Where to Eat Now 2023

The City’s Best New Restaurants

- Liza Agrba, Alex Baldinger, Rebecca Fleming 

WE DIDN'T GET the Roaring Twenties we were promised, but that didn't stop us from pretending that we did. After two years of takeout and home cooking, Toronto diners have been keen to splurge on prime cuts of beef, seafood towers and caviar, so much caviar. And this is all happening during a time when chicken breasts are going for $23 a kilogram and we're price matching at supermarket checkouts like it's a blood-sport. The message, in short, is that if people choose to dine out, they're going big (or they're staying home). And, while a Scarborough taco counter, a North York food hall vendor and a Tel Aviv-born fast-casual kitchen made the cut this year, most of the places on our list are for that special night out. There's more than one French bistro, a two-person-minimum omakase spot and a restaurant that identifies as a palace. It's a far cry from the sandwich, smash burger and pizza places that proliferated during the pandemic. Here, 20 restaurants where we're more than happy to put our money where our mouths are.

1 PRIME SEAFOOD PALACE

Matty Matheson's spendy steakhouse was six years in the making

BEHIND THE STARK WHITE FAÇADE of a Minecraft-looking building on Queen West lies a glowing, cathedral-like room lined with honey-coloured maple and brass accents. The space, designed by the renowned Omar Gandhi Architects, looks like Noah's Ark after a Scandi-inspired makeover-but this is no animal-friendly vessel.