With French food hotspots in various neighbourhoods and at all prices, Toronto has many excellent places where you can get your European fix.
Most visitors may not know about Toronto because French is the official second language in the city. It is still home to a solid and ever-growing francophone community. Therefore, it's no surprise that the city also offers outstanding options for casual to high-end French fare. These are the best French restaurants if you're craving a taste of Europe in the big city.
8. Alo
Patrick Kriss's aerie above the helter-skelter of Queen and also Spadina is residence to among one of the single dining establishment experiences in this city or any other. The red wines intense right into small-producer, lasting vintages. The web servers are effortlessly polished and also warm. And also, the food selection of 10 programs, plus the periodic spontaneous addition, is a family member deal at $135 (there's likewise a somewhat much more extended, extra expensive food selection for those that want counter seats at the open kitchen). One evening this past summertime started with entertainment of Raspberry Factor oysters populated with plum vinegar and wild chamomile petals, and also a gold mirrored plate of mouth-watering petit 4. Issues grew only much more charming: fluke sashimi gently cured with a yuzu dressing and also studded with a couple of streaks of coriander stem; meatier pieces of amberjack sprayed with finger lime and also garnished with curling, finely julienned cucumber and also radish; summer season niblets, Saltspring mussels and chanterelle in a brew of smoked butter and a Yukon gold espuma; Wagyu rib cap, completing in splendour with a pool of black sesame, dashi as well as baked eggplant; plus a series of desserts, the emphasize a bowl of strawberries four methods: a dry-roasted sheet, emaciated, a jelly, and a swirl of gelato. By the end, as the lift delivers you back to reality, you'll be planning your return.
Website: https://alorestaurant.com/
7. Auberge du Pommier
The dapper personnel speak a soupçon of French to everyone they greet while they can hear visitors chatting away in Portuguese, Korean, Spanish, and Mandarin. Dark, cosy seared scallops are propped up by an oblong prism of crab terrine in a fresh building appetizer. À la carte products, while gussy, stay with the tried and real: halibut, risotto, beef tenderloin. There's even more testing on the $115 champagne tasting menu. Seared foie gras, snuggled into a wee fluted delicious chocolate sharp, is signed up with pleasant corn and quince marmalade together with marinaded chanterelles and apples for equilibrium. And also, pucks of porcelet, slow-cooked suckling pig, are abundant as can be.
Website: https://www.aubergedupommier.com/
6. Café Boulud
In the last six years, Daniel Boulud's restaurant at the Four Seasons has changed cooks and also went through a renovation-- in addition to a food selection overhaul, the place is better than ever. Healed meat, terrines and pâtés are specialized here. The formidable charcuterie board is an excellent means to start a meal; an imported rotisserie stove flawlessly slow-roasts whatever from entire poultries to pineapples. The standout dish is the quenelle de Brochet, a Lyon-style meal of emulsified northern pike blended with eggs, cooked into a great omelette, and also layered in a bowl of rich cognac-lobster sauce. Like Café Boulud itself, the dish is seamless.
Website: https://www.cafeboulud.com/toronto/
5. Cafe Cancan
It's challenging to be a grump at Victor Barry's very pink French place. Everybody sips sparkling wine cocktails or on-tap rosé while deciding on between French standards:
- Beefy onion soup under an oozing cap of gruyère
- Three foie gras choices (seared, a parfait, with beef tenderloin)
- A piece of coffee-scented opera cake
Luxury is the default mode. There's even a Barry-fied hamburger slicked with remoulade on a house-made milk bun.
Website: https://www.cafecancan.com/
4. Chabrol.
There's much toasting and also petits bisous under the crystal chandeliers at Chabrol, Doug Penfold's tiny brand-new Yorkville restaurant. It's accessed through an alley and hardly noticeable from the street: even an innocent lunch date gets a whiff of very discreet affair. Penfold works at several burners behind the bench, growing under the restraints. He makes up a perfect pork liver mousse, chestnut soup fragrant with sorrel, a ballotine of chicken wrapped around roasted apples, with a shock of herbaceousness from a watercress purée; and also steaming side plates of celeriac as well as escarole gratin. He conserves the most effective for last: made-to-order apple tart, with cosy calvados sabayon, gradually poured overtop.
Website: https://www.chabrolrestaurant.com/
3. Chantecler.
Dinner at Parkdale's small French-inspired restaurant is both tasty as well as cacophonous. Music is loud. Flatware smashings. As well as, when the street-facing window is open, a literal siren song serenades. The good news is you don't need ears to enjoy what cook Peter Robson sends of the twee cooking area: garlicky escargot with smoked sourdough; asparagus drizzled with shallot hollandaise and completed with bacon falls apart; duck two means (smoked breast, crunchy leg) with jus. It's all great, and also it's all vibrant, so it's serendipitous that the only available parking place was five blocks west as well as two blocks south-- a post-prandial walk will not hurt.
Website: facebook.com/chanteclerTO/
2. Gare de L'Est.
Supper and a program no more suggest needing to schlep right midtown-- and pay $40 for car parking. The brand-new Tram Crowsnest is a residential entertainment facility at Dundas and Carlaw: the contemporary Crow's Theater supplies the amusement and the lovely Gare de L'Est Brasserie meal. The kitchen area-- run by cook de food Deron Engbers and the east-side tag team of Erik Joyal and John Sinopoli (Ascari Enoteca)-- concentrates on Parisian classics. Pre-theatre food selections are readily available, starting at $35. For a nightcap, the by-the-glass glass of wine list is cluttered with fashionable choices commonly bottle-only. And also, of course, there's a lot of street parking nearby.
Website: http://gdlbrasserie.com/
1. Greta Solomon's Dining Room
Proprietor Darlene Mitchell comes from Newfoundland-- home of cod tongues and fin pie-- yet the food she and cook James Vigil (Pangaea) serve in this small Leslieville room is unmistakably French. A pan-seared sea scallop, sourced from neighbouring Hooked, is flanked by crunchy little bits of oxtail, radish slices, plump raisins, turnip purée and marinaded cauliflower, and also piping-hot swiss chard gratin with bacon is sauced with velvety mornay as well as covered with gruyère. Ontario beef tenderloin is offered on fingerling confit potatoes, and stunning morels-- done up in duck fat as well as demi-glace-- are dressed to excite in chive-studded béarnaise. The white wine listing is long and thoughtful for such a small area, and the desserts-- like a deconstructed fruit tart covered in a shortbread collar with elderflower chantilly-- just as so.
Website: https://www.gretasolomonsdiningroom.com/
