Summer in Toronto arrives with a particular urgency — the months are precious, the evenings are warm for a finite window, and the city’s collective desire to be outside and social reaches a pitch that doesn’t exist in any other season. The rooftop bar scene exists to meet that desire, and in 2026, it’s doing […]
South Asian cuisine has long been one of the most underappreciated fine-dining categories in Canada — a cuisine of extraordinary depth and complexity that has too often been evaluated against price points that don’t reflect its ambition. Aangan, which landed on Toronto Life’s 2026 best-new-restaurants list, is part of a broader shift in how the […]
There’s a type of Toronto nightclub that doesn’t need to advertise itself widely, because its reputation among the people who matter most to it — committed dance music fans, DJs who request it for their touring riders, clubbers who know the difference between a sound system and a great sound system — does all the […]
If you’ve spent any time around Toronto’s food social media ecosystem in the past couple of years, you’ve probably encountered Penelope Focacceria, the Woodbridge-based bakery and sandwich shop that has developed a following wildly disproportionate to its original square footage. The focaccia — properly made, properly cured, properly topped — became the kind of thing […]
There are Toronto brunch restaurants, and then there are Toronto brunch institutions. Mia Brunch Bar falls into the second category — a spot that opened six years ago and has spent the intervening time building a loyal following that doesn’t just like the place but feels something closer to proprietary affection for it. The long-awaited […]
Anthony Rose’s Schmaltz Appetizing, the beloved Jewish-style deli that has been a daytime institution in Toronto since it opened, has launched a dinner service that takes the menu in an unexpected and exciting direction. “Schmaltz by Night” kicked off this week, and the early word is that it’s well worth a visit. The dinner menu […]
Sometimes the most significant restaurants are the smallest ones. N.L. Ginzburg — the restaurant that made both Toronto Life’s 2026 best-new-restaurants list and Canada’s 100 Best‘s annual ranking of the country’s finest new dining destinations — is intimate in scale and enormous in ambition, a combination that Toronto’s restaurant scene has been producing with increasing […]
Bar32, the artisanal ice cream bar business run by a pair of sisters, has returned to Toronto after a four-year hiatus — and the timing couldn’t be better. Set up for the summer season at The Lobby by Heaps Estrin in Rosedale, the brand is bringing back its handmade, chocolate-dipped ice cream bars in a […]
One of this summer’s most viral food trends has crossed the border: soft-serve margaritas, which took New York City by storm earlier this season, are now available in Toronto at El Catrin in the Distillery District. If you haven’t had one yet, this is your sign. The concept is exactly what it sounds like — […]
The intersection of Korean food culture and craft brewing has been one of the most interesting spaces in Toronto’s dining and drinking scene for the past few years, and Gyopo Brewery sits squarely and confidently at that crossroads. The restaurant-brewery combines house-made makgeolli — the traditional Korean rice wine that has been experiencing a global […]