Toronto food guide: Canada’s largest city has buzzy restaurants aplenty with many different cuisines on show

Trendy dining abounds in Toronto, Canada’s largest city. Buzzy restaurants line Ossington Avenue, for example, drawing many culinary-minded travellers. But beyond the city’s better-known dining strips lie ethnic enclaves offering some of the most interesting and varied dining in a city where nearly 47 per cent of residents are immigrants, more than double the national average.

Cooking has long provided immigrants and refugees with an entrepreneurial foothold in their new homes, making Toronto and neighbourhoods such as Little India, Greektown, Little Portugal and several Chinatowns intriguing dining destinations. Here are four culinary highlights that offer a taste of multicultural Toronto.

During a Saturday evening supper club gathering at the Depanneur, a cooking school and culinary event space in Toronto’s downtown Chinatown, six diners and a guest sit at a long table covered with banana leaves. On top of those, owner Len Senater and an assistant spoon a long mound of rice, then top it with a series of Filipino dishes, including smoked aubergine salad, green papaya in vinegar, tofu with mushrooms, coconut squash, twice-cooked chicken and slices of roast pork stuffed with aromatics, like a South-East Asian version of porchetta.

“Tonight is a unique style of Philippines dining called kamayan, which means, ‘by hand’,” Senater says, introducing a meal prepared by chef Maria Polotan, busy in the kitchen during service, that is meant to be eaten without utensils. “It came out of the army barracks,” he says.

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In addition to classes and culinary talks, the Depanneur holds periodic dinner parties such as this one, presented by budding entrepreneurs, culinary instructors and everyday cooking enthusiasts across the ethnic spectrum.

“It’s the way I would like to travel,” Senater says during a break in the meal at the loft-like space with wooden floors, whitewashed brick walls and exposed ductwork. “I could go to a restaurant, but I’d rather go to a dinner party with a bunch of locals.”

The pop-up event ($80) is BYOB, offering a chance not only to try Filipino food but to meet fellow diners, all from Toronto and generous with their tips on what to do in town.

After a dessert of sticky rice in coconut milk, the evening continues with a stroll along lively Spadina Avenue, where conversations turn to where to eat next.

Spadina is one of the main thoroughfares of Toronto’s Chinatown, sometimes known as the downtown or west-side Chinatown to distinguish it from other Chinese areas. In the neighbourhood, streets are packed with produce stands, sandwich boards advertising $40 massages, clothing racks selling three dresses for $28 and a pan-Asian array of restaurants, bakeries and takeaway businesses.

It is also conveniently close to top Toronto tourist attractions such as the Art Gallery of Ontario, where Canada’s expressive Group of Seven landscape painters are worth exploring between meals. Behind the museum, Grange Park, with its broad shade trees and Henry Moore sculpture, is popular with picnickers.

For a picnic, a banh mi from the Asian deli Nguyen Huong Vietnamese Sandwiches ($4.55) is tasty but unevenly assembled. More satisfying snacks include a sesame ball ($1) and cream-filled bun ($1.25) from the bustling Chinese Bakery.

For a breakfast that sustains diners for most of the day, Jian Bing Club is a quick-service restaurant with art depicting Asian street-food carts that references its traditional speciality: jianbing, a messy, addictive Chinese breakfast crepe filled with eggs, crunchy wonton crackers and spicy sauce ($7).

Among dim sum options, local acquaintances recommend avoiding cart-based specialists, where dishes can get cold, in favour of Rol San Restaurant, where the dim sum is ordered from the kitchen and the prawn dumplings arrive fresh and warm (dishes generally $7-8).

Kensington Market, a multicultural neighbourhood and national historic site, is filled with small, diverse food businesses that reflect its history of immigration amid a growing collection of charity shops.

On a Sunday morning, three other tour-goers, all Toronto residents, join a Taste The World food tour of Kensington Market offered by Tasty Tours ($90).

Over medium-roast coffee and savoury boreka pastries at the Jewish-run Moonbean Coffee Co., guide Odile Chatelain, a professional chocolatier, explains that the neighbourhood was established by the British after the War of 1812. It later welcomed waves of Irish, Jewish, Portuguese, Jamaican, Mexican and Chinese newcomers.

“The layering of cultures is so typical in this neighbourhood,” Chatelain says, guiding the group past modest workers’ cottages and mural-filled alleys between bites at a series of restaurants. The first stop is the tiny Japanese-run Takoyaki6ix, where toothpicks are the utensils of choice for eating fried octopus balls.

Down the street, Jamaican patties, or meat turnovers, come from the small grocer Caribbean Corner. Around another corner, salty butter tea and Nepalese momo dumplings await at Tibet Cafe & Bar. Nearby, a queue forms for birria tacos at Gus Tacos, a breakout hit at the market that now has nine locations, followed by dulce de leche churros at Pancho’s Bakery.

“This neighbourhood is gold for food,” Chatelain says, offering a farewell tasting of several Toronto-made Soma Chocolatemaker chocolates.

Toronto’s immigrant communities have also made its suburbs food destinations, including Scarborough, to the east.

“Scarborough caters to a diverse population,” says Suresh Doss, a local journalist and guide, pointing out Middle Eastern, Latin American and Asian establishments in food courts, takeaway joints and modest restaurants.

At the Dynasty Centre shopping mall’s Hong Kong-style Great Fountain Fast Food, crispy roast pig is the order of the day ($32/kg). In the same carpark, One2 Snacks serves Malaysian takeaway, including noodle stir-fry char kway teow for about $11.50.

In an unlikely office park, Manzou Bakery specialises in Chinese cakes, including single-serving cake cups layered with mousse ($4.55). Sabrina Pan, who runs the shop with her family, recommends the creamy black sesame cake.

“It’s not too sweet, and the texture is light,” she says. “It has a very Chinese flavour.”

At Wong’s Asian Cuisine, chef and owner Christopher Wong leads diners from the cosy dining room, where floral-patterned dinnerware is set on dark wooden tables, into the small kitchen to watch him expertly wok-fry chilli chicken, a popular dish on his Hakka Chinese menu. Each ingredient is quickly kissed by the flame, giving the result a smoky accent.

Doss, who recommends the restaurant in an unassuming strip mall, describes Toronto’s Hakka fare as originating with Chinese Han immigrants who moved to India before Canada, producing a distinctly Indian-Chinese fusion fare.

“Diversity,” Doss says, “is our strength.”