Where to Eat Now

Another year, another round of consistently excellent restaurants. It seems that nothing—not the precarious economy, not the turbo-charged price of groceries—can stop Toronto’s food scene. But they can change it. Chefs with fine-dining backgrounds are turning to more casual formats, menus are tighter and, wow, are there ever a lot of burgers, pasta and wedge salads—not that we’re complaining.

Difficult times spark creativity, and we found examples of this in every corner of the city. Good restaurants are popping up in unexpected places. There’s a new reason to go to the Annex that doesn’t involve tickets to a show at Lee’s Palace or a pint at the Maddy. And when was the last time you made a reservation on the Esplanade that didn’t involve spaghetti and meatballs?

Our number-one spot this year takes us to Summer­hill, where a team including a veteran restaurateur, an ex-Quetzal chef and an 11-time oyster-shucking champ have opened a sweet little seafood spot. It’s not a pretentious white-tablecloth temple to surf and turf but a lively hangout with a concise menu of seasonal fish dishes, some very nice cocktails and a raw-bar-only hour. It’s a real gem—or should we say pearl—for the neighbourhood and for Toronto.

Related: One hundred pivotal moments in the history of Toronto dining

The 2026 List

1 Seahorse
2 Brasserie Côte
3 Bar Eugenie
4 Oldeseoul Tavern
5 Punch
6 The Onda
7 Radici Project
8 N. L. Ginzburg
9 Sammarco
10 Mozy’s
11 Lunch Lady
12 Agak Agak
13 Golden Horseshoe Barbecue
14 The Frederick
15 Eloise
16 Liliana
17 Makilala
18 Nice Slice
19 Aangan
20 Osteria Alba

Seahorse

1 Before Summerhill’s new seafood spot slid into the former home of Tuck Shop Trading Co. (a boutique peddling Muskoka-core staples), the neighbourhood’s dining scene felt a little predictable. A lot of the restaurants on that stretch of Yonge cater to the retired Rosedale set, with perfunctory menus and white linens. Think beet salad, duck confit and enough Chilean sea bass to make one question the future of the species.

Seahorse is different. The cozy, convivial spot, conceived by Richard Renaud (Piano Piano, Speducci Mercatto) and Simon Bower (a veteran restaurateur responsible for Lucien and Mercer Street Grill), traces back to the pandemic. The two met after Renaud began selling his home-roasted coffee beans at a Casa Loma–area café Bower frequented. They got to talking, then brought Eamon Clark—an 11-time shucking champ and son of Toronto’s late oyster king, Rodney Clark—into the fold. The trio finally landed on a space just steps from Summerhill station.

The charming 130-year-old room hosts a full house most nights, and it’s a mixed group. Gaggles of ladies gab about the cost of school uniforms while guys in snapbacks sip cocktails at the bar, voices raised over the sounds of cracking crustaceans. The tennis-club crowd swirls and sips old-world vintages, and TikTokers zoom in on the raw bar. This is not the traditional hushed dining experience typical of this stretch of Yonge—it’s energetic and a really good time.

The seafood tower (often with a three-figure price tag) has held court as the luxury order for far too long, according to Clark. His first order of business was toppling that pedestal. Enter the one-tier icebox, starting at $66: a stainless-steel treasure chest of chilled shellfish, like colossal wild Argentinian shrimp, sweet and firm with gentle salinity; Hokkaido scallop aguachile; mussels escabeche; and freshly shucked oysters. Some of it is prepared only by the sea from which it was plucked; some is enhanced by chef Federico Garcia, whose instinct for the interplay of acid and heat is knife-sharp.

Garcia, previously the senior sous at Quetzal, presents a concise menu that’s surf-focused. (Turf plays second fiddle here, showing up only in the form of a hanger steak.) Every bite of his Oroshi tuna tartare—the ruby-red cubes finished with crème fraîche, a ginger-chive relish and caviar-like pearls of finger lime—is pure satisfaction. During our visit, the apex was linguine tossed with butter, preserved lemon, shallots, crispy guanciale, Calabrian chilies, cream and parm, crowned with chubby seared scallops. Much like the casually cool Seahorse, it landed somewhere between high-end restaurant cooking and the pride of a galley kitchen. 1226 Yonge St., seahorserestaurant.ca 

Related: A team of Toronto’s restaurant-industry heavyweights is behind Summerhill’s new seafood spot

Brasserie Côte

2 The Annex, home to takeout containers of shawarma, affordable but questionable sushi and student bars slinging pre-mixed margaritas, hasn’t been a true dining destination for decades. But Brasserie Côte is trying to change that, catering to locals while putting the neighbourhood back on Toronto’s culinary map, one vol-au-vent at a time.

Helmed by Teo Paul—who gave us Ossington staples Union and Côte de Bœuf—and his right-hand man, joie-de-vivre expert Eamon O’Dea, the brasserie brings a slice of Paris to the eclectic neighbourhood without veering into kitsch.

There is a musicality to the no-reservations restaurant when it’s in full swing. O’Dea, the quintessential host, is the conductor, crossing off names from a long paper wait list, wielding his pen like a baton. The phone—an old-school landline, of course—rings regularly; the door almost never stays closed. Come summer, the spacious streetside patio will mean fewer disappointed faces.

Lille-borne chef Damien Cochez’s menu hums with quiet global inflections. Influences from Japan, Spain and even Barbados are woven through classic French dishes made in a distinctly Toronto kitchen. But there’s no holding back on the Parisian-ness of it all. Flaky vols-au-vent are filled with tender roast chicken and garlicky pan-fried escargot, finished with a silky velouté.

Hunks of Nova Scotia halibut are roasted, basted with tarragon butter, and served with steamed Japanese black rice alongside buttery pangrattato, crispy fried capers and clams sautéed in a classic sauce marinière. It’s brought together by an acid-­forward beurre blanc, the sharp hit of vinegar cutting through the decadence.

Aside from the odd fish dish, though, it’s an unsurprisingly meat-heavy menu—even the lone salad is scattered with smoked lardons. Hanger steak is seasoned simply with salt and pepper, then chargrilled and brushed with house-rendered beef tallow. It’s sliced and set in a pool of red wine jus, then finished with jammy confit shallots, the cut’s subtle funk tempered by what the French do best: sauce.

One early spring night, a plat du jour featured a terrine of luscious foie gras layered with thin slices of smoked beef tongue, meant to be spread onto buttered Blackbird sourdough. It was savoury, nutty and unapologetically French. 400 Bloor St. W., brasseriecote.ca 

Related: Is this Bloor Street or the 11th arrondissement? A new French restaurant brings a piece of Paris to the Annex

Bar Eugenie

3 The Victorian row house that was once home to the beloved Harbord Room has been patiently awaiting a worthy successor since that hotspot closed in 2016. It finally found one last September. A trio of Alo Food Group alumni—­Ronnie Fishman, Lee Bonds and Rebekah Bruce—opened Bar Eugenie, ambitiously named after Eugénie Brazier, the first chef to earn six (yes, six) Michelin stars, three at each of her two restaurants in Lyon.

Bruce champions Canadian ingredients in a tight rotating menu of sharable plates, returning to the kind of casual fine dining that the Harbord Room helped introduce to the city in the first place.

Unlike the restaurant’s namesake, Bar Eugenie isn’t French. Many of the dishes Bruce churns out of her small kitchen pay tribute to her mother, with Filipino flavours sneaking into the menu. Her take on ceviche, a Southeast Asian version known as kinilaw, features thinly sliced scallops brightened with briny coconut vinegar and enriched with coconut milk, then scattered with pomelo and red chili. It’s velvety, funky, punchy, fresh and a bit weird—the edible equivalent of a Prince song.

Much of the menu is shaped by the seasons and Bruce’s insatiable need to play. Instead of iceberg, the wedge salad stars caramelized cabbage in a buttermilk-caper dressing—a delightful mash-up of the darlings du jour.

Bruce’s steak—inspired by bistek Tagalog—also comes with some surprises, sliced mid-rare and served in a thickened citrus-soy jus that lands somewhere between HP sauce and savoury caramel. Her seafood dishes are even more impressive. BC black cod arrives golden-hued, firm, flaky and buttery. The fish is topped with rendered ’nduja and set over slow-cooked chickpeas in a rich tomato sauce. It’s the food of fine dining, but the flavours are deeply comforting, almost grandmotherly.

And fried calamari has been done to death, but Bruce sends out a version that’s entirely new. She dredges fat strips of the cephalopod in a flour mixture, then deep-fries them, tosses them in a green-peppercorn dressing and piles them in a pool of assertive vinegar-soy sauce. Be warned: they’re addictive. 89 Harbord St., bareugenie.com

Related: A trio of Alo alumni have opened a restaurant in the old Harbord Room space

Oldeseoul Tavern

4 Leemo Han—one of the city’s most prolific restaurateurs—has been serving his signature fusion of Asian, Canadian and American cuisines since 2009, when he opened Swish by Han with his brother, Leeto. A decade and a half later, with a string of west-end snack bars under his belt (Oddseoul, Hanmoto, Seoul Shakers, Shakers Club, Pepper’s, Made Rite), he’s moving out of his comfort zone with Oldeseoul Tavern. As the name suggests, it’s a distinctly Han spot, but it feels just a little more grown-up. And this time, it’s east of the Don.

His new Korean pub, located in what used to be Otherside Pizza, on Queen just east of Woodbine, is a joint venture with Otherside’s Dave Jung, but Han’s fingerprints are all over the space. It’s been outfitted with brown leather banquettes, hanging plants, vintage Bacardi ads and reproduction Tiffany-style light fixtures for those retro Pizza Hut vibes.

Around 6 p.m., families settle in. Parents nurse beers while their littles tackle the hefty brisket burger off the (gasp!) kids’ menu. This is a family-friendly restaurant in the coolest possible sense—and a big win for the Beaches.

When bedtime rolls around for the underage crowd, there’s a shift change and the dining room fills up with Han devotees who are there for his deliciously quirky creations. Small bites include lacto-fermented cucumber pickles, thick-cut and amped up with kimchi; crab rangoon dip with Ritz crackers; and a BLT-inspired tartare. The devilled eggs are a mash-up between the pickled dive-bar darlings and the old-school passed appetizer. Oldeseoul’s version is marinated in soy and vinegar overnight, then hollowed out, restuffed and crowned with sweet pickled red chili and a shard of chicken crackling.

The squash poutine that made Oddseoul famous—deep-fried butternut cubes drowning in Japanese curry and topped with cheese curds and a variety of pickles—has made the trip east. And speaking of vegetables that punch way above their weight, even salads aren’t safe from Han’s penchant for excess. A wedge of iceberg arrives loaded with crunchy puffed grains, a thick slab of bacon and funky kimchi pear, all coated in a green chili–ranch dressing. This isn’t the place to get your daily dose of greens.

Then there’s the OS Tavern Burger, bigger and more interesting than the one on the kids’ menu, with a seven-ounce brisket patty, molten American cheese, horseradish aïoli and a fat slice of griddled white onion on a Blackbird sesame bun. And because this is a Leemo Han joint, there’s a Korean twist: some subtly sweet galbi jjim jus on the side for dunking. 1911 Queen St. E., @oldeseoultavern.1911 

Punch

5 Hotel restaurants rarely rise above merely being convenient amenities, but Le Germain’s new kitchen stands apart. At Punch, that transcendence begins with the space. It’s unrecognizable from Victor, the hotel’s previous dining room, which was almost clinical in its minimalist, monochromatic aesthetic.

Now it’s decked out with warm woods, shiny surfaces and club chairs upholstered in Nani-core embroidered fabric, making it feel like a cross between the Polo Club and a Pinterest board for Indian decor. On any given night, influencers fawning over edible-petal garnishes commingle with multi-generational families gathered to celebrate someone’s sashtiapthapoorthi.

They’re all here for chef Mandar Kulkarni’s Indo-British dishes. Born in Mumbai, Kulkarni honed his fine-dining skills at Toronto’s Michelin-starred Don Alfonso 1890, and the menu reads like a love letter to his roots—if, at times, with a British accent.

His scotch eggs are stuffed with Berkshire pork that’s been spiced with a heady blend of cardamom, mace, nutmeg and cumin, then served with curried ketchup. The beef Wellington—wrapped in a spiced puff-pastry parcel—sits in a pool of sunchoke purée and glossy rogan josh jus.

Some of Kulkarni’s dishes are unadulterated Indian. His Mumbai chaat slaw, a technicolour dreamcoat of julienned beets, radishes, cucumbers and onions, scattered with mung beans and boondi (tiny crunchy chickpea fritters), piled over a bright coriander chutney, and tossed in a tamarind-yogurt emulsion, is elevated Indian street food. The only thing British about it might be its royal crown of potato-leek “hay.”

Indian and English childhoods meet in the butter chicken pot pie. Here, white wine and thyme give way to smoky tandoori chicken, steeped in spiced yogurt and then tucked beneath a buttery shortcrust that sends delicate shards of pastry into the air at the touch of a fork. It’s simultaneously disorienting, familiar and satisfying, like finding your way without Google Maps. 30 Mercer St., punchtoronto.com 

Related: This Toronto hotel’s new restaurant is fusing Indian and British flavours

The Onda

6 Japanese fine dining can skew monastic: endless courses, hushed reverence, the low-grade anxiety of misplacing your chopsticks. The Onda knows that script; it just doesn’t feel compelled to perform it straight. An evening here is closer to a family dinner—if your family blends its rice vinegars for perfect acidity and flies in fish from Wakayama and Kumamoto.

The dining room is carved down to the essentials: pale wood, clean lines and just nine seats at a slim L-shaped counter. Behind it, brothers-in-law Yoongil Choi and Sunil Woo cook while their wives, Jiyoung Kim and Yoonmi Choi, steer the floor. There’s one seating a night, and the chefs move in seamless tandem, almost as if they share a nervous system.

One of the 20 courses brings crisp nori wrapped around sweet pumpkin and poached lobster slicked with gochujang butter. It’s a thesis in a bite: we honour Japan, but we are also Korean. What follows is a parade of precise plates: there’s firefly squid, truffled chawanmushi, monkfish tempura and a yuzu-bright cod broth. A nigiri run arrives next—madai, shima-aji, kombu-aged flounder, smoked mackerel, chutoro, otoro, Hokkaido uni. The finale lands in three beats: kalbi short rib with goma ponzu (a final callout to Korea), shiso-wrapped A5 Wagyu in paper-thin tempura, and finally, claypot-cooked mushroom rice layered with eel, house-cured ikura and sweet snow crab, a luxurious and comforting closer.

Two hours in, the vibe shifts as chatter bubbles between strangers. Omakase sometimes feels like a performance. Here, it’s more like a conversation. 750 St. Clair Ave. W., theonda.ca 

Related: Inside Toronto’s sweetest new omakase restaurant

Radici Project

7 Fusion often gets a bad rap, but at this Italian Japanese restaurant, where the menu is written in both ­languages, it feels natural. Radici comes from chef Emiliano Del Frate and sake sommelier Kayo Ito, who arrived in Toronto from Rome and Hokkaido, respectively; met on the job here; and fell in love. They decided to meld the cuisines of their cultures in this tiny room on College Street, barely wider than a hallway.

Whether guests order à la carte at the bar or commit to the $180 eight-course tasting menu, they’ll be served dishes that distill the same idea: Italian soul with Japanese precision—restraint on one side, umami and a deep fryer on the other. The mushroom-stuffed karaage chicken wings are pure comfort food, and the nine-sip bowl of ramen, anchored by rosemary-redolent duck porchetta, is so good as to inspire an Oliver Twist “more, please” situation.

Luxury ingredients make regular appearances, but they never do any of the heavy lifting. Take the crab course: tender chunks of West Coast Dungeness, topped with New Brunswick caviar, are made even more interesting by simple sunchoke and a puff of hay-infused foam. Course by course, Radici’s logic sharpens: this is a kitchen that knows both of its traditions well enough to let them speak in the same breath. 588 College St., radiciproject.ca 

Related: Radici Project is a buzzy Japanese Italian spot with connections to Noma and Nobu

N. L. Ginzburg

8 Leave it to Zach Kolomeir and Carmelina Imola, the husband-­and-wife team behind some of Toronto’s top spots—­Dreyfus, Bernhardt’s, Vilda’s—to open a trattoria in the heart of Little Italy that’s proudly non-traditional and just a spoonful Semitic.

With their respective Italian and Jewish roots, Imola and Kolomeir have made N. L. Ginzburg (named for anti-fascist Italian writers Natalia and Leone Ginzburg) their most personal project yet. While Italian food has long dominated Toronto’s dining scene and Jewish cooking is having a renaissance, this is more than trend-chasing.

The dining room hums. Everything feels soulful and alive. It’s a fitting prelude to the meal. And meals here are about abundance: sharable dishes that fuel the revelry. Tender ravioli stuffed with ricotta and mushrooms (on our visit, yellowfoot chanterelles), glossed in a silky sherry-butter sauce, are as comforting as a warm hand on a frostbitten cheek.

It’s a protein-heavy menu that lists earthy grilled pork chops with rustic sausage and peppers, juicy hanger steaks with properly dressed greens. But the best choice is the half chicken. Crisp-skinned and bursting with juice, the tender bird arrives in a buttery, briny jus with a rich anchovy-olive one-two punch. It’s the kind of dish that will have you making another reservation before the bill has landed on the table. 548 College St., nlginzburg.com

Related: The team behind Bernhardt’s, Dreyfus and Vilda’s just opened an Italian restaurant

Sammarco

9 At a time when Toronto seems to have reached peak steakhouse, Sammarco still manages to stand out. Rob Rossi and David Minicucci, the team behind Giulietta and Osteria Giulia, conceived of Sammarco as a bisteccheria—an Italian steakhouse—and they sidestep the usual chophouse clichés: there’s no caesar salad, no shrimp cocktail, no old-boys’-club atmosphere. Instead of an encyclopedic steak selection, Sammarco keeps things simple with just four cuts, all from Cumbrae’s. The rest of the menu turns to seafood, duck and other big-ticket dishes.

But the real show-stopper doesn’t involve meat at all: it’s a $78 bowl of fettuccine. Each batch of the pasta, called Cento Uova, is made with 100 eggs. A nest of it is tossed with parmigiano-reggiano and banana-yellow butter from St. Brigid’s Creamery in Huron County. It’s a plate of pure indulgence and proof of the proverb “you get what you pay for.”

The moody dining room, dressed in terrazzo, marble and barolo-hued leather, looks as expensive as the menu. Yet, for all the polish—servers in white shirts and dark ties, crisp linens, gilt-rimmed plates, cocktails mixed tableside—Sammarco doesn’t feel stiff. The bar buzzes, the booths fill quickly and the room taps neatly into Toronto’s current appetite for special-occasion dining. 4 Front St. E., sammarco.ca 

Related: A sexy new Italian steakhouse is bringing massive cuts of meat and tableside martini service to St. Lawrence

Mozy’s

10 What do you get when a fine dining–trained first-generation Iranian Canadian chef goes back to his roots? You get Mozy’s, a chicken shop in Liberty Village with lineups longer than the customs queues at Pearson.

Led by Barbode Soudi, a former Alo chef de cuisine, Mozy’s presents as fast casual—arguably the format of the moment as the industry recalibrates in a cuckoo-bananas economy. Soudi’s cooking, however, is anything but casual.

He brines his chicken for 12 hours, dries it for two days, then throws it onto the Portuguese-imported grill, sans sauce. The fire pops and crackles, sending the scent of smouldering charcoal across the room.

The menu is as straightforward as they come. Blistered and juicy spatchcocked chicken is finished with sweet and punchy confit garlic oil. There’s a kale-chickpea salad in a bright citrus-mint dressing. Basmati rice is threaded with crispy shallots, toasted vermicelli and lentils, the flavour profile landing somewhere between nostalgic and new, the way Rice-A-Roni did to a child of the ’80s. The sleeper hit is Soudi’s chicken-salt fries, dusted in bouillon, sharpened with enough sumac to put vinegar out of a job and finished with a biting harissa spice blend.

Another must-order is the bazlama, a pillowy flatbread griddled on both sides and strong enough to scoop up thick labneh, whipped with smoky brown butter and preserved lemon purée. Finished with a glug of olive oil and a scatter of toasted nigella and black sesame seeds, it tastes like French fine dining, Mediterranean marketplaces and Middle Eastern soul food. It’s the stuff of a smart chef, born to immigrant parents and raised in Toronto. 114 Atlantic Ave., @mozyscharcoal

Lunch Lady

11 In 2008, Anthony Bourdain ducked under an awning in Ho Chi Minh City and met street food vendor Nguyen Thi Thanh, who was busy ladling beef noodle soup into bowls. One No Reservations segment later, she was dubbed “the Lunch Lady.” A decade later, BC-based restaurateur Michael Tran tracked Thanh down, set on convincing her to bring her superlative soups to Canada. In 2020, her first restaurant outside of Vietnam opened in Vancouver. Our outpost arrived on Ossington last June, just weeks after Thanh passed away.

Her legacy lives on during lunch service. The Saturday-only banh canh cua, thick with crab and pork hock, is lifted from her handwritten recipe, which is treated like scripture. Lunch Lady isn’t a shrine, though. Dinner belongs to chef and co-owner Benedict Lim, whose style of cooking is Toronto by way of Saigon (think crab fried rice with roe, optionally gilded with egg or foie gras). Certain weekends go full night market with DJs on deck. Some guests cap an evening with Vietnamese coffee tiramisu; others keep the party going with cocktails for dessert. 93 Ossington Ave., thelunchlady.com

Related: The Toronto location of Vietnam’s Michelin-starred Lunch Lady is now open

Agak Agak

12 Husband-and-wife restaurateurs David Burga and Jeanne Chai built a following at Kiss My Pans, their tiny café in Little Italy devoted to Singaporean hawker favourites—beef rendang, nasi lemak, chicken rice. Agak Agak, which means “a bit of this, a bit of that,” is Kiss My Pans’ new sit-down sibling in Cabbagetown. The short menu is equally rewarding for both first-timers and connoisseurs.

A cup of the Singaporean kopi (coffee), brewed thick and sweet in the kopitiam tradition of Southeast Asian coffee shops, is reason enough to stop by. The white chicken rice is a faithful take on Singapore’s soul-warming national dish, with tender chicken and rice luxuriating in schmaltz, brought to life by the addition of soy and a sharp gingery-garlicky chili sauce, each served on the side.

For dessert, a tingkat—a traditional Singaporean tiered lunchbox—arrives filled with sweets in the form of warm pulut hitam (sugary, coconutty rice porridge) and bite-size kueh, made with alternating layers of coconut and pandan. The room has the same casual, comforting appeal as the food. The orange walls, teal accents, decorative plates and cans of evaporated milk in the window conjure the easy familiarity of a Southeast Asian neighbourhood haunt, transplanted to Gerrard and Parliament. 253 Gerrard St. E., @agakagakcanada 

Related: A popular Singaporean cheese shop and café is opening a sister restaurant

Golden Horseshoe Barbecue

13 Andrew Golden’s Seaton Village barbecue joint at the corner of Dupont and Christie runs on a simple formula: counter service only, decor kept to a minimum, smoked meats sold by weight. The format may be quick and casual, but the process behind it is slow and exacting.

After experimenting in his backyard, Golden travelled to Texas, where he learned how to use an offset smoker for long, labour-intensive cooks. Brisket, seasoned with salt, pepper and a secret-ingredient rub, is rested, smoked for 12 hours, then held in a warming cabinet until impossibly tender. Swaddle a slab of it in the soft tallow bread that comes with every order, along with some complimentary house pickles, for a DIY sandwich.

The sides here do more than fill out the tray. Charro beans (a riff on a recipe by Golden’s mentor at B4 Barbeque and Boba in Mabank, Texas) come studded with bacon and burnt ends. Esquites, a Mexican street corn salad with cotija cheese and lime, brings some zing to otherwise rich dishes. And then there’s the banana pudding from Golden’s mom, Doris—a soft, sweet finish to all that smoke and salt and a dessert that’s worth saving room for. 657 Dupont St., goldenhorseshoebbq.com

Related: Toronto’s newest barbecue joint is already drawing crowds

The Frederick

14 Between the blur of Bay Street and the neon glow of Sankofa Square sits the latest project from chef Cory Vitiello, his first sit-down restaurant since the Harbord Room closed in 2016.

On the main floor of the historic Dineen Building, the Frederick is a cozy clubhouse that’s equal parts power lunch and post-work pint, with a menu of unfussy hits—spinach dip, a club sandwich, miso-glazed salmon, steak, chocolate cake. The dream of the ’90s is alive here, and we’re loving the walk down memory lane.

The kitchen has a thing for throwback flourishes. Take the Shrimp Louie salad: half a head of iceberg surrounded by cucumbers and Campari tomatoes, crowned with three chilled colossal shrimp, then drowned in Thousand Island dressing. It harks back to the days when creamy, full-fat dressings weren’t dietary villains.

The burger is a callback to the Harbord Room’s: a dry-aged chuck-and-brisket patty on a brioche bun with white cheddar, Guinness-glazed onions, lettuce, tomato, dill pickle and a slick of aïoli. In a food scene sometimes too quick to embrace change, a bit of nostalgia goes a long way. 10 Temperance St., thefrederickto.com

Related: Chef Cory Vitiello’s first new restaurant in more than a decade is now open

Eloise

15 The Hnatiw family—the people behind the Esplanade’s kitschy and crowd-pleasing Old Spaghetti Factory and Scotland Yard Pub—have built a small empire on pasta and pints. With Eloise, their new contemporary Canadian kitchen on the same street, brothers Graham and Dan keep that broad appeal, but they’ve dialled up the sophistication. After years of red sauce and nachos, they’re flexing their culinary muscles.

The room feels dressed up without being formal, making it the right amount of approachable for the strip’s steady stream of tourists but intriguing enough to catch the eyes of locals. The menu follows the same logic, with enough range to suit different tastes, backed by confident cooking. Akhil Hajare, formerly a senior sous-chef at Alo, takes French cooking around the world with dishes like crisp-skinned chicken in a rich guajillo jus, roasted cabbage glossed in mushroom XO, and potato pavé brightened with yuzu kosho and Thai basil. For dessert, a parfait or a mille-feuille—each an architectural delight.

Cocktails in the dining room stick to the classics, and the wine list plays the hits from France and Italy. But, at Bar Cart, Eloise’s moody backroom cocktail lounge, the drinks—like the Espresso Ghost, an interesting clarified take on the ubiquitous coffee-based martini—get a little more adventurous. 42 The Esplanade, eloiserestaurant.ca

Related: The Old Spaghetti Factory’s new sister spot is nothing like the kitschy red-sauce restaurant

Liliana

16 The menu at chef Marvin ­Palomo’s new spot in the old Dandylion space may use the language of an Italian restaurant, but Liliana is not an Italian restaurant. Palomo filters that European foundation through his Filipino heritage and the kitchens that shaped him, from Italy to Hong Kong.

Octopus is gently steamed and then flash-fried. It arrives at the table lacquered with tamari. Chicken wings—deboned and stuffed with truffle risotto—are like levelled-up arancini. And a bowl of aglio e olio is a twist on the Neapolitan classic, the pasta glossed with chili crisp and finished with a cloud of burrata and parm. It was inspired by a meal Palomo threw together at home using the few ingredients he had on hand, and it’s one of the menu’s most talked-about dishes. The fusion noodles capture the spontaneous spirit that defines Liliana.

The service is warm, unfussy and low on theatre. With its tiny open kitchen and industrial architecture, Liliana feels intimate and a little scrappy—the kind of place that quickly turns first-timers into regulars. 1198 Queen St. W., lilianatoronto.com

Related: This new kitchen on Queen West is remixing Italian favourites with Asian flavours

Makilala

17 Chef Nuit Regular and her husband, Jeff, are Toronto’s royal Thai couple, with five restaurants devoted to the country’s culinary tapestry. But Jeff is actually Filipino, and after 18 years of creating a city of khao soi snobs, the Regulars are finally letting his heritage take the stage.

When you’re here, you’re in Manila—as channelled through the childhood memories of Jeff and his co-owner brother, Joel. Laundry lines droop overhead, capiz shell shutters separate the main and private dining rooms, and the bar mimics a sari-sari, the corner stores that anchor neighbourhoods in the Philippines. But the focal point is the stage. With music provided by karaoke or live bands, singalongs are inevitable—and nearly everyone on Makilala’s payroll can carry a tune, ready to rescue guests who falter.

While the brothers designed the room, Nuit runs the kitchen. Many dishes were inspired by versions of her mother-in-law’s recipes. The kare-kare is thick with peanut and oxtail, and the sisig is exactly as it should be: a glorious jumble of sizzling pork parts, calibrated with just enough acid and heat to slice through the fat. The food is rich, the room is loud and it’s a riotously good time. 105 Church St., makilala.ca

Related: Nuit Regular’s newest restaurant will transport diners to the Philippines

Nice Slice

18 In recent years, Harbord Village has racked up an embarrassment of culinary riches. Dreyfus, Parquet, Maven, Bar Eugenie and Rasa are all clustered within a single square block. Down the road, people line up outside Emmer for pistachio croissants, still Instagram darlings five years later.

Enter Nice Slice, which may be the street’s most apropos addition yet, pairing serious culinary chops with a callback to the old-school pizza joints that helped define the strip, including Porretta’s (RIP) and Pizza Gigi. It’s the passion project of Nick White and a local hangout committed to doing one thing very well.

The short menu includes the occasional one-off (like a recent collaboration with Uncle Pete’s Bread Co., a riff on their best­selling Italian sandwich) but typically sticks to the classics: pepperoni and cheese (with or without vodka sauce); plain red sauce; a spicy one (sausage, peppers, honey); options for meat and veggie lovers, respectively; and an unorthodox one topped with za’atar. But the choice is obvious: the vodka pep, White’s take on the pizza-pasta mash-up, has a charred yet chewy crust slathered in a velvety, tangy vodka sauce and topped edge to edge with cupped pepperoni.

Whole pies are available to go, but if one of the few seats is available, grab it and enjoy a slice served on a paper plate, paired with a can of beer made a few blocks west, at Bickford Brewing (and called Nice Pils, naturally). 196 Borden St., niceslice.pizza

Related: This new Harbord Village pizzeria makes a real nice slice

Aangan

19 The Mumbai-born team behind Little Italy’s new Indian restaurant is challenging how their country’s food has long been interpreted in Toronto, confined to curries, rice and naan. Instead, they’re high­lighting lesser-known dishes and reimagining them with fine-dining flair.

Here, paneer becomes a terrine. Thin slices are stacked between layers of herb pesto and tandoor-fired red pepper relish. It’s not unlike spanakopita, but the makhani sauce it sits in reminds you that this is an Indian kitchen.

For his take on the street-food snack chaat, chef Mukesh Padaya stacks deep-fried sweet potato cubes over a swipe of sweet yogurt, then tops them with mint and tamarind chutneys and crispy potato sticks. Pomegranate seeds and starfruit slices help strike the essential sweet, sour and spicy balance.

Buttery Pacific Mangalorean cod, seasoned with chili powder, black pepper and lemon, arrives over broccoli khichari (think risotto), around which is a vivid moat of silky coastal-inspired curry with coconut milk, tomato and tamarind. On top: a whimsical fishbone-shaped tuile. 556 College St., aangantoronto.ca

Related: Three Mumbai expats reunited in Toronto to open this splashy new Indian restaurant

Osteria Alba

20 Torontonians tend to get especially sentimental when a favourite restaurant goes dark. So, when Little Italy’s Vivoli closed after two decades of doling out Italian classics at the corner of College and Beatrice, regulars were bereft.

It’s a good thing Osteria Alba didn’t overthink the assignment. The restaurant offers a few fancier plates than its predecessor did—chicken liver pâté, a strip loin for two, French-cut lamb chops—but overall, the staples are still carbs and cocktails.

A Neapolitan nonna might take issue with a few of the menu’s contemporary liberties (chipotle aïoli with the calamari, honey drizzled over the Calabrese pizza), but for the most part, chef-owner Adam Pereira—who’s also behind Cano, a Corso Italia favourite—is working in a familiar register somewhere between traditional trattoria and red-sauce joint: pillowy gnudi in truffle cream, wood-fired pizzas, rigatoni alla vodka, chicken parm. And the rooftop patio remains one of the better perches for briefly forgetting about the general state of the world, spritz in hand. 665 College St., osteriaalba.ca

Related: This new Italian restaurant replaced a long-standing Little Italy staple