wine pours, and a genuinely unhurried pace. The Michelin Guide awarded it a Bib Gourmand, which feels right for a place this quietly confident about what it is.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

Paneer fans will appreciate that the name is a love letter to the ingredient, not a quirk. This sunny Indian restaurant in Kensington Market fills a window-wrapped room with sharable chaats, claypots, and curries seasoned with real precision. The butter chicken runs an almost painterly orange, and the coastal fish curry goes deep. Naan comes garlic-flecked and crisp, though you'll want rice too for the sauces. The servers narrate the menu at cheerful length. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand.

1. Michelin Guide 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.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

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

White-and-orange tile, vintage posters, and a bar long enough to mean business set the tone at this narrow Italian wine bar on Dundas West. The kitchen is barely the size of a coat closet, which makes the from-scratch pastas and focaccia all the more baffling. Half the room is here for the surprisingly deep Italian wine list and has no intention of eating. The other half ordered the ricotta-stuffed cacio e pepe coil and isn't sharing.

1. Foodism Legendary Icon · ICON Awards · Jen Agg
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Chinese Restaurant Awards Top 50 Honourees · Elite 30 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. Chinese Restaurant Awards Top 50 Honourees · Elite 30 Canada

1. Chinese Restaurant Awards Top 50 Honourees · Elite 30 Canada

1. Chinese Restaurant Awards Top 50 Honourees · Elite 30 Canada

Dumplings shaped like flowers and rice pressed into jewel-colored mounds set the tone at Kiin, a Royal Thai restaurant on Adelaide where the food looks almost too considered to eat. Chef Nuit Regular takes familiar markers like khao soi, larb, and hot and sour beef soup and reframes them through a courtly lens, everything arriving in petite bowls with an attention to presentation that stops just short of theater. The Michelin Guide has it listed among selected restaurants in Toronto.

1. Air Canada 2018 · Finalist · Best New Restaurants
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Chinese Restaurant Awards #26 · Elite 30 Canada

1. Chinese Restaurant Awards Top 50 Honourees · Elite 30 Canada

1. Chinese Restaurant Awards Top 50 Honourees · Elite 30 Canada

1. Chinese Restaurant Awards Top 50 Honourees · Elite 30 Canada

1. Chinese Restaurant Awards Top 50 Honourees · Elite 30 Canada

1. AAA Three Diamonds
2. Air Canada 2014 · Top 10 · Best New Restaurants

1. Chinese Restaurant Awards Top 50 Honourees · Elite 30 Canada

1. Chinese Restaurant Awards Top 50 Honourees · Elite 30 Canada

1. Chinese Restaurant Awards Top 50 Honourees · Elite 30 Canada

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.

1. Air Canada 2016 · Finalist · Best New Restaurants
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

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

1. The 50 The 50 Discovery

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. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

Directly across from the Four Seasons Centre, this polished Vietnamese restaurant fills its large dining room with booths, bar stools, and enough greenery to suggest someone actually tends it. The menu leans on traditional recipes, and the coconut curry, available with duck, chicken, or shrimp, gets most of the attention. The timing is convenient if you're catching a ballet and want something more interesting than a pre-show martini.

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

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.

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

Hand-carved furniture, turmeric-colored booths, and archways that glow like something out of a Mughal painting make this Indian dining room in Yorkville feel pleasantly over-the-top in the best way. The kitchen matches the ambition, moving through dishes from across India with real precision, from clay-oven kebabs to a chicken biryani baked under puff pastry that has no interest in playing it safe. Dress accordingly; the room expects a little effort.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Palestinian and Jordanian cooking in a Roncesvalles dining room where the menu runs à la carte or prix fixe and the bar pours only mocktails. The kitchen pulls from both family tradition and refined technique, so brined lamb chops and sea bass wrapped in grilled grape leaves sit alongside an Angus short rib built for assembling into flatbread handhelds. Dessert ends on sticky date with cinnamon ice cream. No wine list, but nobody seems to miss it.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Southern Italian cooking in a relaxed Old Toronto room, ARDO draws from Sicily and points south without making a fuss about it. The menu runs from chickpea fritters and arancini through orecchiette with sausage and rapini, and the seafood is handled with a light touch. Cannoli show up at the end, and they're the right call. A neighborhood place that happens to repay the trip from wherever you're coming from.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

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.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

The banana cake with salted caramel ice cream lands on your table like the place knows it's having the last word. Bar Banane on Ossington is a cocktail bar that shades into a full dinner, with a raw bar, wagyu, and enough truffle and foie gras to make the room feel deliberate about its own excess. Rich colors, loud music, and a crowd dressed like they know someone on set keep the energy high all night.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Linen-draped tables and walls hung with colorful fabric signal that this is a sit-down Northern Indian restaurant on Roncesvalles, not a quick takeout stop. The kitchen runs on Mughlai tradition, and the menu reads like someone's grandmother's repertoire done with real care. Roncy locals fill the room on weeknights, which probably says enough. The Michelin Guide has it on their list.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

A narrow Trinity Bellwoods room with herringbone floors and exposed white brick, Gia is a plant-forward Italian restaurant where the house-made pasta, not the absence of meat, is the point. The mushroom agnolotti in butter and Parmigiano is the kind of dish that makes you forget you were tracking anything. Walk-ins can grab a seat at the walnut bar when reservations run out, which they tend to.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Globe lighting, forest green cushions, and gold-trim tables give this wine bar on Queen West a mid-century modern ease that makes an evening here feel deliberately unhurried. The menu has no particular allegiance to any cuisine, which turns out to be a feature: it exists to pace the wine list, not compete with it. A retail shop sits next door for when the bottle you're on becomes a problem you need to solve immediately.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

A terrace, two floors, and a Chinatown corner that always seems to have a lineup outside it. This is a Southern Thai restaurant where the kitchen leans into the heat and funk of regional cooking, the kind that doesn't soften things for the room. The staff are young and quick, which matters because tables turn fast enough that the line moves. The Michelin Guide has it selected, and the coconut green curry alone explains why.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Air Canada 2019 · Finalist · Best New Restaurants
2. Foodism Legendary Icon · ICON Awards · Jen Agg
3. Spirited Awards 2025 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Restaurant Bar – Canada

A Catalan tapas bar and cocktail spot in the Distillery District, where exposed brick and cobblestones do a lot of the atmosphere's heavy lifting so the kitchen doesn't have to. The menu runs from pan con tomate to rice pudding croquetas, with a Spanish wine list and a gin and tonic section that treats the drink with the seriousness of a minor religion. Good for grazing through an evening rather than eating in any particular hurry.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Pita baked in a wood-burning oven arrives at the table looking like a small dome, and that's before the kebabs charred over coals or the meat spinning on a spit show up. Mama Fatma is a Turkish grill in Mississauga where portions run large and tables tend to disappear under platters. The kayseri mantisi, tiny beef dumplings in garlicky yogurt, could carry a meal on their own. Hot tea closes things out, because there's never room for dessert anyway.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

A team visible through the back folds dumplings by hand all day at this Chinatown institution, and the room fills accordingly. It's a casual dumpling shop with a full Chinese menu, though most regulars ignore the latter. The boiled pork and dill are the ones to know. Bags of frozen dumplings sit near the door for when you want the same thing at home at midnight, which, fair enough.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

The milk bread comes out of the oven in perfect little rows, which is not a thing you expect from a ramen shop. Tucked off the main strip in Roncesvalles, Musoshin built its broths around a vegetable base rather than the usual pork fat wallop, and the house-made noodles go into every bowl. The chef learned her craft over video calls with the original Kyoto location, which is either very modern or very old-school, depending on how you look at it.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

A custom reverse-flow wood smoker does the heavy lifting at this halal barbecue spot tucked into a Scarborough strip mall, and the smell reaches you before the signage does. Order a multi-meat plate, a sandwich, or by the pound, and the menu swings from Montreal-style brisket to Korean-inflected short ribs without losing the thread. The maple-smoked beans are a quiet reminder that you're firmly in Canada, not Tennessee.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Named for the northern Thai village where the chef first cooked, this packed Toronto restaurant brings family recipes and street food to a room that leans boho-mod and never seems to quiet down. The menu ranges across Thailand, but the northern plates are where to focus, khao soi especially. Everything is sized for sharing and calibrated by heat level, which sounds like a small thing until you're at the table arguing about it.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

The patterned floors alone could justify the visit, but Parquet is a French bistro with a full case to make: marble bar, forest-green ceiling, wood-paneled walls, and a patio that turns Harbord Village into a small corner of Paris come summer. The cooking runs classically rich, cassoulet and steak frites with béarnaise sitting comfortably beside lighter surprises. The kind of room that fills early and empties late.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

The line forms before the door opens, which tells you most of what you need to know about this cash-only-on-weekends pho shop just off Queen Street. Big steaming bowls arrive fast and stay steaming, the rare beef version drawing regulars back in a way that menus with fifty options rarely manage. It's a no-frills room where the broth does the decorating. The Michelin Guide has it on their list.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Tables at this contemporary Portland Street spot are built with center compartments for storing your phone, which tells you something about the vibe before the food arrives. The shared plates menu pulls from across the globe without feeling scattered, and solo diners can order half-portions to move through more of the menu. Cool, spare, almost monastery-quiet inside.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Isan-style som tum made with fermented fish paste is the point of this simple basement Thai spot on Gerrard, and the heat scale runs to levels most menus don't acknowledge. The papaya salad comes with salted crab if you want the full classic treatment, and the grilled pork jowl has quietly become the other reason regulars keep coming back. No alcohol, but the café next door handles drinks, which feels like a very sensible arrangement.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant