Toronto for foodies

Best restaurants

Toronto's downtown core eats inside a tight cluster of streets — Bay, Elizabeth, Centre, Richmond, Dundas, York, Elm — and the 12 restaurants below all sit within walking distance of one another. They cover a wider range than the geography suggests: a breakfast specialist opening at 07:00, a sushi kitchen, an American diner running 24/7 and a separate American room with weekday-only hours, a Korean kitchen, a ramen specialist, a Greek house, a Chinese kitchen that pushes to 24:00 on weekend nights, a steakhouse, a bar-and-grill open past midnight, and a Thai-Indian crossover. This is not a roundup of the most-photographed openings; it is the working catalogue of where downtown Toronto sits down to lunch, dinner, and the occasional 03:00 plate of pancakes. Read the hours carefully — several places guard a closed day or a long mid-week break, and one is dark every Monday — and ring the number on file when a reservation matters. The downtown grid does not reward walking in hungry without a plan.