Although the restaurants will be properly fêted at a swanky event at History next month, the list of the 12 new restaurants that will be added to the Toronto edition of the Michelin Guide has been revealed.
“By disclosing some of the new additions discovered by our inspectors throughout the year, we are further enhancing our digital resources to strengthen the bond with food aficionados,” said Gwendal Poullennec, the International Director of the Michelin Guides. “We aspire that these regular unveilings and ongoing updates to the selection will offer opportunities to showcase the culinary profession and encourage everyone to explore and support local restaurants.”
One would assume, some of the restaurants would get prestigious Michelin stars and some would be listed in the Bib Gourmand section. Currently, there is just one Toronto restaurant that has received two Michelin stars, Sushi Masaki Saito, and none that have three stars.
The full Michelin selection reveal is scheduled for Sept. 27 at History in Toronto.
According to information released by Michelin, the following establishments have been newly introduced to the Michelin Guide Toronto, with a glimpse into the inspector notes provided by Michelin for each venue:
Alder
There’s a lot to like on this Mediterranean menu. Beef carpaccio is a crowd-pleaser, while the cucumber salad is a sleeper hit festooned with shaved fennel, dukkah and hazelnuts. Stacks of firewood in the dining room is a clue to hone-in on proteins like roast chicken, Australian lamb and a bone-in strip loin. Dessert is a must, especially if the astoundingly light coconut cream pie is still around.
BB’s
Brunch is a treat, featuring puffy-fried Adobo-fried chicken paired with pineapple habanero hot sauce. Dinner is a different speed. The cocktail bar comes alive, and the kitchen trades in Japanese milkbread French Toast for classic pancit with chili oil, chicken liver mousse and calamansi pie with orange blossom meringue.
FK
Colorful, market-driven cooking starts with excellent, crusty house bread made with garlic scapes, sundried tomatoes, olives or whatever else the chef has in mind. Are soft shell crabs in season? Is it time for morels? Such questions are front of mind for this honest kitchen, which doesn’t get too fussy with the cooking. Familiar flavors ring true in hearty entrees like the meltingly tender Cornish hen brushed in a smoky-sweet barbecue sauce.
Kappo Sato
The room is a constant blur of motion thanks to a young team that hurries about preparing multiple courses at once. Chef Takeshi Sato is their seasoned guide, as he moves with intention, ever masterful with a knife, and works with an impressive bounty of ingredients, most of which are flown in from Japan. Soulful dashi broths weave in and out of view alongside clever courses like tempura fried mackerel with shiso or seared toro nigiri with Japanese green onions.
Kiin
Chef Nuit Regular returns with her elaborate, one-of-a-kind vision of royal Thai cuisine. The elegant space is a prime setting for equally elegant dishes, which are presented with flair. Colorful mounds of rice, pineapple and dumplings shaped like flowers, and so much more arrive in petite forms in small bowls and on large platters. The dishes themselves will ring familiar, from Isan-style sausage and larb to hot and sour beef soup and the famed khao soi, all of it seasoned and spiced in a measured manner.
Mimi Chinese
The kitchen takes regional classics and spins them with just enough style. The shrimp toast, brilliantly made with fried bread and a hot mustard mayo, is worth a visit alone, but don’t miss out on the scallop crudo with fried donut and that soulful soy broth. Spice-hounds will be all over the Hunan chili sea bass, and someone should probably order the picturesque “4-foot belt noodle.”
Parquet
The cooking hits all the right marks and feels unquestionably French in its richness and satisfaction. Who knew that mushroom beignets could be so light and pair so well with lime and pepper sauce? One could make a meal out of the roasted cauliflower with cumin vinaigrette and puffed chickpeas. Cassoulet with duck confit and steak frites with béarnaise are proper classics.
Sunnys Chinese
Spicy, fiery, crispy, smoky – the high-wattage cooking is a total delight, as the kitchen pulls no punches at every possible junction. Tripe and beef shank coated in chili oil is a good start before launching into the charred silver needle noodles. Best of all might be the grilled chicken thigh coated in cumin, chili and pepper. To finish, the crispy Hong Kong French Toast with black sesame jam and oolong condensed milk short-circuits all manner of restraint.
Tiflisi
The Pkhakadze family delivers some of the city’s best and brightest Georgian cooking. The cold leek pkhali salad bound in a light walnut sauce is a vibrantly green beginning and especially essential before the Acharuli khachapuri arrives. A celebration of carbs and dairy, this stretch of fluffy bread cradles a pool of melted cheese topped with butter and an egg yolk. There’s more on the way: large lamb khinkali with warm broth and long skewers of juicy kebabs topped with fried potatoes.
Vela
By design, the menu has faint Asian touches but is otherwise broad in its selection of seafood, pastas, steaks and vegetables. The results? Surprisingly dialed-in, largely thanks to a kitchen that makes as much as it can in-house. Highlights include cod with beurre blanc and chili crisp and, for dessert, a sugar-crusted profiterole filled with miso dulce de leche mousse and mascarpone cremeaux.
White Lily Diner
Old school diners are rare creatures these days, but ones that smoke their own bacon, make their own biscuits and donuts, bottle their own hot sauce and grow their own vegetables? Even rarer. A culinary unicorn, this bright yellow nook sets the standard not just for diners but for any restaurant that aspires to serve both people and planet.
The Wood Owl
The menu is small, nothing extravagant or overly complicated, and offers far more vegetables than one might expect from a wine bar (adobo roasted carrots with green goddess, anyone?). Beef, though, is still very much welcome at the table, highlighted as a weekly special, usually paired with a superb tangle of shoestring French fries.
Toronto made history in May 2022 by becoming the first Michelin Guide destination in Canada and the sixth in North America. The inaugural selection of restaurants was unveiled last September, highlighting the city’s impressive culinary scene.