The Best Places to Eat in Toronto, by the Record

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. 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

Pork secreto with a honey and apple cider reduction is the kind of thing that makes you stop talking mid-sentence at this Spanish taverna on College Street. Grant van Gameren keeps the tapas menu rustic and unadorned, which takes more discipline than it sounds. Half portions mean you can cover a lot of ground, a useful feature when the sherry cocktails are this easy to keep ordering.

1. Air Canada 2013 · #1 · Best New Restaurants
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. World Culinary Awards 2025 · Nominee · Canada's Best Restaurant
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. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

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

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

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

The appam arrives loaded with fresh white crab meat, which sets the tone for what Bar Goa is doing: a Goan Indian cocktail bar on Toronto Street that takes the food as seriously as the drinks. The menu leans toward Goa's coastal cooking but wanders happily into Punjabi territory too, and the kitchen has a light enough touch to pull off the occasional whimsical plate without losing the plot. A seven-course tasting menu is available for the committed.

1. 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. 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 red brick building on Queen East houses this upscale contemporary bistro, where the room mixes industrial bones with enough warmth that the patio fills up the moment the weather cooperates. The chef composes tasting menus of five, seven, or ten courses on the fly, which is either reassuring or terrifying depending on your temperament. Half-pour cocktails and small wine pours keep things measured for anyone pacing themselves.

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 2026 · 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

Drums play overhead while chefs break down whole fish at the counter, so the omakase here functions more like dinner theater than a quiet procession of nigiri. This is a high-energy sushi counter with outposts in Vancouver and Montreal, and the room is in constant motion, everyone grilling, slicing, or frying something at once. The price tag matches the spectacle, so come ready for that conversation.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

A window at the front lets you watch the chef work the line from the street, which sets the tone for Taline: a warm Armenian dining room on Yonge where the kitchen is clearly the point. The menu draws on the chef's childhood and his classical training in equal measure, landing somewhere between home cooking and something more composed. The room runs to olive greens and feels genuinely calm, which is rarer than it sounds.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Chettinad chicken tacos and panipuri shots sit on the same menu as a deeply spiced lamb Roganjosh, which tells you most of what you need to know about this colorful Indian restaurant in a Mississauga shopping district. Weekends tip into live music and dancing. The paneer in tomato-onion sauce is quietly serious. Servers will ask about your spice tolerance; say spicy, then order the raita anyway.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Wine bottles ring the walls of this small, unhurried wine bar on Danforth, and the whole room has the warm sepia glow of a place that stopped trying to impress you the moment you walked in. The menu runs shorter than you'd expect, with more vegetables than a wine bar typically bothers with, plus a weekly beef special that shows up alongside a serious pile of shoestring fries. The Michelin Guide has it on their list.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Horseshoe bar at the entrance, rustic brick dining room in the back, and a chef who once worked a farm and still acts like it. Union is a French bistro on a stretch of Ossington shared with butchers and antique shops, and the menu moves with the seasons and local suppliers. The same care goes into an omelette as into steak frites, and if the floor gets busy, the chef may well deliver your plate himself.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

The tiramisu lands somewhere between a soufflé and a pancake, finished with espresso maple syrup and whipped mascarpone, and it's reason enough to visit on its own. This Italian neighborhood restaurant in a handsome old building could have coasted on red sauce and called it a night, but the kitchen puts smoked pastrami on pizza and tosses tagliolini in charred octopus with smoked dashi butter instead. A garden-lit deck completes the picture.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

The kaiseki dinner here ends with plain slices of Japanese crown melon from the chef's hometown, no garnish, no flourish, and that restraint tells you everything. This is a small, intimate tasting-menu restaurant where the courses before that melon are elaborate to the point of theatrics, with wagyu, Hokkaido uni, and foie gras arriving blowtorched and wrapped in shiso. The room is cozy to a fault, the bill is serious, and the whole thing feels quietly personal.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

A strip mall omakase counter tucked between a Markham auto repair shop and wherever your expectations were parked. Inside, wood slats and careful lighting give the room a calming, considered feel. Fish arrives from Japan several times a week, the rice is warm and finely vinegared, and the nori is quietly serious. The chef's counter is where you want to sit, and the approach stays traditional, a clean swipe of soy doing most of the talking.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Canada's 100 Best Recommends

1. Canada's 100 Best Recommends

1. Canada's 100 Best Recommends

1. Canada's 100 Best Recommends

1. Canada's 100 Best Recommends

The original Yonge Street location is a cozy cave of a cafe where De Mello first started roasting, before the brand grew into a multi-city operation run by two Korean-born, Melbourne-educated brothers who came to Toronto and decided the coffee scene needed fixing. It's a specialty coffee shop serving the company's own blends, single origins, and seasonal drinks, with pastries alongside. Small enough to feel like a neighborhood secret, even if that ship has long since sailed.

1. Sprudge The Sprudge Guide To Coffee In Toronto

A turquoise bay-and-gable house in Kensington Market, Fika is a Nordic-inspired coffee shop where the owner roasts his own beans in the back room on a machine he describes as "a toy." The cardamom cinnamon buns and Dala horse ginger snaps are the kind of baking that makes you linger, and the hygge aesthetic earns its name without trying too hard.

1. Sprudge The Sprudge Guide To Coffee In Toronto

A Mavam undercounter espresso machine anchors the bar while bicycle mechanics work the wings, which tells you everything about this coffee bar and bike shop tucked into The Well. Beans rotate through a roster of Canadian roasters, snacks arrive by cargo bike from the original Little Portugal location, and the whole setup manages to take both coffee and two-wheeled transport with equal, unironic seriousness.

1. Sprudge The Sprudge Guide To Coffee In Toronto

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

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

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

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

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

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

1. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Toronto, Canada

1. World Culinary Awards 2025 · Nominee · North America's Best Landmark Restaurant

1. World Culinary Awards 2025 · Nominee · North America's Best Landmark Restaurant

1. World Culinary Awards 2025 · Nominee · North America's Best Rooftop Restaurant

1. Air Canada 2017 · Finalist · Best New Restaurants

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