Lai Wah Heen is reopening in the same location but with new owners and chefs
After two years, the fine-dining dim sum restaurant is back
In 1995, Canson Tsang—now regarded as a trailblazer of Cantonese fine-dining in Toronto—opened Lai Wah Heen, a white-tablecloth dim sum restaurant inside the Toronto Metropolitan Hotel. For nearly three decades, he offered diners a refined, cartless style of dim sum. Then, in 2023, as the restaurant’s lease was about to expire, Tsang decided it was time to retire. Two years later, the internet is abuzz with the news that Lai Wah Heen is welcoming diners once again—in the very same location (though it’s now a DoubleTree by Hilton) and with the same layout.
The restaurant’s second coming is not without its changes, though. First of all, Tsang is no longer behind it. The owners of Richmond Hill’s One Fusion Cuisine and Markham’s Skyview Fusion Cuisine have stepped in with the goal of preserving Lai Wah Heen’s reverence for Cantonese cuisine. “Canson trusted our owners to carry on the legacy he built in Toronto,” says general manager Farhan Khan. “When he got a chance to dine with us during our friends-and-family event, he was very happy with our interpretation.”
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Lai Wah Heen’s daytime menu still focuses on artfully prepared dim sum classics like lobster, geoduck, scallop-and-prawn dumplings, and hot-and-sour soup, all made with the freshest ingredients. “We always look locally first,” says Khan. “Our owner Gary Yue even has his own farm, and we have a number of dishes made with vegetables that are grown there. Our beef is all Canadian Prime, our pork is heritage-bred and we source our seafood from within Canada as much as possible.”
But Lai Wah Heen is no longer the only fine-dining Chinese restaurant in town. With places like Mimi Chinese and Mott 32 on the scene, Toronto diners have higher expectations. With that said, dinner here brings about the biggest changes. “Our owner searched throughout China to find our chefs. Heyden Sin and Huang Zhenqing both worked in extremely high-end dining back home. They understand Cantonese cuisine enough to recreate the flavours within the context of 2025.”
Standouts on the new menu include chef Zhenqing’s playful take on scallop-and-prawn dumplings, shaped like tiny koi and speckled with squid ink to mimic the fish’s distinctive markings. They arrive swimming in a vibrant green spinach consommé, evoking an algae-covered koi pond. But the menu’s sleeper hit may be the Zhoushan-sourced jellyfish with cranberry gelée and candied hawthorn berry, a dish inspired by the nostalgic flavours of a sour candy chef Sin ate when he was a boy in Guangzhou.
Lunch is served daily from 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.; afternoon tea is offered daily from 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.; and dinner service runs Sunday to Thursday from 5:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. and Friday and Saturday from 5:30 p.m. to 11 p.m.
Lai Wah Heen, 108 Chestnut St., laiwahheen.com, @laiwahheen
Erin Hershberg is a freelance writer with nearly two decades of experience in the lifestyle sector. She currently lives in downtown Toronto with her husband and two children.
