Best brunch/dinner/drink spots downtown Toronto
 

I booked at the Park Hyatt on Bloor/Ave Rd.
Looking for a great brunch spot, dinner/drink spot in that neughbourhood.

If you want to stay in that neighbourhood, you're in restaurant and bar heaven. You can have a nice brunch or lunch at Cantine (Avenue Road and Davenport, commonly known as Ave & Dav), the Four Seasons across the road has a lovely lunch restaurant called the Studio Cafe and a main floor bar called Sierra, also a small lobby bar. The Intercontinental Hotel on Bloor has several bars but I particularly like the main floor bar called Proof. You can have lunch or dinner at Jamie Kennedy's in the Gardiner Ceramic Museum (he's quite a famous chef), Joso's, Mistura which also has a jazz bar, Sotto Sotto, Boba, Arlequin, all at Ave and Dav.

I'm sure there are still tons of restaurants I haven't mentioned. If you look at www.toronto.com under restaurants, the neighbourhoods to look at are Ave & Dav and Yorkville.

If you can travel a little farther afield, there's tons more I could recommend.

There's a roof top bar on top of the south building at the Park Hyatt that has been a Toronto landmrk for many decades.

It used to be the place for authors and publishers to meet.

At the low end of the price scale, but very nice, is Yamato, for lunch. Japanese flashing knife kind of a place, on Belair Avenue, between Cumberland and Yorkville. Just about two blocks away from your hotel.

Lobby, on Bloor Street West half a block west of the hotel is, or at least was last year, the trendy bar in town.

I once had dinner at Joso's, mentioned above, with a con man who later disappeared, only to be found by cops in the USA a year later. But the dinner was good, and someone paid for it with one of the 54 credit cards the conman was reported to be using.

The Studio CAfe in the Four Seasons is a great place if you like bright restaurants.

BAK

Ave & Dav... puhleese....

wow
Do you not like Ave & Dav? Are you saying that there are other or better places in the city to eat?

Well, of course there are other restaurants. But the Ave/Dav/Yorkville restaurants are well-respected ones.

Having read BAK's responses to other posters and knowing the city as I do, I'm sure we both could come up with a list a mile long. But the OP is staying in this area and seemed to specifically be looking for places close by.

Now you might not agree but while both BAK and I offered suggestions, you chimed in with, well, pretty much nothing at all useful. So if you can't contribute, why bother with the editorial?

HDM, Maybe Wow meant he/she had never heard the area referred to as Av and Dav....it's been years, Wow, that it's been called that. Then there's Yonge and Eligible...probably more.

Hmmm -- well, maybe. But that pul-eeese sounded awfully sarcastic. However, if I'm wrong, I apologize.

I can't imagine anyone who lives even close to downtown not knowing it's called Ave & Dav. And as for Yonge and Eligible, I think that started around about the time of Earl's Tin Palace! Remember that?

Or the Generator in the Canada Square building? That's waaaay back.

God, I'm old. Excuse me, I have to go take a nap.

Hi, hdm: I just woke up from my nap! ;) I like the Avenue Rd/Davenport area very much & think that your suggestions are great. I just hate the sound of "Ave & Dav"...it sounds silly to me. Sorry, for the "puh-leese". This was not the place for it.
I did not add to your suggestions & Brian's b/c you have hit the best spots. I guess I shd have said that. Now back to sleep!

Ah well, that's the problem with these forums -- it's pretty easy to 'mis-hear' the tone. Thanks for the explanation and the apology.