Maître fromager (cheese master) Afrim Pristine is an inimitable maestro of his fine and funky edible art. His family has been in the cheese business since the 1970s, and they’ve run this gourmet grocery store and fromagerie on Ripley Avenue in the west end of the city since 2000, when they moved from the original Bloor Street outpost. In a not-so-subtle quest to take over the entire block, the cheese empire has expanded into a 12,000-square-foot epicurean emporium filled to the gills with artisan charcuterie, olive oils, truffles, fresh produce, prepared foods, and over 500 varieties of wheels, wedges, slices, and hunks. (There’s an additional bodega/bakery/homewares store in a separate building, as well.) You’ll also find a brand-new wine bar on the second floor, created in collaboration with Charlie’s Burgers’ Franco Stalteri (a speakeasy dinner party organizer-turned-wine subscription connoisseur and educator). If that’s not enough to whet your appetite, the biggest spotlight is saved for Pristine’s famous tourable cheese vault, securing over $1.1 million USD of nose-tickling, age-ripened products.

Since 2009, this restaurant with a fast-casual counter has sent a couple thousand famed Portuguese chickens out the door each week. Owned by Carlos Martins and managed by his three sons, including Le Cordon Bleu graduate chef Steven Martins, this spot has all the markers of a family-owned restaurant operation. The family takes care to source ingredients directly from Portugal (such as fresh fish and seafood), and Papa Carlos makes the rounds glad-handing and toasting with guests like a local celebrity. While the sit-down restaurant offers old-world charm, head to the counter side, where 20 hot trays are ever in action. In addition to the butterflied Portuguese chicken with requisite piri piri sauce (a secret family recipe), there are also creamy potato spheres, whole grilled sea bass, creamed cod, veal cutlet, and the coveted suckling pig with crackly, wafer-thin skin that blankets lasagna-like layers of fat and flesh. 

This tiny butcher, grocery shop, and makeshift restaurant serves Mexican street fare with a wholesome, no-frills vibe. You can’t go wrong ordering a few lengua (tongue) tacos or rich chicken mole tamales. Gringa de pastor is another top contender: flour tortillas filled with savory carnitas, pineapple chunks, onion, and elastic cheese. Also, be on the lookout for rotating specials that could include pancita (tripe soup) or slow-roasted barbacoa (available in tacos or by the pound).

Chef Michael Lam and Eric Chow threw the basic tenets of ice cream out the window when they opened Good Behaviour, creating dozens of unique flavors (cacio e pepe, mala chocolate orange, mango mojito). Lam brings culinary know-how from working in Michelin-starred restaurants in Australia and New York, while Chow provides business acumen and front-of-house savvy. Since it’s not always ice cream weather in Toronto, Good Behaviour also offers Dagwood-style subs that can warm even the coldest of souls, like smoked beef brisket (topped with smoked Gouda, caramelized onion, and horseradish-beef fat vinaigrette) and spicy meatballs (a medley of veal, pork, and beef, with herby basil pesto mayo and lip-sizzling chile oil).

As a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America and veteran of Michelin-starred restaurants like New York’s Eleven Madison Park and London’s Story, globe-trotting chef Marchelle McKenzie imbues a worldly outlook into her charming cakes and treats. Her brownies are dark, dreamy, and dense beauties offered in an ever-growing range of unconventional flavors: nostalgic malty Milky Milo, spiced cinnamon with hunks of sandy-sugared churros on top, and mellow matcha for a more sophisticated take. Her three-tiered, frosted cakes are also wonders. The Pistachio and Olive Oil Birthday Cake is like a childhood confetti slice given a glow-up, while an entire summer romance is encapsulated in the Vanilla Sorrel and Raspberry Cake: a towering vanilla sponge cake offering bright mouthfuls of tangy sorrel buttercream, along with a tasty tango of vanilla pastry cream and raspberry coulis.

Residents of leafy Dovercourt may be slightly agitated by the endless lines of customers who form in their sleepy neighborhood for this pizzeria, run by chef and sorcerer of slices Ryan Baddeley, but they’re appeased with firsthand access to fresh pies. And magical they are: Three-day slow-fermented dough straddles the realm of a Neapolitan pizza and flaky Yemeni malawah, giving off an audible ASMR snap as you bite in. Fresh go-tos include the aptly named burrata marinara (crushed tangy-sweet tomatoes, shaved garlic, sharp pecorino, and Sicilian oregano riddled with squishy burrata), the mushroom bianco (umami-addled portobello mushrooms, caramelized onions, ricotta, and whole-milk mozzarella), and the ever-controversial capicola and pineapple (tropical tidbits reinforced with capicola, Calabrian chile, mozzarella, and crushed tomatoes).

At this tangerine-banded restaurant, chef and owner Dhamodharan Rengasamy has extolled the culinary trinity of South Indian fare — rice, lentils, and stews — since 2008, turning out items like dosas (lentil and rice crepes), sambar (spiced vegetable stews), and idli (lentil rice cakes). Come with a crowd to try the various regional varieties of mutton curries, like mutton xacutti from Goa (poppy seeds, coconut, dried chiles) or mutton Hyderabadi (a rich gravy base amplified with garam masala, chile, and coconut).

Chef Greg Bouralias and his wife, Katherine, started Burger Drops as a casual project among industry friends, eventually morphing from limited-edition “fan” drops into a permanent home in Liberty Village. With fine dining training (including time as a former Aloette sous chef) and mastery of French techniques, Greg approached the burger like an exacting science, disassembling and rebuilding it. The result is undeniably charming: The meat, sourced from Beverly Creek (an Ontario farm) — where cattle graze on corn, hay, vegetables, and beer malt — is engorged with fat (a whopping 30 percent). When the hand-formed patties hit the hot griddle, they cook through 80 percent on one side, allowing the meat to confit within its own sweet juices, achieving caramelized crusty edges and velvet interiors (the holy grail of textures). Martin’s squishy potato rolls provide enough structural integrity to withstand all of the dripping meat juices, griddled sweet onions, American cheese, pickles, and Drop sauce (a secret blend of ketchup, mayo, garlic, Dijon, and spices).

For raucous and lovable celebrity chef Matty Matheson (you may have caught his turn on a little show called The Bear), who owns numerous restaurants in the city via his Our House Hospitality Company, Prime Seafood Palace feels like an antithesis. The steakhouse appears calm and reserved, like it could moonlight as a Scandinavian sauna or cozy lodge in Northern Canada. But once you’re inside this wooden shrine to beef, Matheson’s soul shines through. At the pass, you’ll find culinary director Coulson Armstrong serving up brazen dishes with the calculated panache of a lavish steakhouse: The bougie “tea-time” sandwich layers sea urchin, tuna, and kaluga caviar; strands of perfectly bouncy al dente spaghetti embrace a mound of delicate lobster nuggets; and opulence is served as a 20-ounce caveman-size dry-aged prime rib, complete with a velvety sauce composed of bordelaise and rendered-down A5 wagyu drippings.

Can a fried chicken sandwich be distinguished and delightful? Chef Jerome Robinson and his legion of #friedchickenlovers definitely think so. Ever the consummate hype man, Robinson welcomes diners to his cozy space with ’90s hip-hop, free-to-play NBA Jam arcade machines, and local graffiti plastered on the walls. Then he presents you with epic sandwiches wide enough to rest your head on. The Big Ass Chicken Sandwich requires you to unhinge your jaw to enjoy two deep-fried thighs tossed in Carolina butter sauce and finished with spicy ranch, crunchy slaw, and sweet-and-sour pickles. If you’re hankering to carb load, try the Mac & Charlie, a franken-grilled cheese stuffed with mac and cheese. And if you must consume a vegetable of some kind, check out the deep-fried Brussels sprouts massaged with a balsamic-honey reduction. 

For nearly 20 years, this Iranian restaurant has been a humble darling of Queen Street West. Co-owned by executive chef Amir Mohyeddin and his sisters, Salome and Samira, Banu — a term of endearment for their mother, loosely translated to “lady” or “dame” — offers a considerate take on the home cooking of Tehran. The food speaks volumes about the power of slow cookery. Roasted eggplant emerges creamy, a touch pungent, and nutty thanks to several stages of peeling, frying, and low-and-slow cooking to extract every ounce of flavor. Koobideh skewers (ground beef blended with pureed onions, salt, and pepper) retain their shape while cooking (without relying upon binding agents like breadcrumbs) but immediately submit on the tongue like a pat of soft butter. Don’t miss the grilled Ontario lamb rack, a juicy Persian treasure topped with bitter crushed walnuts, roasted garlic, and pomegranate molasses.

A philosophy of fearless consumption — with a requisite touch of dark humor — runs as a through line in the work of Beast co-owners and chefs Scott Vivian and Nathan Middleton. Over the years, their restaurant has undergone several reinventions. The current version of Beast acts primarily as a pizza joint, but it also offers group bookings for whole-animal dinners (booked in advance). Diners select a protein and an “adventure level” from low to high, and the chefs get to work showcasing the seasonal bounty of Canada and the versatility of underused “ugly” bits in a zany culinary display. Previous dinners have included sweetbread-stuffed ravioli with parsley cream sauce; heart tartare, vibrant with fermented shrimp and whipped bone marrow; a menacing smoked chicken leg (with claws intact) served with breast mousse; and a vigorously gamy duck-hen-partridge tourtière, complete with a head and legs peeking out of the pie. 

While chef and owner Eddie Yeung owns an additional Wonton Hut location in the suburbs of Markham, his newer locale in downtown Toronto arguably allows him to flex more. New to this location, his street eats menu (shrimp paste toast, deep-fried cuttlefish skewers, Hong Kong-style brick toast) honors the legacy of dai pai dongs, stalls that used to fill the labyrinthine alleyways of Hong Kong. Yeung’s foundational dishes are also available here for fans as well, like toothsome house-made cuttlefish balls floating in thick laksa noodle soup, or cavernous bowls of fortified broth (so clear you can see your reflection) filled with glossy egg noodles and plump tiger shrimp wontons.

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. Standout selections by head chef Joseph Ysmael include the Husband + Wife Beef, an addictive inferno of tripe and shank cuts bathed in chile oil and finished with peanuts; chewy silver needle noodles that sing with a backbone of soy sauce and overtures of earthy black mushrooms; gnawable lamb ribs perfumed with cumin; and a favorite, plump cubes of mapo tofu topped with salty nuggets of dry-aged beef, Sichuan peppercorn, and garlic chives. Save room for the soft-serve dessert: a swirly-twirly, soybean-based wonder that gets a bear hug of crushed cinder toffee and a drizzle of mature soy sauce caramel.

Vela’s modernist space, with its cascading, sculptural lights, imparts a sultry ambience to every meal. It’s ever the unabashed show pony, but the restaurant has substance behind its style, thanks to the synergy between co-owners Amanda Bradley (a hospitality titan) and Robin Goodfellow (a beverage and business wizard) and co-head chefs Marvin Palomo and Kim Haugen (deft culinarians with experience in London, Australia, Hong Kong, and Italy). The cuisine is intentionally impossible to pigeonhole. Moroccan octopus pulsates with a sweet-savory interplay of tamari and togarashi, finished with nutty ajo blanco; Hokkaido scallops in crudo act as buttery vessels for nam jim (Thai chile sauce), salty bubbles of trout roe, and cooling cucumber. Goodfellow’s award-winning cocktail list is also not to be missed, offering a thirst-quenching roster of sips that are playful, cheeky, and mindfully composed. Check out the Moe’s Tavern: a citrusy drink made with rye, port, and fire (of course).

Rachel Adjei is a Ghanaian Canadian chef and food justice advocate who celebrates much of the underrepresented African diaspora in Toronto. She founded the Abibiman Project to support Black food sovereignty initiatives via a range of pantry products, pop-up dinners, and catering — all in the hopes of challenging people’s perceptions of African foods and the narratives surrounding them. At her staple pop-up location at the Grapefruit Moon in the Annex, her ever-evolving dinner menus offer deep-dives into specific African regions, which Adjei contextualizes with information about the corresponding culture. Her recent spotlight on Senegal and Gambia had guests clamoring for chicken yassa — spicy, marinated poultry prepared with an intoxicating mixture of spices, mustard, lemon, chile, and onion — as well as her fried cassava with red nokoss (pepper paste), which offers a satisfying crunch that ricochets in the mouth and gives way to a fluffy, pliable interior.

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. But if you prefer to skip the banter, just sink your teeth into mains devised by executive chef Danny McCallum, like the formidable A5 Kobe black tajima from Hyogo prefecture, with its unctuous heft, or the assertively Parmesan-y Canadian prime Angus PEI rib-eye aged 50 days. Other highlights include classic tableside Caesar salad (never skip the anchovies), duck-fat french fries (go big or go home), and maple heirloom carrots with dill creme fraiche (for a requisite vegetable).

Since opening in 1977, this French restaurant was a fixture in the city — until reports emerged that everyone’s petit chou would be closing forever after the building was sold to (gasp) condo developer Allied Properties in 2021. Fortunately, Allied elected to keep Le Sélect open and seek out a new operator to manage the restaurant, ultimately landing on restaurateur David Aisenstat and Scale Hospitality. When it reopened in 2022, it was as if the restaurant never skipped a beat, with the same decorations (mahogany accents, rouge banquettes, zinc bar, vintage posters) and the same French menu (with a few new daily specials). At the pass, corporate executive chef Ted Corrado serves up Parisian plats du jour with delicate nods to Canadiana, such as butter-engorged escargot vol-au-vent that’s placed inside a bird’s nest of ethereally flaky house-made puff pastry; pungent foie gras terrine gilded with ice wine gelée; and salt-kissed steak frites (sourced from Ontario Woodward Farms) completed with red wine jus. End with quintessential tarte tatin featuring squidgy caramelized apples and butter-caramel sauce.

Chef-owner Patrick Kriss of Alo Food Group has amassed an empire of restaurants across the city, starting with his flagship Alo in 2015 and moving on to sister diner Aloette, Alobar Yorkville, delivery operation Aloette Go, and Alobar Downtown. While it’s virtually impossible to land a reservation at Alo these days, Aloette is more accessible, and friendlier on the pocketbook, too. Kriss’s oxymoronic “upscale diner” features the usual suspects, such as chicken wings, fries, and burgers, but everything is finessed and fancified. Confit chicken wings are dotted with XO dashi jus; beet salad is invigorated with fresh burrata; and golden spuds are saddled up with bloody mary aioli.

Long-standing restaurateurs Jason Jiang and Seng Luong used to run the now-shuttered Sabai Sabai, which primarily offered Thai dishes and dabbled in Laotian flavors. At Lao Lao, they reverse the scenario, offering full-fledged creations from their homeland. Sticky rice, a staple food of Laotian cuisine, is served with hallmarks like fried papaya salad (som tum tod), a sandy, crunchy heap intermingled with palm sugar, fish sauce, chile, lime, mint, and shallots. It also shows up with tapioca dumplings (sakoo yat sai) — squishy, gummy spheres stuffed with minced shiitake mushrooms and peanuts — and with juicy Lao barbecue chicken (ping gai), infused with an infectious energy of lemongrass, galangal, coriander seed, and chile. 

Can pies solve all of life’s problems? No, but the ones at Gertie’s get close. Operated by chef Ryan Campbell and his wife, Sara Steep, Gertie’s — named for Campbell’s mother Gerda — throws together humble ingredients with potently evolved results. A butter-enriched crust made with peanuts and graham crackers is topped with a voluptuous mound of soft-whipped mascarpone cream (with some extra-fancy peanut butter mixed in for nutty oomph), followed by a filling of your choice — lush caramel, deeply dark chocolate, or perky strawberry jam — and finished with top-notch roasted Virginia peanuts. The brand shows up regularly at Castelli Mercato out in Ancaster, but you can also find pies at Fiesta Farms or Good Behaviour Ice Cream (also on this list).

Many successful restaurants that populate the city today are helmed by chefs who got their start at this one. Since 1995, Canoe has showcased the provenance of Canadian ingredients from coast to coast. The fancy enterprise calls the 54th floor of the Toronto-Dominion Centre home, offering views of the skyline and demanding high prices to go with it. Executive chef Ron McKinlay (who worked alongside Tom Kitchin and Gordon Ramsay) leads the elaborate tasting and hyperseasonal menus. A portrait of Canada is framed in hedonistic creations like his intricate Pig’s Trotter: a compact porky cylinder stuffed with sweetbreads, lap cheong sausage, and wild shrimp from the North Atlantic, counterbalanced by a relief system of tangy pickled pears, salty spot prawn bisque, and grassy tarragon emulsion. It’s worth saving room for dessert; chef patissier Raffaele Stea offers a tipsy tarte au sucre, a textural love child between a lustrous creme brulee and quivering flan, spiked with a hiccup-inducing slug of Screech rum and served with a heady brown-butter milk sauce.

Chef Jinda Witthayarak’s restaurants are cherished in Laos and northeastern Thailand, so it’s a gift to have her open her first North American location in Toronto. Her daughter, Khun Jiab Nattanid, runs the day-to-day operations, serving a menu that echoes the family’s Southeast Asian eateries. There’s a section dedicated to som tum (papaya salad) in its vast iterations, including tum Thai puu, which glitters with bits of salted crab, garlic, chile, peanut, green beans, and dried shrimp — combined together with enough heat to burst through your skull. Kor moo yang (grilled pork jowl blessed with a generous fat belt) also leaves a tingling buzz on the lips, thanks to its ample endowment of red chiles. For those who can’t stand the heat, pad woon sen cha-om is a tame yet solid choice: Springy glass noodles are tossed with crumbled egg and garlic, then finished with bitter acacia leaf that’s strewn across the stringy landscape.

Located on the 38th floor of the Westin Harbour Castle hotel, Don Alfonso 1890 is poised for a special-occasion meal enjoyed over panoramic views of the waterfront. Husband-and-wife hospitality veterans Nick and Nadia Di Donato brought the flavors of the Amalfi Coast to this art-endowed space, importing the Michelin-starred restaurant by the same name from Campania, which is run by father-son chefs Alfonso and Ernesto Iaccarino. At the Toronto location, award-winning chefs Daniele Corona and Davide Ciavattella have created a signature eight-course tasting menu that combines ingredients from Canadian and Italian producers. Conceptually complex dishes include L’Anguilla (a seafood celebration of eel gelato and sturgeon caviar paired with rose-scented tagliatelle, pulverized egg yolk, and wild herbs) and Il Bisonte (puck-size bison tenderloin bound with a veneer of bitter Swiss chard and a razor-thin bread crust, artfully finished with dollops of buffalo mozzarella, salsa verde, and San Marzano red chile reduction).

Created by wine and culinary expert Marissa Goldstein (who trained at two-Michelin-starred Blue Hill at Stone Barns), the Daughter offers an extensive library of natural wines that champions boutique businesses and honors agricultural systems. Set just outside the upscale neighborhood of Leaside, the minimalist sanctuary offers a tasting bar, bottle shop, and private event space. Over 100 organic, low-intervention, and sulfite-free varieties from across the globe are available by the bottle. To pair with the sips, Goldstein offers seasonal, tapas-style shared plates (an homage to her school days in Barcelona) that include local and imported charcuterie (such as chorizo and lonza), beef tartare, folds of fresh ricotta and hot honey on house challah, assertive cheeses (Red Storm, Montana Intenso), sandwiches (check out the mortadella slider finished with a shower of aged goat cheese), and more.

The spirit and flavors of Cairo permeate this East End brunch joint, which is always bustling. Patience is rewarded with the tactile pleasures of Maha’s Cairo Classic breakfast platter: intensely aromatic charred baladi bread, piquant ful (stewed, seasoned fava beans mixed with tomatoes and onions) to smear on top, and refreshing tomato-feta salad. Egyptian flair also graces the sandwiches, like the Mind Blowing Chicken: chicken fortified with parsley, onions, and tomatoes, piled between two squishy buns with a drizzle of tomeya (garlic sauce), house mayonnaise, and tahini.

Owner Dawn Chapman’s farm-forward philosophy stems from her childhood experiences growing up on her grandparents’ farm in Midhurst, Ontario. Her beloved brunch spot (with a newly minted dinner menu) has become a community pillar in the city’s east end of Leslieville (and beyond). People clamor for the legendary high-rise biscuit sandwiches, the stuff of down-home country dreams. These fluffy cushions embrace decadent fillings such as fried chicken with honey butter and jalapeno cheese, Mennonite smoked bacon cradling a runny egg and melty aged cheddar, or eggs with portobello mushrooms and vegan cheddar. The free-spirited spot also offers massive platters of comfort food like cinnamon bun pancakes, beefy smash burgers, blissful bacon grilled cheese sandwiches, and spiced fried chicken on golden Belgian waffles. There’s also a roster of grab-and-go goodies (cookies, muffins, Nanaimo bars, brownies) and bake-at-home biscuits for whenever the craving strikes.

Pitmaster Darien List has staked his regional barbecue claim in Toronto, offering diners Central Texas-style meats. Relish in signatures like marbled brisket that’s cooked indirectly over pecan wood and licked with just the perfect amount of heady smoke. For a handheld meal, look to the Big D, a Dallasite-approved sammy decked with brisket, turkey, and sausage that’s topped with zippy coleslaw and earthy poblano peppers. Pro tip: Be on the lookout for weekly specials, like List’s hunky Flintstones-sized beef ribs, which hide craters of fat and spice.