The Best Italian Food in Toronto
Toronto‘s relationship with Italian food runs deep, and it shows up in more forms than almost any other cuisine in the city. This is a place where you can eat a fourteen-layer lasagna that weighs nearly a pound, then line up the next day at a pasta factory that sells rigatoni by the kilo. The range is the whole point.
This list covers that full spread. There are slice shops built on the walk-up culture of New York pizzerias, and wood-fired ovens turning out blistered, char-edged pies. There are sandwich counters where you pick your bread and watch someone layer prosciutto, buffalo mozzarella and fig jam in front of you, and delis that have been doing exactly that since the 1980s. There are red-sauce joints with baseball-sized meatballs and spaghetti packed into a bun, and quiet, candlelit rooms where the pasta is extruded out back and the wine list reads like a love letter to a single Italian region. Some are strictly takeout, eaten on a park bench or over the kitchen sink. Others are sit-down occasions worth booking weeks ahead.
What ties them together is care: pasta rolled by hand, bread baked that morning, ingredients carried over from Sicily or pulled from Ontario farms down the road. One holds a Michelin star and several carry a Bib Gourmand. A few are cash-only counters with a couple of stools. Most land somewhere in between, which is exactly where the best eating in this city tends to happen.
At Tastet, we only put an address on a list if we would send a friend there without a second thought. These are the ones we send people to, whether you’re after a quick panino, a long dinner, or a pizza to eat standing on the sidewalk. Here are the Italian spots in Toronto worth your appetite.
Enoteca Sociale
A Roman trattoria on Dundas West that has been quietly setting the standard since 2010. Almost everything is made in-house, from the focaccia and charcuterie to the daily pasta, and there’s an actual cheese cave downstairs. Pull up to the marble bar, order the cacio e pepe or the bucatini all’amatriciana, and start with the arancini. The room is small and warm, the wine list leans deep Italian, and the Bib Gourmand is well earned.
Toronto
Porzia's
Chef Basilio Pesce named this 28-seat Oakwood Avenue room after his mother, and built it around the lasagna she taught him: fourteen layers of silky house-made pasta and all-beef bolognese under a deeply browned crust. Stay for the rest, though, because the tempura calamari, the duck ragù over house-extruded rigatoni, and the spaghetti al limone with red shrimp are every bit as good. Everything is made by hand in a tiny kitchen.
Toronto
Famiglia Baldassarre
Leandro Baldassarre describes this Geary Avenue spot as a pasta factory you can eat at, and that’s exactly right. The wholesale operation supplies kitchens across the city, and for two hours at lunch, a handful of tables open up behind the sheeting machines. There are about ten seats, no reservations, and two or three pastas a day plus house mozzarella and prosciutto. Bring cash, expect a line, and grab fresh pasta to take home while you’re there.
Toronto
Sugo
Two doors of the same Bloordale obsession with Italian-American red sauce. Sugo is the no-reservations counter where Conor Joerin’s team plates big portions of pasta and saucy sandwiches, including a spaghetti-and-meatball number called the Raging Bolognese. Next door, Bar Sugo is the sit-down sibling, with a fuller bar and wood-fired pizza baked in an oven built from bricks salvaged from Joerin’s old high school. Both are loud, generous, and unfussy in the best way.
Toronto
Liliana
Chef Marvin Palomo, born in Manila and trained in Piedmont and Hong Kong, runs this 30-seat West Queen West room with a light, personal touch. The menu reads Italian, but miso, furikake and chili crisp turn up throughout, and the meat is halal-certified. The aglio e olio comes with confit garlic and a cool cap of burrata, the pappardelle leans on a mushroom stock built over 35 days, and the chicken wing stuffed with truffle risotto is a small marvel.
Toronto
Pizzeria Badiali
Ryan Baddeley left fine dining at Bar Isabel and Bar Raval to chase the New York slice shop he loved, and he nailed the feeling. Badiali is a corner walk-up where you grab a slice over the counter rather than ordering through an app. The crust is thin and crisp under a Pecorino and Grana Padano blanket, the vodka pie is the one to beat, and the marinara is proof that a no-frills tomato slice is its own art form. There’s a Markham Street location now too.
Toronto
Tutto Panino
This Sorauren Avenue sandwich counter started as a series of Burdock Brewery pop-ups and is co-owned by musician Charlotte Day Wilson alongside chef Kaitlyn Lasagna and friends. The name roughly means “all sandwich,” and the menu honours that: the Bollito layers brisket with salsa verde and chili oil, the mortadella gets whipped ricotta, olives and pepperoncini, and the loaded Tutto stacks three cured meats with giardiniera. Save room for a slab of tiramisu. They close when they sell out, so go early.
Toronto
La Salumeria
A midtown Italian deli on Yonge Street that has been a neighbourhood fixture since 1984, now run by Carlo Celebre. There’s no posted menu and no social media, just shelves of imported meats, cheeses, oils and pasta, and a sandwich counter at the back. Pick your bread up front, then ask for the Special: prosciutto, spicy salami, buffalo mozzarella, hot peppers and fig jam, finished with balsamic and olive oil. There’s no seating, so plan to eat it in a park nearby.
Toronto
Giulietta
Rob Rossi and David Minicucci run two sides of the same coin. Giulietta, the original trattoria on College, turns out wood-fired pizza and pasta in a buzzy room that earned its own Bib Gourmand. Osteria Giulia, the more refined Yorkville sibling on Avenue Road, holds a Michelin star and narrows in on the seafood-rich cooking of Liguria, with snow crab tagliolini and a stracchino-stuffed focaccia di Recco. One of the toughest reservations in town, and worth the patience.
Toronto
Viaggio
From the team behind The Commodore, this intimate Dundas West room (32 seats plus a patio) trades in modern Italian that changes with the season. Chef Jon Vettraino makes the pasta by hand and bakes the bread daily, and the kitchen has landed on Michelin’s recommended list two years running. The mortadella pizza with pistachio and burrata is a standout, the bone-marrow mafaldine is rich and savoury, and the tiramisu pancakes with espresso maple syrup are a genuine reason to come.
Toronto
Mattachioni
David Mattachioni spent fourteen years as a Terroni pizzaiolo before opening this bakery, bodega and pizzeria in the Junction Triangle. The pizza is built on naturally leavened sourdough and fired in the wood oven out back, the bread and focaccia are baked on site, and the panini (porchetta, mortadella, caprese) are stacked on that same house-made bread. Shelves of Italian pantry staples line the walls, and the butter tarts have a quiet following. Low-key, neighbourhood, and consistently good.
Toronto
ARDO Restaurant
Chef Roberto Marotta grew up in Milazzo on the northeast coast of Sicily, and his King Street East room is an ode to home, named after his son. The seafood is the draw: thin-sliced tuna carpaccio with celery and capers, squid-ink pasta tangled with Nova Scotia shrimp and Sicilian pistachios, plus golden arancini and chickpea panelle to start. The flour for the puffy, tender pizza is imported from Sicily, and a retractable garage door opens the place up when the weather turns warm.
Toronto
Wynona Toronto
A small Leslieville room on Gerrard East features a seasonal menu that changes regularly. The handmade pasta is the heart of it: corn-and-bacon-jam agnolotti when it’s high summer, mafaldine with duck ragù when the weather cools. Crudo and small plates round out the table, the wine list runs to low-intervention bottles, and the open kitchen keeps the energy up. The Bib Gourmand fits. Book ahead, or call for takeout.
Toronto
Forno Cultura
Andrea Mastrandrea trained as an architect before returning to his family’s trade, and his King West bakery puts the craft on full display: an enormous stone-floored oven sits behind floor-to-ceiling glass, racks of seeded sourdough cooling just behind it. The panini are the lunchtime draw, built on varietal sourdoughs and stacked with prosciutto or house-roasted porchetta. Don’t leave without a cheese cornetto or one of the olive-oil-and-chocolate mini cakes hiding a whole black olive. Seating is tight, so grab a bench outside.
Toronto
{{ name }}
{{ html }} Read more
