Dear reader,

Toronto is a city that loves to eat. Every year, a slew of amazing new restaurants opens up—for proof, please peruse our just-launched Where to Eat Now list for 2023. Last year, the team at Michelin came along to tell us what we’d known for years: Toronto’s culinary scene stacks up against that of any metropolis out there.

But that hasn’t always been the case. Toronto Life’s first issue, in November 1966, barely mentions a restaurant scene at all. (Instead, there’s a lot of ink on curling, bridge and something called “romantic smog.”) As the city’s culinary prowess has ramped up, we’ve been there to document it.

Today, we are spoiled by an abundance of choice and richness of quality. There is so much happening in the world of food that we needed a stand-alone newsletter to cover it all. It gives me great joy to bring you this, the first edition of Table Talk. It is overseen by our fabulous food-and-drink editor, Rebecca Fleming, and it will land in your inbox every Thursday—hopefully just in time for you to grab the last seat at that great new restaurant or bar for the weekend.

Happy reading and happy eating,

In today’s edition of Table Talk: our annual list of the city’s best new restaurants (tip: make your reservations now), what it’s like to eat all by your lonesome at Toronto’s first spot devoted to solo diners, and why chef and Italian comfort-food king Victor Barry is doubling down on frozen pizza. 

We didn’t get the Roaring Twenties we were promised, but that clearly didn’t stop us from pretending that we did. This year’s edition of Where to Eat Now is remarkably different from the last, with a list that includes all kinds of splashy new spots—there’s more than one French bistro, a two-person-minimum omakase kitchen and the No. 1 restaurant, which (spoiler alert) identifies as a palace. 

We paid a visit to Yunnan Noodle Shack, Toronto’s very first solo-dining restaurant, where guests enjoy their meals (with a side of alone time) in partitioned stalls for maximum privacy. Conclusion: solo dining doesn’t have to be sad.

Piano Piano owner Victor Barry recently swooped in to buy General Assembly’s ailing line of frozen pies. When corporate giants like Nestlé want out of the frozen food business, why does Barry want in? He told us about the purchase, his big plans and his favourite frozen pizza product.

After two years of takeout and home cooking, Toronto diners have been keen to splurge on caviar, seafood towers and prime cuts of beef. And this is all happening during a time when chicken breasts are going for $23 a kilogram and we’re price-matching at supermarkets like it’s a bloodsport. The message, in short, is that if people choose to dine out, they’re going big. In our June issue, 20 restaurants where we’re more than happy to put our money where our mouths are. Still not receiving Toronto Life at home? Subscribe today.