This year’s Michelin Guide to Toronto and its surrounding regions largely maintained the status quo from last year, with no restaurants gaining or losing stars. However, the biggest change in the 2026 guide is a new crop of recommended and Bib Gourmand restaurants, the former signifying a place that has no stars but is still worth dining at, and the latter being Michelin’s designation for getting a bang-for-your-buck meal.
Sure, the Michelin Guide’s top honours usually go to restaurants synonymous with stuffy, fine-dining that probably don’t match the tastes (or wallets) of the average diner, but there are some gems in its annual list that the Star’s own critics agree are worth checking out. Here are seven spots from the Star’s Top 100 Under $100 guide that are also Michelin-approved.
The $10 Mini Martini at Aloette Bay comes with a perfectly shucked halfshell oyster.
Andrew Rowat for Toronto Star
Address: 81 Bay St., fourth floor (at Front St. in CIBC Square)
Technically it’s Aloette’s original location at 163 Spadina Ave. that held on to its Michelin recommended status from last year, but we’re counting it as an overlap with the Star’s praise for the Aloette that’s right across from the Scotiabank Arena. Our chief critic, Chris Nuttall-Smith, had this to say about his visit.
Near the start of the menu at the Alo group’s Financial District hot spot, there’s a simple but almost magical phrase. “Aloette Mini Martini $10,” it reads. Maybe you only came for the $29 pre-game burger, fries and beer special or for the superlative calamari fritti and a couple of snacks. Maybe it’s a splurgy steak you’re after (Aloette goes both low and high) or the best-in-show — best in any show, anywhere — lemon meringue pie. But damn, that $10 martini is something. It’s served on a gold tray, with an olive, a pickled onion and a lemon twist. It comes with a perfectly shucked half-shell oyster, also, on a miniature bowl of pebbled ice. It’s an affordable actual luxury, which is pretty much the ethos of the place. That burger is excellent, the meat properly pink in its middle, deeply beefy, on a house-baked bun. The sea bream: moist, crisp-skinned, just kissed with smoke and char. Sure, there’s a Dubai chocolate sundae for dessert, but the lemon meringue pie is the can’t-miss. It is impossibly tall, silky and sunshiny sweet-sour; its torched meringues explode as you eat them, like mini campfire marshmallows, the perfect ending to a three- or four-mini-martini meal.
Ardo is a downtown destination for Sicilian cooking.
Carmen Cheung for Toronto Star
Cuisine: Italian, Sicilian
Address: 243 King St. E. (at Sherborne St.)
Since 2015, Ardo has quietly been a reliable spot for a date-night-worthy meal in the picturesque, historic stretch of King East just a few steps from the St. Lawrence Market. The restaurant is small, but the flavours are grand. Come here instead of the many tourist-trappy spots in the area. It’s recommended by Michelin as well as Nuttall-Smith, who described it this way.
The joy around this well-run little room is half the show: the after-work aperitivo-seekers and fresh-faced couples drinking sunny white wine by the glass, the pre-theatre quartets just happy to be some place nice. Chef Roberto Marotta’s Sicilian cooking provides the other half and then some — it’s as close as you’ll find here to the flavours of southernmost Italy. There are puffed and golden chickpea flour panelle to start, hot and crisp straight from the fryer, seasoned with wild fennel and a pop of good salt. They seem understated at first, and then they take your breath away. There are fish and meats done simply, as in Sicily, as well as prodigiously cheesy arancini and glistening white anchovies in emerald-green oil. Marotta’s pastas are exquisite: rich, sweet, deep-tomatoey, stracciatella-topped pomodoro sauce, say, on noodles he sources from Sicily, their manufacture so rigorously pre-industrial they’d be a parody if not for their deliciousness. In cooking this simple (big asterisk there), ingredients mean a whole lot. Or take the squid-ink-stained conchiglie special late this winter, tossed with pistachio-mint pesto, crunchy house sourdough pangrattato, and delicate, candy-sweet shrimp, the sort of dish you hope will never end. For dessert, there’s house cannoli — they even make their own candied orange peel. Perfetti.
At this Nashville hot chicken spot the meat is drybrined for juiciness and fried to order.
Andrew Rowat for Toronto Star
Cuisine: Fried chicken, American
Address: 2853 Dundas St. W. (at Keele St.)
While I wasn’t the one who wrote the entry for this Nashville-style hot chicken restaurant in the Junction, my tip is to go at least medium-hot for the best experience, provided you can tolerate at least three chilies from Salad King (unspicy hot chicken just feels wrong). Also, go for the fried pickle slices as the side because the portions for that are huge. Here is Nuttall-Smith’s review about this Bib Gourmand spot.
The old-school vibes at this simple, celebrated Nashville hot chicken spot are hard to miss. The former diner space has ancient faux-wood panelling, a Formica counter, seen-better-days bar stools and Mulroney-era ceiling fans; it’s either charming or grotty, depending on your take. (We’re on team chotty.) The chicken, meantime, is dry-brined for juiciness and fried strictly to order. It comes crunchy, chili-stained, deeply seasoned and almost awkwardly juicy, in spice levels from none to mild to what the kitchen calls Hot AF. (Medium is where most postpubescent mortals will start to feel the burn.) You can get wings and tenders, also, in a variety of sauces. The chicken bites, for what it’s worth, are just OK: with bits that small, the batter starts to get in the way. But Chica’s sandwiches, made from boneless thighs, are breathtakingly tasty, particularly the versions served on tender toasted brioche and topped with the creamy house slaw. The sides include skin-on waffle fries and freakishly delicious fried pickle slices. NB: fried-to-order whole chicken pieces can’t be rushed; order ahead or be prepared to wait.
This bustling College Street bistro features a Caribbean Latin and Creole menu.
Andrew Rowat for Toronto Star
Cuisine: Caribbean, International
Address: 838 College St. (at Ossington Ave.)
Below is my review from when I visited the Bib Gourmand-endorsed Conejo Negro earlier this year with a colleague. The one thing I would add is to make a reservation because walk-ins were getting turned away by the time we finished our meal.
There are two modes to choose from at this busting College Street bistro. The intimate front room is pure date night, with flickering tea lights just barely illuminating tables for two. But walk through the hidden hallway to the rear dining room and it’s brighter, more casual, fitting for after-work drinks and a dinner hang. Either way, the Caribbean, Latin and Creole menu, with its blackened fish, jerk chicken and mango-sweetened ceviche, unifies the spaces: familiar favourites sized for sharing. There’s a crisp watercress, radish and snap pea salad under tangy chimichurri vinaigrette and nutty tahini. The Caribbean-style braised beef cheek is luscious and fork-tender, over silky-textured cheddar grits and tender collards, doused in peppery sauce. The juicy fried chicken thighs, in smoked hot honey sauce, come beautifully crisp and just sweet enough; mop up the sauce with the Brazilian cheese puffs, made satisfyingly chewy with tapioca flour.
At Guru Lukshmi, each doa bite is a study in texture and heat.
Carmen Cheung for Toronto Star
Cuisine: Indian, South Indian
Address: 7070 St. Barbara Blvd. (in Derry Village Square)
Dosas are the star at Guru Lukshmi, a grand South Indian restaurant located west of Pearson airport, as former food editor Alex Baldinger writes below about this Bib Gourmand spot.
As with any thrill ride, you may spend longer getting to Guru Lukshmi and waiting for a table than actually eating your dosa. At least you’ll have time to study the menu beforehand, a 43-page(!) PDF that surveys nearly every corner of South Indian vegetarian cuisine. There are the fried lentil-flour doughnuts called vada, steamed rice idly cakes (the toonie-sized minis are superb, drenched in ghee and sambhar, the tangy lentil stew that acts as a sidekick to nearly everything on the menu), and at least 10 different categories of dosa, the specialty here. Order a paper dosa: a golden cone of fermented rice-and-lentil batter, crisped in ghee and curled until it’s roughly as long as a cricket bat. Though there’s any number of fillings available, they’re typically savoury and at least a little fiery, like the Mysore Bhaji, built on potatoes, roasted garlic and chili paste. Each bite is a study in texture and heat, and after a dunk in the cool tomato, coriander and coconut chutneys that come alongside, temperature, too. No fire is too great to be put out by a glass of shikanji — the savoury, supremely refreshing lemonade spiked with cumin and black salt.
Pho Ngoc Yen’s beef short rib pho which celebrity food critic Keith Lee called the “best pho” of his life during a surprise visit to the restaurant on Adelaide.
Nick Lachance Toronto Star
Address: 350 Adelaide St. W. (at Peter St.)
Pho Ngoc Yen has been a local favourite for years, back when it had one Mississauga location — that was the spot that was added to this year’s Michelin-recommended list. Our endorsement goes to the newest downtown Toronto location, which has quickly amassed a celebrity clientele for its proximity to the Entertainment District. Here is our Top 100 writer Chi Nguyễn’s review.
The specialty at this enormous and elegant downtown room is vibrant, family-style Vietnamese dishes, made with skill, care and cultural pride. The short-rib phở comes packed with flavour: a whole braised rib sits submerged in its broth; lift it, and the yielding meat slips away in one clean pull. Chicken thighs follow, balancing smoke from the grill and the fragrance of lemon leaf, the juicy meat set against crackling fried sticky rice. Chef and co-owner Trí Trần’s cooking combines time, technique and deep-rooted tradition. That shows in his seafood-laden gỏi ba bía đu đủ salad, its translucent green papaya ribbons balancing citrus sours, subtle sweetness and fish sauce’s salt; the salad’s toasted peanuts add depth, and fermented crab brings a delicious layer of briny funk. Trần’s cơm chiên thập cẩm — house special fried rice — mixes fluffy broken rice, sweet, crispy shallots and juicy pork in a savoury slick of wokked egg and soy. It’s the kind of dish you keep reaching for long after you think you’re done. End with the avocado milkshake: thick, buttery, stirred through with strands of fresh coconut, not too sweet.
Chef Sumith Fernando learned his smoked meat craft at Montreal’s Schwartz’s Deli.
Carmen Cheung for Toronto Star
Address: 5631 Steeles Ave. E., Unit 5 (at Middlefield Rd. in Milliken Crossing)
“Kids, we have Schwartz at home” was what came to mind for the line of diners outside SumiLicous when it first opened eight years ago right on the Scarborough-Markham border. No need to take the road trip to Montreal when a longtime Schwartz cook opened to bring his talent to the GTA. Here’s what reviewer Alex Baldinger had to say about this Bib Gourmand entry.
Sumith Fernando spent 17 years practicing at the altar of smoked meat that is Montreal’s Schwartz’s Deli. In 2018, when he was ready to pursue the craft on his own, he chose a strip-mall unit on Steeles Avenue in deep Scarborough. From there, word began to spread about the Catholic Sri Lankan immigrant cooking halal Jewish-Canadian soul food with the devotion of a true believer. The cure on the meat is Fernando’s peppery, proprietary secret, but his start-to-finish process — rub, rest, smoke, steam, slice — is almost better measured in weeks than days, and results in a bite that makes you shake your head in awe. The smoked meat sandwich combo is the move: thinly sliced layers of brisket piled onto soft rye with yellow mustard, alongside good fries, a vinegary slaw and a Putter’s pickle. That they also sell karnatzel, a dried beef sausage so niche it barely exists outside the old-school Jewish deli canon, tells you how seriously Fernando takes the tradition he’s evangelizing. And if your cardiologist isn’t watching, the smoked meat poutine is the ultimate homage to the Montreal roots that make this deli a true pilgrimage spot.