Walk along College Street on a summer evening and you will pass the “Little Italy” street signs, a café that opened in 1968 and, in between the Italian places, plenty of restaurants cooking something else entirely. That mix is the most honest introduction to Italian food in Toronto. The city has hundreds of thousands of residents of Italian descent and an Italian restaurant scene to match, but the best of it is no longer confined to one neighbourhood: it runs from Michelin-starred dining in Yorkville to red-sauce rooms in Bloordale and a tasting menu 38 floors above the harbour. Choosing between the best Italian restaurants Toronto has to offer means knowing which kind of Italian you are hungry for.
This page sorts the field into the Michelin-starred tier, the Michelin-recommended neighbourhood favourites, the long-running institutions, and the places to go for a plate of pasta or a pizza without any ceremony — with notes on prices, booking and the traps that older lists still send people into. Restaurant details were checked in October 2026. Prices are in Canadian dollars and are rough per-person figures for a typical dinner before drinks, tax and tip; treat them as the right order of magnitude and check the restaurant’s own site before you go.
Toronto’s Best Italian Restaurants at a Glance
| If you want… | Book | Area | Budget |
|---|---|---|---|
| A Michelin-starred Italian dinner | Osteria Giulia | Yorkville | Splurge |
| A starred tasting menu with a skyline view | Don Alfonso 1890 | Westin Harbour Castle, waterfront | Big splurge |
| A starred modern Italian kitchen | DaNico | Central Toronto | Splurge |
| A neighbourhood room the Michelin inspectors rate | Giulietta | College St, Little Italy | Upper mid-range |
| A wine-bar evening of pasta and cheese | Enoteca Sociale | Dundas St W | Mid-range |
| Vegetarian Italian | Gia | Dundas St W | Mid-range |
| Southern Italian in an 1852 courthouse | Terroni Adelaide | Old Town | Mid-range |
| An old-school dinner where Yorkville meets the Annex | Sotto Sotto | Avenue Rd / the Annex | Upper mid-range |
| Handmade pasta and a warm room | Piano Piano | Harbord St and six more | Mid-range |
| Red-sauce Italian-American | Sugo and Bar Sugo | Bloordale | Casual to mid-range |
| Little Italy’s summer patio | Café Diplomatico | College St | Casual |
Budget tiers are a rough per-person guide to dinner before drinks, 13% HST and tip. “Splurge” means a tasting menu or a full three courses at fine-dining prices. See our Toronto tipping guide for how tipping works here.
How Italian Food Works in Toronto
Italian-Canadian and Italian-Italian
Toronto’s Italian food comes in two broad families, and both are worth your time. The first is Italian-Canadian: the food of Italian immigrant families who adapted their cooking to Canadian ingredients. It gave the city its red-sauce restaurants, its espresso bars and the hot veal sandwich in a crusty bun, a Toronto staple sold at sandwich counters across the city. The second is regional Italian cooking of the kind you would find in Italy today — Ligurian seafood, Roman pastas, Neapolitan pizza — which is what most of the city’s ambitious Italian kitchens now pursue.
Neither is better. A plate of spaghetti and meatballs in a family room in Bloordale and a Michelin-starred dinner in Yorkville are different meals answering different questions, and the best Italian restaurants in Toronto are clear about which one they are serving.
Little Italy, Corso Italia and the suburbs
Little Italy is the stretch of College Street roughly between Bathurst Street and Ossington Avenue, signed as such on its street signs. It is still where many Italian institutions live, but it has been a mixed neighbourhood for decades: Portuguese, Latin American and East Asian restaurants sit alongside the trattorias, and the bar scene is as much of a draw as the food. Our Little Italy guide covers the street in full.
Corso Italia, on St Clair Avenue West, is the city’s other Italian main street, with more cafés, bakeries and gelato than destination dining. Many Italian-Canadian families have since moved north to Woodbridge in Vaughan, which has its own cluster of bakeries and restaurants but is a car trip from downtown.
Reading the menu
An osteria or trattoria traditionally means a relaxed, family-style restaurant; a ristorante is more formal; an enoteca is a wine bar that serves food. In Toronto these names are used loosely, so read the menu rather than the sign. Most Italian dinners here follow the Italian pattern of antipasti, a pasta course (primi) and a meat or fish main (secondi), and sharing is common — ordering a few antipasti and pastas for the table is often the best way to eat.
The Michelin-Starred Italian Restaurants
When the Michelin Guide came to Toronto, Italian kitchens were among those it recognised. In the 2026 guide, three Italian restaurants hold one star each: Osteria Giulia, Don Alfonso 1890 and DaNico. The guide is revised every year, so check the current edition before booking on the strength of a star; our guide to Michelin restaurants in Toronto covers the full list.
Osteria Giulia
Osteria Giulia is the sister restaurant of Giulietta on College Street, and it has the more polished, special-occasion feel of the two. Book as far ahead as you can, especially for a weekend table.
Verdict: if you want one Michelin-starred Italian dinner in Toronto, this is the one to book. It is a splurge.
Don Alfonso 1890
Don Alfonso 1890 moved in June 2022 to the 38th floor of the Westin Harbour Castle, where the dining room has sweeping views of the city skyline and the waterfront. It holds one Michelin star in the 2026 guide, and its Italian fine dining makes it a natural pick for a big occasion.
Verdict: the biggest splurge on this list, and you are paying for the view and the occasion as much as the food. For an anniversary or a big celebration, the combination is hard to beat. For a relaxed plate of pasta, go almost anywhere else. If the view is the main attraction and you would rather spend less, our guide to rooftop restaurants in Toronto has other options.
DaNico
DaNico holds one star for what Michelin describes as Italian cooking with global flavours — a modern, chef-driven kitchen rather than a traditional one. It is the starred Italian restaurant for diners who are curious about where Italian cooking can go, rather than how faithfully it can be reproduced. Verdict: book it if you enjoy chef-driven fine dining and want something more experimental than Osteria Giulia; skip it if you are craving classic pasta.
Michelin-Recommended Neighbourhood Favourites
Below the stars, the Michelin Guide recommends a handful of Italian restaurants that are more relaxed, less expensive and, for many locals, the places they actually return to. These three are the pick of them.
Giulietta
Giulietta is at 972 College Street. Expect pasta, pizza and a busy room that suits a date as well as a group of friends. It serves dinner seven days a week, Sundays included, so it works for a lazy Sunday dinner; check its contact page for the current closing times. Getting there: the 506 Carlton streetcar normally runs along College, but construction has been diverting it, so check TTC service alerts before you travel. Verdict: the best balance of quality and price in Little Italy, and the restaurant to book if Osteria Giulia is full.
Enoteca Sociale
Enoteca Sociale is on Dundas Street West; check its own site for the menu and opening days before you go. Do not confuse it with Ristorante Sociale, a different and short-lived restaurant that closed in 2024; some older lists still carry it. Verdict: the best Italian wine-bar evening in the city — order a few pastas to share and let the staff guide you through the list.
Gia
Gia, at 1214 Dundas Street West, is a vegetarian Italian restaurant that the Michelin Guide recommends, which tells you something about how good it is: this is not health food, but full-flavoured Italian cooking that happens to leave out meat and fish. It takes reservations through Tock. Verdict: the obvious choice for a vegetarian, and a strong one for everybody else at the table. Because it is a few minutes’ walk from Enoteca Sociale, the Dundas West stretch has quietly become one of the best Italian dining streets in Toronto.
The Toronto Institutions
These are the restaurants that Torontonians have been taking visiting relatives to for years. None is trying to win a star, and all of them are worth a booking.
Terroni
Terroni is Toronto’s best-known southern Italian brand, and the group now runs a dozen locations across its Terroni, Sud Forno and Spaccio names. The one to visit is Terroni Adelaide, at 57 Adelaide Street East in the Old Town, which occupies the former York County Court House, built in 1852. Eating pizza and pasta in a heritage courthouse is a good story, and there is an enoteca just inside the front doors. Terroni Queen is at 720 Queen Street West, on the Queen West strip.
Know the house rules before you sit down. Terroni’s own tagline is “pizza served uncut”, and it has a long-standing no-substitutions policy, so order something that suits you as written rather than trying to modify it. Getting there: King station on Line 1, or the 504 King streetcar, for Adelaide. Verdict: reliable, lively and properly Italian; the Adelaide room is the better experience for a first visit.
Sotto Sotto
Ristorante Sotto Sotto sits at 120 Avenue Road, where Yorkville meets the Annex. The menu is classic Italian, the room is intimate and below street level, and it has long been associated with celebrity sightings during the Toronto International Film Festival in September. Verdict: old-school, romantic and dependable. Book ahead during TIFF and on weekends.
Café Diplomatico
Café Diplomatico, at 594 College Street, has been family-owned since 1968 and is the anchor of Little Italy. Locals call it “the Dip”. It serves pizza, panzerotti, calzones, pasta, breakfast, gelato and cannoli, has vegetarian and gluten-free options, and is open from breakfast through dinner. Its corner patio is busy all summer, and the café has long been a gathering place for Little Italy.
Getting there: take the 506 Carlton along College Street. Verdict: not the best Italian food in Toronto, and it does not claim to be. It is the best Italian atmosphere for a casual meal, and on a summer evening the patio is unbeatable.
Grazie Ristorante
Grazie, at 2373 Yonge Street near Yonge and Eglinton, is a family-owned Italian restaurant serving midtown antipasti, pastas, mains and pizza. It is consistent, unpretentious and full of local families rather than visitors, and it has historically not taken reservations, so expect a wait at peak times. Getting there: Eglinton station on Line 1. Verdict: the honest neighbourhood Italian restaurant most visitors never find. Worth it if you are staying in midtown.
Pasta and Pizza Without the Ceremony
Sometimes the best Italian meal is a bowl of fresh pasta and a glass of wine with no tasting menu in sight. These are the places Torontonians go for exactly that.
Piano Piano
Piano Piano started on Harbord Street about ten years ago and has grown to seven locations: Harbord Street, Mount Pleasant, Bloor Street, Leslieville and Colborne Street in Toronto, plus Oakville and Hamilton. It serves sourdough-crust pizza and handmade pasta in warm, lively rooms, with weekend brunch. The Bloor Street location at 1006 Bloor West, which opened in February 2025, is a striking three-level room next to the Paradise Theatre, so dinner and a film make an easy evening.
Verdict: the most reliably enjoyable mid-range Italian chain in the city, and very good with children.
Gusto 101
Gusto 101, at 101 Portland Street in King West, is a busy, buzzy room with pasta, pizza and Italian mains. It sits in the middle of the King West restaurant and nightlife strip, so it makes a good first stop on a night out in the neighbourhood covered by our King West and Liberty Village guide. Verdict: lively rather than refined. Book ahead on weekends.
Sugo and Bar Sugo
Sugo, on Bloor Street West in Bloordale, is a red-sauce Italian-American restaurant: big plates of pasta and meatballs in a small, loud room. It is famously tiny and does not take reservations. Bar Sugo, at 1279 Bloor West, is an Italian-American pizzeria serving wood-fired pizza. Getting there: Lansdowne station on Line 2. Verdict: comfort food done with real affection. If you are a group or have children, go to Bar Sugo.
Pizzeria Libretto — and a trap to avoid
Pizzeria Libretto made its name with Neapolitan pizza, cooked fast in a very hot oven, with gluten-free and vegan options. Its locations on the Danforth (550 Danforth Ave), at Yonge and Sheppard (5000 Yonge St) and on University Avenue (155 University Ave) serve lunch and dinner. The trap is the original on Ossington Avenue, which most older guides still list as a pizzeria: it has been reinvented as Bar Libretto, a bar-forward evening venue with no daytime service. Our guide to the best pizza in Toronto covers the wider pizza scene.
Eataly and Italian Food Shopping
Eataly Toronto occupies the Manulife Centre at 55 Bloor Street West, at the corner of Bloor and Bay in Yorkville. It is a sprawling Italian food hall with counters, restaurants, a market and a concourse-level beer bar, and it is a good place to pick up olive oil, pasta, cheese and cured meats to take home. Verdict: fun for a browse and a quick lunch, but not a destination dinner when the restaurants above are a short ride away.
For Italian deli counters and bakeries, Little Italy and Corso Italia are the places to wander, and the St Lawrence Market has cheeses, cured meats and other Italian staples among its stalls. A picnic of bread, prosciutto and cheese on the Toronto Islands or in Trinity Bellwoods is one of the cheapest good Italian meals in the city.
Italian Restaurants by Neighbourhood
Yorkville and the Annex
Sotto Sotto is on Avenue Road, and Osteria Giulia is close by in Yorkville. This is the most expensive concentration of Italian dining in the city; see our Yorkville guide for the rest of the neighbourhood.
Little Italy and College Street
Café Diplomatico and Giulietta bookend the strip, with plenty of bars and other restaurants between them. The 506 Carlton streetcar normally serves the whole strip along College Street, when construction isn’t diverting it.
Dundas West and Bloordale
Enoteca Sociale and Gia on Dundas West, and Sugo, Bar Sugo and Piano Piano Bloor on Bloor West, make the west end the best part of the city for relaxed, high-quality Italian food at reasonable prices.
Downtown, the Old Town and the waterfront
Terroni Adelaide in the old courthouse, Gusto 101 in King West and Don Alfonso 1890 above the harbour cover the core, from casual to the most formal Italian dinner in the city.
Midtown and the east end
Grazie at Yonge and Eglinton and Piano Piano’s Mount Pleasant location serve midtown; Piano Piano Leslieville and Pizzeria Libretto on the Danforth serve the east end.
What an Italian Dinner Costs in Toronto
Italian restaurants cover every price point in Toronto, which is part of their appeal. As a rough guide, before drinks, tax and tip:
- Casual: Café Diplomatico, Pizzeria Libretto, Bar Sugo.
- Mid-range: Terroni, Piano Piano, Sugo, Grazie, Enoteca Sociale, Gia.
- Upper mid-range: Giulietta, Sotto Sotto, Gusto 101.
- Splurge: Osteria Giulia, DaNico and above all Don Alfonso 1890, where the fine-dining tasting menu is a splurge in its own right.
Then add the extras. Italian wine lists in Toronto are generous but marked up; 13% HST goes on food and drink; and a tip comes on top. To spend less, share antipasti and pastas, and check the Winterlicious and Summerlicious prix fixe lists — our guide to the two festivals explains how they work. Ontario also lets restaurants permit diners to bring their own wine for a corkage fee, so it is worth asking.
Booking Tips
- Book Osteria Giulia early, especially for a weekend.
- Check the opening days. Smaller restaurants don’t all open every night; Giulietta, though, serves dinner on Sundays too.
- Some places take no bookings at all. Sugo is walk-in only, and Grazie has historically worked the same way. Arrive early or late.
- TIFF week is busy. In September, Yorkville and King West restaurants fill up with festival crowds; book well ahead.
- Patios are seasonal. Patio season runs roughly May to October.
- Mention dietary needs when you book. Most Italian kitchens handle vegetarian diners easily; gluten-free pasta and pizza are increasingly common but not universal.
Which Italian Restaurant Should You Book?
- One special Italian dinner: Osteria Giulia.
- A view and a big celebration: Don Alfonso 1890.
- Great food without the fuss: Giulietta or Enoteca Sociale.
- Vegetarian: Gia.
- A first-time visitor who wants a Toronto story: Terroni Adelaide in the old courthouse.
- Families: Piano Piano or Bar Sugo — and see our family restaurants guide.
- A summer evening outdoors: Café Diplomatico’s patio.
- A romantic evening: Sotto Sotto or Osteria Giulia — more ideas in our list of romantic things to do in Toronto.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best Italian restaurant in Toronto?
For a special occasion, Osteria Giulia in Yorkville, which holds a Michelin star in the 2026 guide, is a natural choice. Don Alfonso 1890 adds a skyline view and a tasting menu. For everyday excellence, Michelin-recommended Giulietta and Enoteca Sociale are the restaurants locals return to most.
Which Toronto Italian restaurants have Michelin stars?
In the 2026 Michelin Guide, three Italian restaurants hold one star each: Osteria Giulia, Don Alfonso 1890 and DaNico. Giulietta, Enoteca Sociale and Gia were among the Italian restaurants recommended by the guide. Michelin updates its selection every year, so check the current edition before you book.
Where is Little Italy in Toronto?
Little Italy is on College Street, roughly between Bathurst Street and Ossington Avenue, and the 506 Carlton streetcar runs through it. Café Diplomatico at 594 College is its anchor. Toronto’s other Italian street is Corso Italia, on St Clair Avenue West around Dufferin Street.
How much does an Italian dinner cost in Toronto?
Casual spots such as Café Diplomatico or Pizzeria Libretto sit at the low end, mid-range trattorias a step up, and the Michelin-starred restaurants cost considerably more. On top of the menu prices, add 13% HST and a tip.
Is there good vegetarian Italian food in Toronto?
Yes. Gia on Dundas Street West is a vegetarian Italian restaurant recommended by the Michelin Guide, and it is the best place to start. Most Italian restaurants in Toronto have several vegetarian pastas and pizzas, and Pizzeria Libretto offers vegan and gluten-free options.
Is Pizzeria Libretto on Ossington still open?
The Ossington location has been reinvented as Bar Libretto, a bar-forward venue open in the evenings only, so it is no longer the pizzeria many guides describe. For Libretto’s Neapolitan pizza, go to the Danforth, Yonge and Sheppard, or University Avenue locations.
Do I need a reservation for Italian restaurants in Toronto?
For Osteria Giulia, Don Alfonso 1890, DaNico, Giulietta and Sotto Sotto, booking ahead is wise, particularly for a weekend. Some favourites, notably Sugo, take no reservations at all, so arrive early or late. Casual places such as Café Diplomatico are usually fine to walk into.
Related Toronto Guides
- Little Italy, Toronto
- Best pizza in Toronto
- Michelin restaurants in Toronto
- Best restaurants in Toronto
- Yorkville guide
- Toronto food guide
- Romantic things to do in Toronto
- Toronto tipping guide
Photo Credits
College Street at Clinton Street, Little Italy: College Street at Clinton Street in Toronto, July 5 2026 (01) by Dillan Payne, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Café Diplomatico at night: Café Diplomatico October 2011 by Missi1005 from Mississauga, Canada, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Fresh tagliatelle: Home made Tagliatelle (11054662715) by Markus Reinhardt from Forchheim, Germany, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
College Street in Little Italy: College Street at Montrose Avenue in Toronto, July 5 2026 (02) by Dillan Payne, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
