Looking for budget-friendly dining in Toronto and wondering where to find the best affordable restaurants?
Chef-owner Corinna Mozo’s retro diner, decked out in pastel hues and squeaky vinyl banquettes, pays tribute to the original restaurant her grandfather owned in Cuba in the 1950s. Everything here is made from scratch, including the bread, pastries, and desserts. The serotonin-boosting barbecue beef short ribs are braised for hours and given a lacquer of sweet-savory guava sauce; the dish is served with piquant slaw, speckled rice and beans, and meaty palm-sized tostones.
A cheap lunch in Toronto isn’t just fuel to keep you going, it can be a midday oasis that improves your whole outlook on the rest of the afternoon.
Copy Link Peterson's first stop this season is for a peameal bacon sandwich at this Toronto favorite. Peameal bacon, which is back bacon rolled in cornmeal, gets its name from an earlier version of the preparation, when the meat was rolled in ground peas for preservation purposes.
Fahrenheit Coffee, one of my fave coffee shops in Toronto, is on Ritual. They only take about 10% commission from restaurants, which is a lot lower than what other food apps charge.
The spirit and flavors of Cairo permeate this East End brunch joint, which is always bustling. Patience is rewarded with the tactile pleasures of Maha’s Cairo Classic breakfast platter: intensely aromatic charred baladi bread, piquant ful (stewed, seasoned fava beans mixed with tomatoes and onions) to smear on top, and refreshing tomato-feta salad.
Copy Link For nearly 20 years, this Iranian restaurant has been a humble darling of Queen Street West. Co-owned by executive chef Amir Mohyeddin and his sisters, Salome and Samira, Banu — a term of endearment for their mother, loosely translated to “lady” or “dame” — offers a considerate take on the home cooking of Tehran. The food speaks volumes about the power of slow cookery. Roasted eggplant emerges creamy, a touch pungent, and nutty thanks to several stages of peeling, frying, and low-and-slow cooking to extract every ounce of flavor.
The Heartbreak Chef is a charming restaurant that serves gourmet chicken sandwiches in a cozy setting. The menu offers a range of options priced from $10 to $17, including the Big Ass Chicken Sandwich, a satisfying and delectable choice.
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Copy Link Rachel Adjei is a Ghanaian Canadian chef and food justice advocate who celebrates much of the underrepresented African diaspora in Toronto. She founded the Abibiman Project to support Black food sovereignty initiatives via a range of pantry products, pop-up dinners, and catering — all in the hopes of challenging people’s perceptions of African foods and the narratives surrounding them. At her staple pop-up location at the Grapefruit Moon in the Annex, her ever-evolving dinner menus offer deep-dives into specific African regions, which Adjei contextualizes with information about the corresponding culture.
The workers are located in the greater Toronto area and all delivery and assembly activities in other sites will continue normally, get more info a Bombardier spokesman said. “Our collective goal remains to swiftly reach a mutually beneficial agreement,” he said.
Though it may always be 5 o'clock somewhere, happy hour in Toronto is an excellent opportunity to capitalize on enjoying some amazing discounted food and drinks at some of the city's hotspots, especially after a long day of work.
If pitchers of sangria or margaritas are more your speed, indulge in one for $20; they will pair beautifully with their yuca fries and house-made tortilla chips.
A philosophy of fearless consumption — with a requisite touch of dark humor — runs as a through line in the work of Beast co-owners and chefs Scott Vivian and Nathan Middleton. Over the years, their restaurant has undergone several reinventions. The current version of Beast acts primarily as a pizza joint, but it also offers group bookings for whole-animal dinners (booked in advance). Diners select a protein and an “adventure level” from low to high, and the chefs get to work showcasing the seasonal bounty of Canada and the versatility of underused “ugly” bits in a zany culinary display.