It has been almost two years since I moved to Toronto. The first few months were harder than I expected, and much of it was about food. I grew up in Delhi, in a family where evenings meant something. My father would come home with pastries and patties from Wenger's, Delhi's famous bakery. My mother and I would take evening walks and end up at the Golgappa stall we had claimed as ours. There was a street vendor who rang our doorbell every weekend to announce his arrival. He made Aloo tikki with the most perfectly crisp outside, and green and tamarind chutneys that I can still taste if I close my eyes.
When I left Delhi, I left all of that. I was excited to try everything Toronto had to offer, but I was also quietly grieving food I could not replace.
Two years in, I have found some places. Not replacements - their own thing entirely. These are the five I keep going back to.
Haam is an eight-minute walk from my place, which I have used as an excuse to go more often than I should. It is a sushi-and-taco bar with a genuinely exciting menu, the kind where you want to order more than you planned before you have even sat down. I always start with the Edamame and Soy Garlic Karaage, and then the Volcano Fiesta and Samba. If you drink sake, order the Moonstone Asian Pear. I am not joking when I say a bottle disappears faster than it should.
Campechano on Adelaide is my summer place. Their patio fills up quickly, and I understand why - there is something about sitting there with a cold, spicy Margarita that makes the whole city feel manageable. Tortilla chips, Guacamole, and then the Tinga de Pollo taco. I will say it plainly: their chicken taco is better than their pork. I will not be taking questions.
Guru Lakshmi is in Mississauga, which means it takes effort. I make the trip anyway, specifically for the Spicy Sambhar Vada. Their chutneys are right - not an approximation of right, actually right - and the filter coffee hits somewhere I did not expect it to hit this far from home. The service is fast without being careless. If you can handle spice the way I do, order the Spicy Mysore Dosa. You will come back for it.
My go-to coffee is Neo Coffee Bar. They make the best Iced Vanilla Latte I have had in this city, and I have tried enough to say that with some confidence. The space earns the time you spend in it - good light, unhurried, the kind of place where you stop checking your phone without deciding to. I have stayed through entire afternoons without meaning to.
The last one is not a restaurant. Gift Shop is a speakeasy behind a barbershop on Ossington. Limited seating, no reservations, a short cocktail menu, chips, and smoked olives if you need something to eat. The reason I have brought everyone I know there is a cocktail called Man in the Yellow Hat. I cannot explain it better than that. You have to go yourself.
These are my places. Toronto keeps revealing itself slowly, and I am glad I kept looking.
