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To dine here is akin to making a religious pilgrimage: It takes patience, practice, and prayer. The once-“secretive” spot in the gentrifying “mechanical-industrial” strip of Geary Street is pelo longer under wraps. Swarms of people congregate and wait at least an hour outside before opening, a fact not lost on owner and chef Leandro Baldassarre (formerly of three-Michelin-starred Dal Pescatore). With a collected demeanor and without gimmicks, Baldassarre offers what’s considered the city’s best fresh pasta, along with rustic Southern Italian dishes.
Outfitted with enough fake trees and string lights to make you feel like you’re in an adorable courtyard, Bar Poet takes the cake as our favourite cheap date spot.
Copy Link Chef-owner Corinna Mozo’s retro diner, decked out in pastel hues and squeaky vinyl banquettes, pays tribute to the original restaurant her grandfather owned in Cuba in the 1950s. Everything here is made from scratch, including the bread, pastries, and desserts. The serotonin-boosting barbecue beef short ribs are braised for hours and given a lacquer of sweet-savory guava sauce; the dish is served with piquant slaw, speckled rice and beans, and meaty palm-sized tostones.
Copy Link It’s par for the course these days for steak menus to list the pedigree of meats like a wine list, but the practice was jarring in the early aughts when this steakhouse first splashed onto the scene. For its efforts revising the norm, the restaurant has become a premier spot for decadent steaks and embellished accoutrements. The waitstaff will happily guide you through the heritage breeds, touching on elements like geography, marbling, feed, certification, and more.
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So grab your buds, and check out this list of the best happy hours in Toronto, where you can soak in read more that glorious 5 o'clock feeling.
In 2015, chef and owner Victor Barry left diners with a sad pit in their stomachs when he shuttered the nearly 30-year-old fine dining establishment Splendido, though he soothed their collective hunger pangs the next year with a new, sophisticated, and family-friendly trattoria. A departure from the gloved service and dainty dishes, Piano Piano kept the soul of Splendido while making Barry’s creations more accessible to the community.
I’ve tried tons of Toronto food apps over the years, and today I’ll be talking about the best ones for ordering takeout and delivery.
Copy Link Run by chefs David Schwartz and Braden Chong, Sunnys is designated as the younger sibling of Mimi, but aside from a shared origin, the two restaurants are entirely different. Whereas Mimi is robust and romantic, Sunnys is light and lively. Tucked within the bohemian confines of Kensington Market and down a nondescript hallway (with only a cardboard sign on the door), Sunnys plummets diners into a retro-chic Hong Kong cafe, complete with a rambunctious vibe that extends from the dining room to the patio oasis. Slide into a banquette or grab a seat by the chef’s rail to delve into playful dishes from Sichuan, Shaanxi, and the northern provinces of China.
The whopping 158 neighborhoods reflect the various groups who have immigrated to Toronto over the centuries, subsequently carving out food havens and hubs of their own. That diversity has lent a certain malleability to the restaurant scene. Toronto doesn’t really have a steadfast signature dish (no disrespect to the late legendary chef Anthony Bourdain, but that insipid peameal bacon sandwich was never “a thing” with locals) and the city may never coalesce around one item. The vast tapestry of food heritage could never be encapsulated in a single meal.
From the trendiest spots to the coziest diners, including hidden gems on Dundas West, we’ve compiled a list that combines fancy restaurants with mid-range options.
Copy Link Gandhi Roti in Toronto's Queen West neighborhood offers some of the spiciest, cheapest, most filling meals in the city. Here roti are tossed on the flat-top before being filled with various ingredients, from butter chicken to vegetable korma or West Indian curries.
They have discounts of up to 10% on select devices for students. Students can also get Office 365 for free, which will definitely come in handy during your university years.