Canadian dining

Ask residents of Toronto what excites them most about their hometown, and their answers will almost certainly include the food. The city hosts restaurants from around the globe – there’s a vibrant Mexican taberna less than a minute from our condo, and it took us only days to acquire a loyalty card for our local curry house – but in our first couple of weeks we’ve particularly enjoyed discovering the hallmarks of Canadian cuisine.

Casual dining seems split between indulgent homely dishes, such as the renowned Kraft dinner (mac ’n’ cheese), and strict health food trends including raw plant-based dishes, acai jars and smoothie bowls. For something sweet the Canadian Mecca is Tim Hortons, a coffee and donut chain founded by (ice) hockey player Tim Horton in 1964. Canadians, who are apparently immune to diabetes, will stop by to pick up the archetypal pairing: a ‘double double’ (a coffee with two sugars and two splashes of cream) and a ‘Canadian Maple’ (a maple syrup-glazed donut with a thick custard filling). Well, sometimes you need a little extra glucose to cope with all the snow.


At the other end of the spectrum, Toronto is home to a wealth of innovative fine dining experiences. There are no Michelin-starred establishments here – according to the National Post Canada is seen as a lost cause by the international gourmet community and the Guide doesn’t even send inspectors – but that hasn’t stopped chefs from opening their own luxury restaurants and capitalising on the rich intensity of flavours for which North American cuisine is renowned.

Last weekend, as a gift from Robert’s parents, we headed to GEORGE restaurant on Queen Street. Executive Chef Lorenzo Loseto offers a bespoke menu of local produce so tightly tailored to the available ingredients each day that two people ordering the same menu at the same table are served different dishes throughout the evening. From the crushed beetroot amuse-bouche to the avocado gelato, each of our five tasting-menu courses was exquisitely presented and wonderfully creative. Flavours and textures were combined in ways we’d never considered, such as cauliflower and pear sprinkled with pomegranate seeds and finished with a stuffed caper berry. Sweet and savoury intermingled beautifully in the foie gras with apple slaw and apple puree. And the desserts seemed strikingly innovative to our English taste buds: for Harriet, chocolate fondant with spiced bitter orange sauce and flavours of cumin and star anise; and for Robert, an indescribably elegant banana fritter.


With varied European, American and Asian influences, it’s difficult to identify what specifically makes Canadian cuisine distinctive. In our experience it’s delicious, and we think the Michelin Guide might be missing out, but we’ll need to visit several more restaurants before we know for sure. It’s tough work, but someone’s got to do it.

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