Best of the City: our guide to everything exemplary in Toronto in 2010

We’ve become a city obsessed with provenance. We know the politics of the farmer who collects our eggs, whether our T-shirt designer plays in an indie band, and which Japanese artisan hand-carved our kid’s non-toxic forks. We gossip about the people behind our stuff like they’re celebrities because notable origins almost always mean a superior product—and loonies well spent. This year, our crew of expert consumers dug deep, bravely comparing the gleam of cufflinks, road-testing fixed-gear bikes, sniffing perfumes, measuring poolboys’ biceps, and sampling an entire summer’s worth of steak, ice cream, fresh-squeezed lemonade and more. Here is our guide to everything exemplary in Toronto in 2010