Restaurants Overview

Immigration flourishes in Toronto, and even if you've come from a far-flung corner of the world, you can often find home cooking here. Multiethnic Little Italy (which has as many sushi and Thai restaurants as Italian), a half-dozen Chinatowns (urban and suburban), the Greek area of the Danforth, and Little India or Indian Bazaar are just some of the lively neighborhoods full of restaurants. Southeast Asian cooking -- Korean, Vietnamese, Laotian, Thai, and Malaysian -- started tempting local taste buds with flavors like chili, lemongrass, coconut, and lime in the 1970s with the arrival of thousands of Boat People who were welcomed to the city with open arms. The abundant fresh produce of the province, once filtered through French, British, and Italian cooking techniques, now stars in dishes ranging from the sweet and pungent flavors of the Middle East to the soulful dishes of Latin America. In one short block of Baldwin Street at Kensington Market, there are 23 eateries -- a de facto United Nations of gastronomy, if you will.

The Toronto restaurant scene is in a state of perpetual motion. New restaurants open and close at breakneck speed to meet the demands of a savvy dining public. Even haute-cuisine establishments, which had all but faded into Toronto's gastronomic history, are experiencing a renaissance, joining the ever-swelling ranks of bistros, trattorias, tapas bars, noodle bars, wine bars, and smart cafés. Red meat has made a comeback, but along with steak houses have come more vegetarian-friendly restaurants. With a perfect storm of locally grown talent and ingredients coming together with old world techniques and new world bravado, the dining-out scene is more exciting than it's ever been. In fact, a popular TV show, Opening Soon, visits new restaurants in the days and weeks before opening, finishing with their premieres.

Brilliant young chefs such as Susur Lee (Susur, Lee's) and Claudio Aprile (of the new Colborne Lane) stay ahead of the public's evolving tastes by drawing from a number of Asian and Latin cuisines and spiffing them up with classical French and new wave Spanish preparations. Rather than following tradition, today's chefs are creating their own trends and signature dishes. Tasting menus running from five to 12 courses with wine pairings tempting gourmet diners, while the value-conscious will be happy to learn they can still get a great meal in Chinatown for under C$5. And the public speaks out about the results, loudly: everyone who sits in a restaurant is a critic, and word of mouth has closed unsuccessful eateries faster than you can say "mushy pasta and patronizing service." Though utterly fresh fish and seafood were once difficult to come by, you can now feast on fish that were swimming in the Azores hours earlier. But the latest trend is thinking global while eating local, and many of Toronto's best chefs take pains to note the local provinence of just about everything on their menus -- from the feta on your salad to those wild Ontario blueberries in your finishing slice of pie.

Recommending restaurants in an up-and-coming foodie destination is a difficult task, especially in a city that's evolving as quickly as Toronto. There's not enough space to mention many worthy kitchens in the suburbs and outlying areas. Whichever restaurant you choose, globalization has created a clientele with a sophisticated palate and a demand for high-quality international cuisines. Some of the newer restaurants are all pop and no sizzle, yet most carry with them great expectations, so they don't last long if they fail to serve up truly tasty goods. And by and large, the city delivers.