Editor’s Letter: The best meal of your life is just around the corner

“Are you kidding me?” That was the response we got when we asked family and friends to divulge their foodie secrets for this month’s sprawling cover story, “The Incredible Edible Bucket List.” Evidently, giving up one’s local mom-and-pop was akin to ratting out a loved one. Yet we persisted. And we relied heavily on Rebecca Fleming, our encyclopedic food and drink editor, and Suresh Doss, the GTA-traipsing food spelunker and host of the CBC’s new show Locals Welcome.

Over six decades in business—Toronto Life celebrates its 60th birthday in 2026—we’ve gotten to know the city’s food scene extremely well. And we love it when restaurants featured in our annual Best New Restaurants issue find themselves booked solid once the list drops. But those are usually sit-down spots with trained servers and considerable thought given to lighting and mood. Frankly, not everybody wants all that jazz all the time.

Most often, Torontonians are searching for something quick and ­delicious—the famished office worker who’s tired of his brown-bagged turkey on rye, the family of five returning from the cottage looking for something other than McDonald’s, the student craving shawarma and a Coke on a $10 budget. To those folks and everyone else: we’ve got you.

Fleming has been on the Toronto food beat for 13 years, and I trust her judgment implicitly. And Doss has made a career out of discovering Toronto’s best, most underappreciated roast-chicken takeout counters, halal butchers, dosa slingers, greasy spoons and more. When I called him recently, he was doing what he does. “I’m in line for the best egg tart in Toronto!” he said over the din of a crowd. It was a place called Fragrant Bakery, located in a strip mall in Agincourt. Cash only, no menu and the owners speak not a word of English. Unlike the Portuguese variety, these tarts are wobbly and best enjoyed piping hot. “They burn the roof of your mouth, but in a good way,” Doss explained.

Doss shares his food finds with a squad of 50 or so like-minded expert eaters via WhatsApp. When the mood strikes, a clutch of them meet up in some part of the GTA and eat their way through the neighbourhood. The strikeout rate is high—maybe three of 10 are home runs—but when they find a great spot, it’s like hitting paydirt.

Doss has learned to improve the odds. He sets out at lunchtime, he told me, and looks for “a lineup of people from that culture”—Indian Canadians queuing outside a biryani place, say. He suggests that, once inside, first-timers should “relax their shoulders” and stand still. Get a sense of what the regulars order and do the same. The fewer questions, the better.

For this assignment, Fleming and Doss amassed an incredible 365 recommendations, one a day for the coming year. Some are hole-in-the-wall surprises; others are masterpieces from star chefs. The result is a culinary compendium stretching from Oakville to Whitby and north to Aurora. Chances are good that there’s one within 500 metres of you right now.

As I was writing this column, the clock ticking toward lunchtime, I craved something fresh and quick. I opened the cover story, still in draft form, and zeroed in on a banh mi counter at a pickleball court nearby; a few minutes later, I was chatting with the owner, who used to run a banh mi shop in Vietnam. The sandwich was delicious and affordable ($7 for lemongrass pork). In the year ahead, I hope you enjoy the same kind of experience—as many as 365 times over.

Malcolm Johnston is the editor of Toronto Life. He can be reached via email at editor@torontolife.com.