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Playa Cabana Cantina
Food & Drink
Toronto’s best Mexican restaurants
Our go-tos for tacos, tortas and tequila
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Food & Drink
Toronto’s most ridiculous nachos
Ranked from "muy loco," to "ack!"
Food & Drink
Cafetería, Dave Sidhu’s diner-inspired Mexican restaurant, opens today in Dufferin Grove
It's his seventh kitchen
Food & Drink
Introducing: Cocina Economica, Corktown’s piece of the Playa Cabana empire
Name: Cocina Economica Neighbourhood: Contact: Previously: Owner: Chef: David Sidhu and Samantha Valdivia (Cancun City) The Food:...
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Food & Drink
The high price of cheap shrimp: where restaurants get their prawns from and why you should care
We’ve gradually come to care about how our beef is raised, who stitches together our clothes and the carbon footprint of our...
Food & Drink
Dave Sidhu, king of the Playa Cabana empire, is heading east
Dave Sidhu , the man partly responsible for an increase in Toronto's taco consumption , is making an eastward expansion with a...
Food & Drink
Five food fads we loathe
Yes, we’re looking at you, Drake One Fifty ($9), Electric Mud BBQ ($3.75) and Hudson Kitchen ($4). The flooring of the moment at...
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Food & Drink
The Dish Power Rankings: the Jack Bauer edition
Toronto Life’s roundup of the restaurants with the biggest buzz, the longest lineups and the toughest tables to snag. Bar Isabel...
Food & Drink
Critic: How tequila-fuelled taquerias like Playa Cabana became the city’s buzziest places to eat—and party
Playa Cabana is on the ground floor of a slim Dupont semi just off Davenport, a convenient pit stop after a wardrobe binge in...
Food & Drink
The Dish Power Rankings: Terroir-ism edition
Toronto Life’s roundup of the restaurants with the biggest buzz, the longest lineups and the toughest tables to snag. The...
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Food & Drink
The Dish Power Rankings: April fools edition
Toronto Life’s roundup of the restaurants with the biggest buzz, the longest lineups and the toughest tables to snag. A long...
Food & Drink
The Dish Power Rankings: Brandon Walsh edition
Toronto Life’s roundup of the restaurants with the biggest buzz, the longest lineups and the toughest tables to snag. The top...
Food & Drink
Playa Cabana is opening a third location in May
Not content with merely launching The Junction’s buzziest new spot, Playa Cabana owner Dave Sidhu is opening a third location of...
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Food & Drink
The Dish Power Rankings: Kumar goes to Guu edition
Toronto Life’s roundup of the restaurants with the biggest buzz, the longest lineups and the toughest tables to snag. After...
Food & Drink
The Dish Power Rankings: Best New Restaurants edition
Toronto Life’s roundup of the restaurants with the biggest buzz, the longest lineups and the toughest tables to snag. Our annual...
Food & Drink
The Dish Power Rankings: muddied waters edition
Toronto Life’s roundup of the restaurants with the biggest buzz, the longest lineups and the toughest tables to snag. After four...
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Food & Drink
The Dish Power Rankings: how the powerful stay powerful edition
Toronto Life’s roundup of the restaurants with the biggest buzz, the longest lineups and the toughest tables to snag. Edulis...
Food & Drink
The Dish Power Rankings: winter deep freeze edition
Toronto Life’s roundup of the restaurants with the biggest buzz, the longest lineups and the toughest tables to snag. The...
Food & Drink
The Dish Power Rankings: Top Chefs and Bieber power
Toronto Life’s weekly assessment of the restaurants with the biggest buzz, the longest lineups and the toughest tables to...
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Food & Drink
Review: Playa Cabana Cantina, the Junction’s raucous new taco bar
Proof that the Junction is the next hot neighbourhood: it now has the city’s best tacos. Playa Cabana, the crammed Annex...
Food & Drink
The Dish Power Rankings: The Valentine’s madness edition
Toronto Life’s weekly assessment of the restaurants with the biggest buzz, the longest lineups and the toughest tables to...
Food & Drink
The Dish Power Rankings: buzzing diners and taco insurgents
Toronto Life’ s weekly assessment of the restaurants with the biggest buzz, the longest lineups and the toughest tables to...
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Food & Drink
Introducing: Playa Cabana Cantina, the Junction’s kitschy new taco bar
Dave Sidhu’ s Playa Cabana Cantina, which opened late last month in the Junction, is Toronto’s latest taco-and-tequila...
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Best New Restaurants
Food & Drink
These are Toronto’s best new restaurants of 2025
This year’s list includes a Korean Ecuadorian diner, a supper club that showcases regional Chinese dishes tweaked with seasonal Canadian ingredients and a Parkdale chaat house that makes a mean Pakistani Sloppy Joe. It’s official: fusion is in
Big Stories
Deep Dives
Sex worker and
Anora
consultant Andrea Werhun’s journey from strip clubs to Hollywood
Andrea Werhun’s dream was to be a writer, but there was a lot more money in sex work. She told herself she’d quit soon, then spent years working as a stripper. In 2022, Sean Baker hired her as a consultant on his Oscar-sweeping film. Now she’s stepping into her own spotlight
Deep Dives
Game Over: Inside fallen Toronto Raptor Jontay Porter’s sports betting scandal
As the pivotal member of a notorious betting ring, Porter was playing for another team. The story of a cheater, his bookmakers and the wager that brought them all down
Deep Dives
Megan Savard for the Defence: Meet the lawyer representing a player at the centre of the Hockey Canada trial
She’s fierce, shrewd and relentless. And she doesn’t just want to win—she wants to dismantle the prison system altogether
Food & Drink
These are Toronto’s best new restaurants of 2025
This year’s list includes a Korean Ecuadorian diner, a supper club that showcases regional Chinese dishes tweaked with seasonal Canadian ingredients and a Parkdale chaat house that makes a mean Pakistani Sloppy Joe. It’s official: fusion is in
Deep Dives
Inside the rise and fall of the Vaulter Bandit, the 21st century’s most notorious bank robber
To fellow tourists he met around the world, Jeffery Shuman was a semi-retired developer with a bright smile, an even tan and a fat wallet. In truth, he was a legendary bank robber on the run from the Toronto police and the US Marshals
Deep Dives
Anchor Man: Fox News host John Roberts on Trump, the trade war and the American psyche
If Fox News seems an unlikely landing spot for a guy who got his start pumping out Platinum Blonde on MuchMusic, you probably haven’t heard his thoughts about joining the notorious network, the Canada–US relationship and what he misses most about Toronto
Deep Dives
Trump’s Loss, Toronto’s Gain: Meet the artists, professors, scientists and other luminaries ditching the US and moving north
They’re coming from Big Law, the Ivy League, arts institutes and beyond, brimming with smarts and energy and united by a common cause: avoiding the carnage of Donald Trump. True tales from the brain gain
Deep Dives
Dancing Queens: Patrons, staff and performers share their wildest memories of Crews and Tangos, Toronto’s most storied drag bar
Crews and Tangos has been enforcing the rules of the Village for more than 30 years: wear what you want, kiss who you want, but don’t forget to tip the drag queens. With a condo development looming, we asked around for tales from the iconic spot
Deep Dives
The Joy of Sex with Strangers: A Toronto hotwife’s adventures in ethical non-monogamy
Three months ago, I was a suburban mom in a monogamous relationship. Now I’m sleeping with people I meet online—with my husband’s blessing—and we’ve never been happier. Don’t judge us until you’ve read our story
Deep Dives
The Scandal, the Firing and the Fallout: Anatomy of a Bay Street fiasco at RBC
Nadine Ahn was a high-ranking executive at the bank. Ken Mason, her subordinate, was rapidly promoted. Then someone claimed to see them canoodling at the Royal York, tipped off HR and triggered an inquisition
Deep Dives
Edward the Conqueror: The unlikely ascent of Canada’s telecom king
Edward Rogers was dismissed as a meddling nepo baby—until he muscled out his siblings, acquired his competitors, cornered the telecom market and became the dominant force in Canadian sports
Deep Dives
Lady Parts: Inside Meredith MacNeill and Jennifer Whalen’s new show,
Small Achievable Goals
The
Baroness von Sketch Show
alumnae have elevated joking about women’s issues to an art. Their new show takes aim at menopause. How funny is that?
Deep Dives
Murder in the Blue Mountains: The story behind the killing of Ashley Schwalm
Ashley and James Schwalm had what seemed like a fairy tale life—two wonderful children, fulfilling careers and a gorgeous home close to the private ski club where they’d fallen in love. Then Ashley’s remains turned up in a burned-out car at the bottom of a ditch, and all signs pointed to her husband
Deep Dives
Dark Horse: Inside the fall of Eric Lamaze, Canada’s most famous equestrian
For years, Lamaze was the world’s top-ranked show jumper, living an enviable life filled with fancy cars, international travel and adoring fans—the kind of life a person might do anything to protect
Buy Canadian
Food & Drink
An all-Canadian wine festival is coming to Fort York
Elbows Up aims to make it easier (and cheaper) to buy Canadian-made bottles
Food & Drink
This Toronto Italian restaurant is launching a pasta tasting menu made with all-Canadian ingredients
It’s Amano Trattoria’s elbows-up moment
City News
A high-tech greenhouse in King City is sticking it to Trump’s tariffs
How to reduce our reliance on American farmers? Rely on robot ones instead
Food & Drink
“We felt disconnected from the outdoors before”: What St. Lawrence Market North vendors think of their new home
And what locally made and grown goods they’re selling