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Courthouse Market Grille
You mightn't want to dedicate much thought to it over your sirloin, but Toronto's last public execution took place here. It's a distinguished 1853 building with fireplaces, leather chairs and marble floors - downstairs the bathrooms are inside old jail cells. Expect perfectly grilled meats and whole fish, and, unlike the architecture, a wine list cleverly cleft into 'Old World' and 'New World.'
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Cyrano's
Follow your nose in Cyrano's, an enduring (since 1959) downtown bistro with red leather seats and a portrait of the nasally well-endowed Monsieur de Bergerac on the wall. Order reliably good salads, ribs or seafood offerings, or launch into the signature 16oz rib steak. If you're in a hurry, sit at the bar and graze through a quick-fire menu of burgers, wings and oysters, washed down with Creemore Springs on tap.
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Dufflet Pastries
Dufflet Rosenberg's desserts grace the end-of-night tables of Toronto's most prestigious restaurants. Maneuver yourself towards the counter at her retail bakery for buttery cookies, rich tarts, layer cakes, pies, flans and sinfully good chocolate cakes.
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Duke Of York
Admittedly it's a chain, yet the very Brit, student-filled Duke of York pub is the place for traditional ploughman's lunches, bangers and mash, Brick Lane curries, savory pies and, of course, fish and chips (wrapped in pages from a British daily!). Children are welcome upstairs.
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Dumpling House Restaurant
You can't go wrong here - walk right in, sit right down and order a steaming mass of pork, chicken, beef, seafood or vegetarian dumplings (pan-fried or steamed), impale them on your chopsticks, dunk them in soy sauce and dispense with them forthwith.
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Edward Levesque's Kitchen
Inside the front window of a retro-looking diner, chef Edward 's clattering skillet yields nouveau Canadian comfort food with seasonal ingredients, his influences ranging from Asian to Italian. Scallop, leek, lemon and asparagus risotto (around C$24 ), or a slab of chocolate 'nemesis' cake with fennel confit (around C$8 ) guarantee a satisfaction reaction.
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El Trompo
El Trompo is a rustic, hole-in-the-wall taqueria, specializing in corn quesadillas, guacamole, huitlacoche cheese dishes and, of course, tacos. Heartfelt Spanish renditions of Righteous Brothers classics bounce off the adobe-mottled walls and resonate across the bright sidewalk patio.
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Ethiopian House
It's a packed and popular place with African-inspired murals on the walls, but there's no silverware in sight as sherro wot (seasoned chickpeas) and gored-gored (spiced beef) are slathered onto moist injera (bread). Save time for a traditional coffee-roasting ceremony, when the aroma of frankincense fills the air.
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Fire on the East Side
A stone's throw from Yonge St, this ultrachic neighborhood dining room feels just like someone's living room. A haywire fusion kitchen works variations on African, Caribbean, Acadian French and Cajun themes, from spicy crab cakes (around C$12 ) to 'kitchen sink' omelettes (containing everything but; around C$12 ). Desserts are chef-made.
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Flow
Catering to a 'money is no object' clientele, slung-low Flow flows seamlessly from gulf prawns with summer berry compote to sour cherry-crusted Australian lamb with grilled asparagus, seasonal mushrooms, potato and passionfruit jus. After dark a sexy crowd moves in, transforming the room into a cocktail lounge.
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Focaccia Restaurant
Focaccia fills a woody room in a cute yellow Victorian house just off Yonge St. Oddly enough there's no focaccia on the compact, well considered menu, just contemporary Euro fare with a fusion twist. Start with the grilled calamari with parsley pesto and tomato jam (around C$9 ), followed by bison striploin with merlot and black grape sauce and yam gratin ($28). Good stuff.
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Fressen
The zenith of vegetarian and vegan dining in Toronto, Fressen's brilliant service and sumptuous brick-and-wood dining room (with gold ceiling!) make for an enjoyable night out, even for carnivores. A strong and stylish organic menu picks through world cuisines, depending on what's seasonal when you visit. The weekend vegan brunch is a hit.
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Fujiyama
Enter this low-key Japanese diner through a traditional timber arch wrapped in flickering fairy lights, then plant yourself at a blonde-wood timber booth surrounded by rice-paper lanterns emanating a soft glow. The scene is set for non-greasy tempura and moist teriyaki dishes, plus sushi, udon and soba noodle fare. Most orders arrive with miso soup and salad.
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Full Moon Vegetarian Restaurant
Despite its lonesome location, Full Moon serves a chameleonic array of faux-meat dishes that have seduced Kensington Market's fiscally challenged residents. Cheery chef Ken Quah works wonders with mock beef, chicken and fish dishes. Try the house special: vegetarian fish with black bean sauce (around C$9 ) and finish off with some sweet sesame paste rice balls (six for $3).
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Furama Cake & Dessert Garden
Always bustling, Furama sells lotus seed cakes, almond cookies and curried buns for pocket change. Wash down some pineapple butter cake and some silky, melt-in-the-mouth egg tarts with a butt-kicking Chinese coffee.
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Future Bakery & Café
Future Bakery stays busy selling budget dishes like cheese crepes and homemade borsht with sour cream. Out on huge street-side patio, lecture-dodgers slap backs and chug pints or push through all-night study sessions with bowls of café au lait and slabs of caramel cheese cake. Twisted '60s psychedelic pop contorts the airwaves.
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Global Cheese
OK, so it's not technically a place where you can sit down and eat, but WOW, have you ever seen such an amazing cheese shop? Fevered crowds elbow for a spot near the counter where staff, hidden behind teetering stacks of cheese, distribute slivers of Greek feta, Canadian gouda, Argentine parmesan, Spanish manchego and Swiss ementhal. Taste a few, order a wedge then hit the streets.
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Goldstone Noodle Restaurant
The chefs at this mirror-walled restaurant put on a front-window performance, plating up humongous mounds of twisted noodles mixed with chunks of glazed duck and orange-stained squid while other dismembered beasts dangle from hooks. Diners leave decimated piles of bowls, scoured clean of contents. This is apocalyptic eating!
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Harbord Fish & Chips
This graffiti-covered, white-brick fish shack wins big smiles for its generous portions of haddock, halibut and shrimp, all freshly fried. Get yours wrapped up in newspapers, or chow-down at outdoor paint-peeling picnic tables while your laundry spins at Coin-O-Rama across the street.
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Harbour Sixty Steakhouse
Inside the strangely isolated 1917 Toronto Harbour Commission building, this opulent baroque dining room glows with brass lamps and plush booths. Indulge yourself in an eminent variety of steaks, sterling salmon (around C$32 ) or seasonal Florida stone-crab claws and broiled Caribbean lobster tail. Side dishes seem pricey but are big enough for two people. Reservations essential.
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Hodo Kwaja
Most of the space inside this Korean hole-in-the-wall bakery is consumed by an incredible cake-making contraption, imported from Korea at a cost of around C$30,000 . The whirring machine produces bite-size walnut cakes at a rate of 1000 per hour - grab a bag-full to round-out your morning coffee experience.
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Indochine
Simple and unpretentious, this discrete timber-slatted food room is a real find in this neck of the woods. Signature dishes include live Vancouver crab sautéed in lemon, garlic and wine, and spicy tamarind crab fried in blackbean sauce. There are plenty of vegetarian, fried rice and stir-fry noodle options too. Finish with a Vietnamese coffee or a disconcerting-looking purple rice desert.
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Insomnia
Can't sleep? Yawn into this arty café, where DJs take over after spinning R&B, lounge and rock. The eclectic menu has real staying power: roll up early for weekend brunch, hot cocktails on a cold night (around C$7 ), lunchtime pizza and pasta, or loosely-defined tapas anytime. Nightly drinks specials and wi-fi internet access will help keep you awake.
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Irie Food Joint
A seductive Caribbean dining room with earth-toned chairs and a long bar, Irie adheres to the simple staples of 'Food, music, art, culture.' Mussels in ginger-mango-citrus cream sauce, jerk chicken wings with a pot of pepper sauce and fresh seafood mains are succulence defined. DJs spin on some nights.
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John's Italian Café
John's classic joint wouldn't look out of place in New York's Little Italy, or even New Jersey. The tree-shaded patio is the perfect summer-night stage for a bottle of Chianti and a fresh cornmeal-crust pizza piled high with toppings. The coffee's good too. Hard to beat.
