The best Italian restaurant in Toronto

Buca

604 King St. W., 416 865 1600
Few places where executive chef Rob Gentile prepares a few of the city’s encapsulate Toronto’s dining culture better than Buca most original and elaborate plates in a barebones industrial room. Creamy smoked burrata tops spicy pig’s blood spaghetti with sausage and rapini. Truffle shavings adorn ricotta-filled fried zucchini blossoms—a dish that’s described (accurately) by a nearby diner as “better than sex.”

Bar Buca

75 Portland St., 416-599-2822
A couple of steps from Buca suitable, chef Rob Gentile’s King West osteria, is casual Pub Buca and his relaxed. Split the gran fritto misto, a two-tiered bite tray stacked with lightly battered and deep-fried baby artichokes, rock shrimp, twists and tiny smelt of pigskin. Each bite is flecked with fennel and perfectly crunchy -flavoured salt or chili. For dessert, there’s old-fashioned Italian pastries: ricotta-stuffed cannoli, lace-patterned pizzelle and sugar -dusted apple butter bombolone.

Buca Yorkville

53 Scollard St., 416-962-2822
At Rob Gentile’s new Yorkville eatery, the focus is on top notch fish and seafood. The “ salami made with scallop octopus, swordfish or tuna blood along with pork fat, are like wonderful headcheese, though nowhere near as popular as deep-fried exotica like Atlantic cod tongue or dumplings that are puffed dyed a deep black with squid ink. The day’s catch, cooked in a carapace of salt, presented like a devotional offering and is cracked tableside. Everything is ideal, including the zeppola—an Italian doughnut— stuffed with a rich pistachio and dusted with confectioner’s sugar -mascarpone cream.

Ardo

243 King St. E., 647-347-8930
Chef Roberto Marotta’s Sicilian-inspired dishes provide a level of sophistication that puts this new St. Lawrence spot above many of the city’s trattorias. Acciughe—punchy white anchovies and roasted red peppers on crunchy herb butter–soaked crostini—are an ideal two-bite snack (or spuntini, as the Sicilians would have it), and sourdough starter makes an exceptionally bouffant pizza crust. It’s a welcome change from the Neapolitan tyranny.

Aria Ristorante

25 York St., 416 363 2742
The room is a showstopper, with enormous starburst light fixtures and floor-to-ceiling windows. Translucent pink sheets of tender veal dressed with anchovy, tuna and caper sauce make for the city’s finest vitello tonnato. Desserts are lusciously conventional (a pistachio tart with macerated strawberries) or brilliantly non-traditional (a creamy popcorn, pine nut and sweet corn ice cream bar). Unless there’s an occasion in the ACC, closed Sundays.

Mistura

265 Davenport Rd., 416-515-0009
The good-looking, gray-on-gray room is best scanned from the comfort of a plush booth. Chef Klaus Rourich sends out classy interpretations of classic northern Italian dishes. A bright salad of orange slices, uses ricotta and niçoise olives for seasoning and shaved fennel, and almonds for feel. Earthy puttanesca, without a trace of mush, offsets octopus. Textbook bolognese, hardly bound with milk, is deep with flavour.

Enoteca Sociale

1288 Dundas St. W., 416 534 1200
At its heart, the restaurant doesn't, although its chefs may change. Between the faux-wood panelling, the genuine warmth toward returning parties by the pub along with professional staff, revealed ’s remarkable selection of unique, wines that are Italian that are quaffable, this cosy place remains Toronto’s of dining by the Tiber, most authentic replica. Chef James Santon catches the soul of a pillowy basis for tart tomato, chilies, the boot in his gnocchi along with a languorous pool of smoked ricotta that reads achingly simple, but is soul-food hearty. Dialogue pauses for chocolate terrine, a trinity of compact chocolate mousse, candied hazelnuts and spritely olive oil, and restarts only after every last bite has been scraped from the plate and licked off the spoon.


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Zucca

2150 Yonge St., 416-488-5774
For 2 decades, this upscale Midtown haunt is the standard for exceptional food that is Italian. Chef Andrew Milne- the restaurant’s professional waiters could educate Parkdale’s cool youngsters a thing or two, and also Allan was doing local, seasonal cuisine before it absolutely was trendy. Made in-house every morning, the ever-changing pastas are an obvious strength, like the hand-cut red wine tagliatelle in a duck-and-bunny ragout—a wonderfully pastoral dish. Elaborate plates, such as the seared muscovy duck breast with roasted figs, treviso that is bitter and a lemon risotto, showcase the kitchen’s deftness at balancing flavours. A good wine list is broken down by region of Italy, and classic desserts like affogato panna cotta and biscotti are perfect endnotes to some romantic meal.

La Cascina

1552 Avenue Rd., 416 590 7819
Abruzzan chef Luca Del Rosso’s menu changes daily, but his main tools are constantly time and salt, olive oil —each dish is cooked soft, slow and long. The antipasti course brings a number of mini-masterpieces, including creamy pan fried potatoes paired with salty capers and tart tomatoes; slow-cooked lentils and carrots; and a downy scramble of eggplant, eggs and ricotta.

Tutti Matti

364 Adelaide St. W., 416-597-8839
Don’t let the outdated decor and dinner jazz playlist as of this Entertainment District trattoria dissuade you— so long as you’re hungry, there’s no better place to be. Servers are simultaneously efficient and laid back, a mix that suggests an all-too-rare awareness of hospitality that is genuine. The menu features humble Tuscan basics—tons of plenty and boar of beans— but the dishes arrive to the table expertly cooked and conceived. A well-timed glug sage butter and chicken livers, tossed with gold house-made tagliatelle and briny capers, to some plane that was divine. While the short ribs are popular, the rabbit entrée is superlative, its meat softly cooked sous vide before being dusted with flour, deep fried and plated with broiled greens and lemony fingerlings. It’s a sly showstopper, memorable exactly because of its simplicity that is brazen , masterfully executed. Which, come to think of it, also describes Tutti Matti to a T.