It’s Fat Tuesday in Toronto, and while local tradition usually points to a tall stack of pancakes, there is another contender for your morning sugar fix: the paczki.
Pronounced pohnch-kee, these delicious deep-fried doughnuts are made from an exceptionally rich, egg-heavy dough, stuffed to the brim with custard or fruit preserves and finished with a blizzard of powdered sugar or a shiny glaze.
In North America, these treats are devoured today as the ultimate indulgence before Lent begins on Ash Wednesday. While the tradition falls on “Fat Thursday” back in Poland, the goal remains the same: a final, delicious blowout to use up the lard, sugar and eggs before the leaner days of spring set in.
Here is where to track down the best ones in Toronto today.
Benna’s Bakery & Deli
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Located on Roncesvalles, Benna’s Bakery & Deli is a Toronto staple, known for its family-friendly atmosphere and extensive selection of Polish specialty foods. Their paczki are a crowd favourite, and it’s easy to see why. These Polish doughnuts are perfectly light, airy and soft — not overly sweet, but still incredibly satisfying. With a variety of fillings — from fruit jam to custard — Benna’s paczki offer the perfect balance of indulgence without overwhelming your taste buds. Beyond paczki, the bakery’s in-house smoked meats, fish and deli options make it a must-visit for any lover of Polish cuisine.
Dimpflmeier Bakery
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Founded in 1957, Dimpflmeier Bakery has been serving up fresh, European-style breads and pastries for decades. This cozy, family-owned spot offers everything from fluffy cheese danishes to a tempting selection of pretzels, but it’s their paczki that really shine come Paczki Day. Made in-house daily, these are filled with a variety of delicious options: plum, custard, lemon, strawberry and plain. Each one is light, fresh, and perfectly balanced with just the right amount of sweetness without being overpowering.
Janchenko Bakery
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Located in Bloor West Village, Janchenko’s is a beloved, family-run Eastern European bakery that’s been serving up traditional pastries, cakes and comfort food for over 60 years. With a focus on wholesome ingredients and old-world recipes, their menu includes everything from borscht and pierogies to European tortes and fresh-baked breads. Their paczki are a standout — light, and fluffy and filled with plum jam, apple, raspberry, or custard, all for just $2 each.
Basket of Bread Bakery
@basketofbread.bakery/Instagram
Basket of Bread, a small, family-run European-style bakery, specializes in a variety of breads, buns and donuts — and their paczki are no exception. With a slightly denser texture than typical doughnuts, these paczki strike the perfect balance of tart and sweet, including a standout rosewater filling.
Hastings Snack Bar
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Hastings, a cozy lunch counter with a retro vibe, has quickly become a go-to spot for Polish comfort food, serving up freshly made paczki alongside a menu of traditional Polish dishes. The paczki — stuffed with plum, raspberry and custard — are the star here, but it’s the entire experience that makes Hastings a standout. With the kitchen right behind the counter, you can watch all the action unfold while enjoying your treat, making it feel like a hidden gem in Toronto.
Opulence, luxe and experience — that’s what you’ll find at Dhoom, a modern Indian restaurant that just opened in Toronto’s east end.
Located at 417 Danforth Avenue, Dhoom is the latest venture from brothers Sohail and Sajid Rayani, who are no strangers to bringing their hometown flavours to Toronto. Building on the success of Royal Baithak on Queen Street and the Biryaniwalla franchise in Koreatown, the Rayanis aim to capture the energy and vibe of India’s jamming sessions with Dhoom.
“India predominantly caters to their guests with a lot of food — that’s one of their languages of love. They want to be able to feed other people, feed their guests,” says marketing director Silvia Puthuva. “We didn’t want to sell just food. We wanted to build an experience and a culture.”
Dhoom has already shown it’s up for the challenge. From live music and private events to a full week of Valentine’s programming, the restaurant proves it knows how to deliver bold flavours and elevated experiences with a sense of adventure.
“In every Indian household, family gatherings mean sitting together and eating,” says Puthuva. “Once the main events are done, everyone’s relaxing with drinks, someone’s playing music and for a moment, you forget all your problems. You’re just talking and enjoying each other’s company — that sense of comfort is exactly what we wanted to create at Dhoom.”
When you enter the expansive, two-storey restaurant, you’ll be engulfed in clean, neutral tones that are inviting and can transition into a more intimate space when the lights dim. Minimalist and boho, the dining room is as modern as it gets.
“We’re on Danforth Avenue, surrounded by restaurants that honour Greek culture,” she says. “We wanted to show the same respect, which is why every detail was meticulously planned.”
Curated by chef Balram Reddy, the menu bursts with familiar favourites like biryani, tandoori chicken and tikka masala. For an immersive burst of flavour, Dhoom serves a gin pani puri, an Indian street food that consists of crispy shells filled with potatoes. It’s served with a green mint-tinted water — both alcoholic and non-alcoholic versions available—which gets poured into the puri for both a playful and refined taste.
Though the signature drink is an experiential guava cocktail, mocktails are not overlooked at this eatery. The drinks celebrate the flavours and tastes of India with jamun as a star for one, and paan — a digestive in India made from paan leaves — inspiring another.
Though Dhoom has just started making its mark in Toronto, there are already big plans ahead. Soon they will be launching a daily Canadian brunch menu, complete with avocado toast, pancakes, smoothies and the works. According to Puthuva, they also have plans to make use of the in-house brewery.
As the Year of the Fire Horse kicks off on Feb. 17, Toronto’s Spadina and Dundas neighbourhood is the place to be. While the city evolves, these Chinatown OGs remain the heartbeat of the neighbourhood. Whether you are celebrating Lunar New Year or Tết, these five institutions offer the perfect blend of tradition, nostalgia and seriously good food.
Located at 484 Dundas St. W., this Spadina-area staple has been holding court for more than three decades. Known affectionately by regulars as “the Hog,” it offers the ultimate “choose-your-own-adventure” dining experience with an expansive menu split across multiple booklets. The massive, bustling dining room is designed to swallow you whole — making it perfect for large family reunions — and it remains one of the last true late-night sanctuaries in the neighbourhood, staying open into the early hours of the morning. It is a true “grand dame” of Chinatown that perfectly preserves the roots and traditions of the area for the next generation.
Swatow Restaurant
Dishing out soul-warming Cantonese fare for more than four decades at 309 Spadina Ave., Swatowis a rite of passage for any Torontonian. If you haven’t sat at their crowded tables while the kitchen hums at high speed, you haven’t truly experienced Chinatown. The vibe is defined by high-energy, lightning-fast service and no-nonsense decor, serving up massive portions that don’t mess around. Their shrimp wonton soup and General Tso’s chicken are legendary, representing a generational hand-off of flavour where parents who ate here as students now bring their own kids.
For those celebrating Tết (Vietnamese Lunar New Year), Phở Hưnglocated at 350 Spadina Ave., has been a family-run destination since 1985. It is a cornerstone of the Vietnamese community in the downtown core, offering a clean, bright and reliable atmosphere. The draw here is the consistency; their expertly balanced pho and crispy spring rolls taste the same on your 50th visit as they did on your first. It remains the ideal spot to honour Vietnamese traditions with authentic flavours.
Rol San
Rol San
You can’t talk about Toronto Chinatown without mentioning Rol San at 388 Spadina Ave., which recently moved its 30-year legacy into a new updated room just a few doors down from its original space. Always packed and bustling, it’s famous for the neon fish in the window that signals a “safe haven” for hungry locals and remains the gold standard for all-day dim sum — even for Turning Red director Domee Shi. Non-negotiable orders include their deep-fried squid tentacles and shrimp har gow. The walls might be new but the soul of the restaurant remains the same.
Founded in 2005 by Zhen Feng at 421 Spadina Ave., this spotbegan as a tiny eight-table basement nook and grew into a Michelin-recognized tour de force. It focuses on the hearty, soul-warming flavours of Northeastern China, serving up recipes passed down from Zhen’s own mother in a welcoming space where you can watch the kitchen team hand-rolling dough through the window. Since dumplings represent “wealth” (resembling ancient silver ingots) for the Lunar New Year, there is no better place to enjoy a heaping plate of boiled pork and dill or pan-fried lamb dumplings.
At age 37, and with two Olympics already under his belt, Toronto skier Kevin Drury is feeling “relaxed” heading into the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics. As the veteran athlete put it when he announced he would be representing Canada at the Games this year, this marks his “one last kick at the can.” He’s doing so after an incredibly successful recent season that ended in a gold medal at a ski cross World Cup event in December 2025 — Canada’s first in five years. Here, the freestyle skier gives us the rundown of how he’s prepared for his final shot at the podium.
Your event is coming up soon; how are you feeling?
[This] being my third Games definitely takes some pressure off. You get used to the atmosphere. That’s why I probably feel more relaxed than I have in the past.
Does the novelty wear off?
The novelty doesn’t wear off. The Olympics are incredible. It’s such a cool experience. The pressure, though, I definitely have got used to it. In the past, most of my pressure was put on by myself, which I guess most of the time it is, but it was more of a pressure of: this is such a big, big scale competition that a lot of people in the world are watching. You didn’t want to feel like a failure if you had a bad race. Eight years later from Pyeongchang, I’m definitely much more able to deal with that and just ski.
You performed super well this past year. Was there some motivation to make the Olympics?
The biggest factor was I got some injections in my knee, some protein-rich plasma injection. I’ve had patalitendonitis for four years and it was to the point where I was going to retire. It hurt to walk downstairs. That summer — I’d just gotten shoulder surgery from a crash in February 2024 — I figured if I’m out already, I might as well try these injections, and they worked amazing. I could finally ski without pain. That really just made the difference, focusing on the skiing and on myself rather than every time I go down the course, trying to avoid my knee hurting.
Courtesy alpinecanada.org
What are your hopes for the current games? Everyone obviously wants to medal, but how is it different for you this year?
Definitely a medal is obviously the goal, but at the same time, it’s ski cross and anything can happen. My main goal is just to execute my skiing, execute a good race. If I get lucky, great. If I get unlucky, that’s part of the sport. But I will walk away happy if I executed well and I didn’t lose because I made a mistake.
Since everyone is sectioned off, what’s the vibe like where you are?
It’s still amazing because there is every country. We have [in Livigno, the freestyle village] moguls, aerials, half pipe, slopestyle, parallel giant slalom, snowboard cross. There are a ton of athletes in the village, so it is very cool to meet people that you don’t usually get to meet. But there is definitely one downside of being in these clusters: you don’t get to meet the sports outside of your field.
We’re never around cross-country skiers and we’re never around ski jumpers — even for that matter, hockey players. I’ve had teammates in the past that got to go to Vancouver 2010, and they would say you could go down to the dining hall and you can sit with Sidney Crosby at breakfast. That would be freaking cool.
Do you find that you have more niche conversations because everyone is on the same page?
Totally. There’s absolutely that level of, it doesn’t matter how famous you are outside, especially on team Canada. You’re an Olympian here. It is just such a cool atmosphere that everyone has an equal level of respect for each athlete.
That’s very heartwarming.
In normal everyday life, I’m a three-time Olympian but if I walked up to Nathan McKinnon and was like, “Hey, do you wanna grab dinner?”, he’d be like, “Who are you?” But when you’re wearing Team Canada gear, and you’re in the village, everyone is on the same level playing field.
Apart from the thrill of competing, what are you most looking forward to?
Representing Canada. I love wearing our Olympic suits. I love having the support that comes with being here. It’s incredible seeing just how many people are supporting not just me, but everyone on my team. It’s incredible.
There isn’t too much great skiing to be had in the Toronto region. How did you get into this?
I grew up in Moore Park. My parents would drive three and a half hours every weekend down just south of Buffalo to Ellicottville, New York. I fell in love with ski racing there, and it kind of progressed. We had some friends from Buffalo going to an academy in Lake Placid, New York. I decided, “Let’s try it,” and spent three years there. I made the Ontario ski team, did really well, but fell short of the national team in Alpine. Then I went to the University of Vermont and raced division one there. I was the national runner up.
I was always the kid that, with all my slalom gear on, slalom skis, downhill suit, would go into the park and start hucking back flips. I like jumps, and I like the intensity of ski cross. I gave it a shot and fell in love with it immediately.
What goes through your mind when you’re doing a higher risk jump?
Honestly, joy. I love it. I think to be good at this sport you have to be a bit of an adrenaline junkie. I love getting scared. I would say I’m very calculated with my risk. I’ve been in ski cross for 12 years and I’ve only been hurt twice, so pretty good. And those were just fluke things. It wasn’t like I made a mistake. It was just getting caught by another person’s ski. Not much goes through my head other than, “This is awesome. I love it.”
Do you have any advice for young athletes who are trying to get into the sport?
Certainly [for] ski cross, keep up your alpine career. To be really successful at ski cross, you need to have the foundations to be able to create speed out of a turn and be able to handle really high G-forces in turns. Everything else is a learning curve as you get older.
In terms of making the Olympics, what’s something you would want to tell your younger self?
Don’t give up. My dream when I was a very little kid was to make the Olympics, and I thought that that was going to be in alpine. There was definitely a period after school where I didn’t make the national team, so I could have tried to go solo for a year and requalify, but that just gets so expensive. One of my best friends was doing ski cross at the time. There where I thought, “I might just stop.” I didn’t, and I’m so thankful I didn’t. Never give in.
Is there a more iconic duo than a chilled martini and a hot side of fries? (Sorry, Harry and Zoë, but no.) This pairing is the “little treat” to end all little treats. We’ve scouted the chicest spots in Toronto where the lighting is dim, the martinis are ice-cold and the fry-to-cocktail ratio is exactly what your soul needs. Grab your girls (or guys), skip the gym and head to these spots — because you’ve definitely earned a dirty martini
Here is where to get your after-work fix.
The Joneses
Why wait for happy hour when you can have a martini for lunch? The Jonesesis making the Tinis & Taters life a daily reality with a $20 all-day special that’s hard to beat. You pick your fighter from five classic styles — whether you’re a dirty olive fan or a Gibson onion purist — and it’ll come served up ice-cold alongside a pile of hot truffle fries. 33 Yonge St.
Bar Reyna
Yorkville’s favourite Victorian house just got a massive glow up with Bar Reyna’sGolden Hour deals that are the perfect excuse to check it out. Snag a $14 martini and pair it with Bar Reyna’s $10 fries, with Spanish, Greek or Arabic flavours. Head to the year-round back patio for a Mediterranean escape that feels way more expensive than it actually is. 158 Cumberland St.
Azhar
Monday night at Ossington favourite Azharis basically a salt-rimmed middle finger to the work week. The bar keeps that fire-driven energy going with $10 martinis and $8 crispy za’atar fries with garlic aïoli while DJ Mar spins. It’s exactly where you want to be when you aren’t ready for the weekend to end. 96 Ossington Ave.
Joey
Who says toys are the only way to make a meal “happy”? Joey is serving up a high-end nostalgic hit with their Adult Snack Packs. This pairing swaps the cardboard box for a sophisticated duo: a side of their famous, aromatic truffle fries and a crisp mini Mmartini. Priced at $17, you can customize your snack with either Ketel One Vodka or Tanqueray Gin (1.5oz). All Joey locations
Jump
Before the Financial District turned all glass and chrome, Jump was the first real anchor. It still has that Manhattan power-lunch energy, with a huge New York-style bar and a soaring glass atrium that’s seen decades of deal-making. A Financial District lifer that still draws the after-work crowd. Happy Hour runs Monday to Friday from 2 to 6 p.m. The draw here is a $12 Blushing Margarita (2 oz.) and delicious bar bites like their drool-worthy truffle fries.
Another long weekend is finally here — and this one is all about love. Whether you’re celebrating Valentine’s Day with friends or a date or reuniting with loved ones for Family Day, there’s plenty of things to do in Toronto to keep your weekend busy.
Steve Aoki is celebrating a big anniversary in the best way: a tour! Called the Dim Mak 30th Anniversary Tour, he’ll be coming to Toronto on Sunday with support from Joyride and Nostalgix for the celebration.
Everyone loves ABBA, so what better way to spend Valentine’s Day than belting out “Lay All Your Love on Me” among fans? ABBA Revisited recreates the magic of the Swedish pop group with authentic costumes, incredible harmonies and all your favourite tunes, taking you back in time to when ABBA ruled the earth.
The Winter Stations are back this upcoming Monday, just in time to rescue you from the impending winter blues. Featuring some of the most incredible installations from international artists stationed across the east end beaches, make a trip out of visiting each one.
From Friday to Sunday, the Winterfolk Blues and Roots Festival is back, and it will be the place to be for music lovers looking for a laidback and casual festival atmosphere showcasing an array of talented performers across the blues, roots and folk genres. This year’s lineup includes Donne Roberts Band, Jessie Greene, Toney Springer, Brian Gladstone Band, Clela Errington and so much more.
There are countless iconic lines from The Princess Bride that have become a part of our language, from “Mawwiage!” to “As you wish.” Relive them all with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra on Friday and Saturday as they bring to life Mark Knopfler’s whimsical score.
Tara Conner Jones and the ‘Some Like It Hot’ touring company. Photo courtesy Matthew Murphy
Musical lovers won’t want to mis the premiere of Some Like It Hot, the Tony Award-winning show set in Chicago during Prohibition and following two musicians who flee the city after witnessing a mob hit. Expect big laughs, stellar choreography and incredibly catchy music!
Experience a unique celebration at the upcoming Erotic Arts and Crafts Fair hosted at Parkdale Hall. On Valentine’s Day this Saturday, a diverse array of knitters, crafters, zinesters, card makers and more will come together to create a one-of-a-kind atmosphere. Meet indie creators as they showcase their work exploring and celebrating themes of sex, sexuality, sexual health, gender and pleasure.
Spend all long weekend at the Harbourfront Centre with the whole family! Prepare for skating (and performances set to disco grooves and modern pop hits on the ice), musical storytelling adventures, a skate night featuring a drag queen and some hands-on art activities.
Canadian country music singer Josh Ross is returning back home from his new home, Nashville, for his Later Tonight tour — in support of his debut full-length album by the same name. See the Canadian Country Music Association’s Entertainer of the Year live!
A full moon isn’t the only celestial phenomenon Torontonians have to look forward to this year. The city’s most photogenic sun alignment takes place this Sun, Feb 15, 2026. It’s called Torontohenge: the moment when the setting sun lines up with the city’s east-west downtown street grid, sending a straight beam of light down between buildings!
The name is a nod to Manhattanhenge, a similar phenomenon popularized by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, but Toronto’s version is just as (or even more) stunning.
Although it happens four times a year (with two sunrises and two sunsets), the mid-February sunset is often the Torontohenge moment people talk about the most, perhaps because it lands right when the city starts noticing that winter’s early darkness is easing up.
According to TimeandDate, here are the key ‘Torontohenge’ dates and times to look out for in 2026:
Feb 15, 2026 (sunset): around 5:47 pm
Apr 19, 2026 (sunrise): around 6:28 am
Aug 23, 2026 (sunrise): around 6:31 am
Oct 25, 2026 (sunset): around 6:18 pm
The best part is, you don’t need a telescope to see it, and there’s no need to head to a remote part of the city. Just look for a long, straight, east-west street with tall buildings on both sides and a relatively open view toward the horizon.
Some of the best viewing spots downtown include King St W (especially near Roy Thomson Hall), Wellington St W, Adelaide St W and Richmond St W. As per the Weather Network, the perfect alignment lasts for about two to three minutes, and you’ll want to arrive at least 30 minutes before sunrise or sunset so you can watch the sun slide into place (and so you’re not sprinting to a spot while everyone else is already set up!)
If you happen to miss February’s exact peak time, the sun will be in similar, highly photogenic positions for a few days before and after the peak. So, if the sky cooperates, you can capture an Insta-ready moment right down the middle of the street grid.
Millennials are about to embark on a nostalgic journey, as one of the most recognizable pop icons of the 2000s hits the road this summer. Hilary Duff will be travelling the world — including Toronto — on The Lucky Me Tour, marking her first major global headline run in almost 20 years. The tour will celebrate the arrival of Duff’s upcoming studio album, luck… or something, which includes her new single “Roommates.”
For Toronto fans, there will be a summer show at RBC Amphitheatre on Aug. 12, 2026. If you miss it, the tour swings back through Ontario with a Hamilton stop at TD Coliseum on Feb. 2, 2027 (but honestly, why not just do both?).
Torontonians actually got a preview of Duff’s return to the stage earlier this year: she played a more intimate show at History on Jan. 24, as part of her Small Rooms, Big Nerves tour run. Before that, her last major headlining Toronto date went way back to September 2007 on her Dignity Tour, when she performed at the then-Air Canada Centre.
This time around, Duff’s Canadian tour includes nine cities total, with additional dates listed for Vancouver (Jan. 22, 2027), Calgary (Jan. 26, 2027), Edmonton (Jan. 27, 2027), Winnipeg (Jan. 30, 2027), Ottawa (Feb. 4, 2027), Montreal (Feb. 5, 2027) and Halifax (Feb. 7, 2027).
How to get tickets to Hilary Duff’s world tour
For early access to tickets, you’ll need to register ahead of time for Duff’s artist presale, beginning Feb. 18 at 10 a.m. (sign up by Feb 16 at 6 pm to participate). The presale is being run across multiple ticketing sites, and anyone who registers will be able to join; for presales hosted on Ticketmaster, access is tied to your account (so no code is required). If you miss the presale window, tickets are expected to open to the general public on Feb 20 at 10 am.
In addition to Duff, fans will get to listen to her amazing support acts across different legs of the tour, including La Roux, Jade LeMac and Lauren Spencer Smith, who’s set to join the 2027 Canadian run.
Click here for more info and to sign up for presales!
Toronto athlete Shaquille Murray-Lawrence’s path to the Olympics started in an entirely different sport — one that doesn’t even exist in the Games. A professional football player in the CFL, it was his power and speed on the field as a running back that caught the eye of recruiters for Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton in 2017.
It’s a pipeline well-travelled now by quite a few CFL and NFL players — one that was forged, in Murray-Lawrence’s eyes, by Jesse Lumsden. The former CFL athlete made the transition to bobsleigh back in 2010, competing in three Olympic Games.
“You’ve got to be fast; you’ve got to be strong,” Murray-Lawrence says of the connection between the two sports. “I do think the grit and the resilience that football players have makes it an easy transition for us for other sports.”
Heading into the 2026 Milano Cortina Games, this will be Murray-Lawrence’s Olympic debut — the 32-year-old was named as an alternate on Team Canada for bobsleigh at the 2022 Olympic Winter Games in Beijing.
“I would say the theme of the last four years has been redemption,” he says. “I earned a spot on that roster [in 2022] and I was snubbed because politics and stuff got involved.”
In 2022, more than 60 athletes signed a letter sent to the Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton’s board of directors, calling for the resignation of the president and high performance director at the time. The letter addressed issues such as safety, transparency and governance, alleging that staff have made decisions on team selection based on biases.
Murray-Lawrence, along with multiple other bobsledders of colour, have called out systemic racism within the national bobsled organization.
The former CFL athlete says he decided to stick it out after the 2022 Olympics with one goal in mind: “I had to make sure I was undoubtedly the best at my position for all four years.”
“My coaches always told me, ‘Don’t make it close. If you make it close, you’re leaving it up to chance,'” he says. “That way, there’s no chance of me being snubbed.”
Murray-Lawrence was undoubtedly successful, securing a spot on both the two-man and four-man bobsled teams for the 2026 Olympics.
With his first event, two-man bobsleigh, just a few days away, he’s staying focused. “I’m hoping to bring home some hardware; that’s the ultimate goal. I think that would cement my athletic legacy,” he says. “I’ve dominated in two different fields, one summer sport and one winter, so this would just cement everything I’ve done and put in when it comes to my athletic career.”
Regardless of the results, he’s fulfilling a dream he’s had since he was a kid: “I always knew I was born and destined to do something great in sports.”
Murray-Lawrence says he was told by teachers to “have a plan B,” but he didn’t listen. “My plan B was my plan A,” he says.
When people talk about how dangerous winter Olympic sports are compared to the summer Olympics, it’s often sports like bobsleigh that come to mind. Speeding down an ice track in a 600-kilogram sled at up to 150 km/h, the threat of injury is high. It’s an aspect of the sport covered in last month’s three-part CBC documentary Redemption Run, following Canada’s bobsleigh athletes (including Murray-Lawrence) on the road to the Olympics.
But the bobsledder says the danger is just not something he can think too much about. “There’s just not a lot that’s in your control as a brakeman. Once you’re done pushing, it’s kind of between God and the pilot and Mother Nature.”
Mindset-wise, Murray-Lawrence says football has more than prepared him for the world stage of the Olympics. “Going into every race, I just have to have that swagger, that attitude that I had on the football field. I may not fit into whatever typical mould people think of; I’m from Scarborough, I wear it on my sleeve, proud of it, and I will not change for anyone,” he says. “I think that has helped me in this sport. I’m able to just be free. You get on the block, and it’s just you versus you.”
One of Toronto’s most talked-about “tiny restaurant” concepts may have shut down.
Com Nuoc was a Vietnamese takeout spot operating out of a red shipping container in Riverside, and it now appears that the Queen St E eatery has closed just months after debuting in July 2025.
While there’s been no public statement confirming the news, the restaurant’s web presence has largely vanished and Google lists Com Nuoc as “temporarily closed”, and both its website and Instagram page have quietly disappeared. On DoorDash, the restaurant’s page says it’s “not active” and “not available…right now.”
When it opened last summer, Com Nuoc quickly became the go-to place to grab tasty Vietnamese dishes in Toronto’s east end. Customers ordered everything from rice and noodle dishes to the signature pork-chop-rice plate (cơm thịt nướng), as well as sides like spring rolls and even an egg “meatloaf,” complemented with sauces made from scratch. Part of the restaurant’s charm included ordering from a tiny service window tucked away in a laneway setup behind a Riverside hair salon. For customers who wanted to dine out, there was even a rooftop patio on top of the container!
If anything, the recent news is another reminder of just how tough the market has become. A recent analysis from the Toronto Association of Business Improvement Areas shows that restaurants are being squeezed by rising labour costs, climbing commercial rents, and price-conscious consumers who are dining out less, while a forecast from Dalhousie University’s Agri-Food Analytics Lab estimates that about 7,000 restaurants closed across Canada last year, with another 4,000 closures projected by 2026.
There are few things Toronto loves more than a good sandwich — and even fewer things the internet loves more than telling you you’re wrong for enjoying one. Tucked inside the West Window at 161 Baldwin St., Uncle Pete’s Bread & Co. opened its doors in August 2025 and has already entered the chat.
After an instantly successful opening, the team behind the window started thinking about how to bring Toronto something warmer and more comforting as the weather turned. Enter The Chino — the sandwich that went on to ignite a full-blown comment-section war.
The Chino is Uncle Pete’s answer to a warm vegetarian sandwich — and depending on who you ask, it’s either a stroke of genius or a crime against humanity. Built on fresh-baked rosemary focaccia, it stacks a mozzarella-stuffed arancini, finished with local hot honey chili oil and chef Lou’s marinara. In short: bread, fried rice, cheese and more bread. No meat. No problem. That is, until Reddit got involved. One devoted Chino fan took to a thread to share their discovery of this oily, cheesy, decadent indulgence and the sandwich became instantly polarizing.
“So you had a rice sandwich?” one commenter asked. “Carbs on carbs, ” says another, deadpanned. The comments began to pile in with the same critique. Baffled, amused, offended and yet myself? Intrigued. There seems to be a quieter minority across the city that are both ordering the sandwich and advocating for it.
My take? A carb-on-carb sandwich is hardly anything new, or scandolours. If you look beyond the Toronto carb-scape you’ll see that historically many cultures have committed the same carb-on-carb crime. In the UK, the chip butty (hot fries stacked between two pieces of buttered white toast bread) dates back to the 19th century, born out of industrial England as a cheap, filling, working-class staple. Spain has the bocadillo de tortilla, a potato omelette pressed into a baguette. India’s dabeli places spiced potatoes into a bun with chutneys.
The Chino
So why does The Chino feel so controversial now? According to Uncle Pete’s co-founder Petar “Pete” Petrovic, the reaction says more about the internet than the sandwich.
“It’s funny, ” he says. “Ninety-five percent of people who actually try it love it. The
loudest criticism is coming from people who haven’t eaten it.”
Petrovic explains that The Chino wasn’t designed to devise the masses, it was designed as a solution. As a shop that bakes its focaccia fresh daily, Uncle Pete’s is serious about minimizing food waste. Unsold bread doesn’t get tossed; it gets transformed into breadcrumbs that get toasted and used to coat the arancini patty itself, meaning yesterday’s focaccia becomes today’s sandwich.
“It just made sense,” Petrovic says. “Arancini is already incredible, risotto stuffed with cheese and fried. It’s salty, rich and fragrant with the rosemary. That flavour is the point.”
To balance all that richness, the team finishes the sandwich with a hot honey made using Rippa Chili Oil, a Toronto-based business founded by Nicola, an Australian woman who considers herself a “spice enthusiast” and has been described as a “powerhouse.”
The Unlce Pete’s Team
“We care really, really deeply about the Toronto angle,” Petrovic says. “Nicola’s incredible. She moved here from Australia, she lived in Malaysia, her mom lived in Hong Kong so her palate is just wild. I’ve honestly never seen someone with that kind of work ethic.”
That global background matters in a sandwich like The Chino, which Petrovic admits is intentionally indulgent. “This thing has a ton of salt. It’s very carby, very fatty, full of cheese,” he says. “It needs something to freshen it up.”
Instead of defaulting to a predictable heat hit, Uncle Pete’s worked with Rippa Chili Oil to build something more nuanced. “It’s not like a normal chili oil or hot honey where someone just dumps red pepper flakes into honey, ” Petrovic explains. “It’s really different. It’s layered. ” The result is an incredible hot honey that cuts through the richness before the team finishes it with their in-house marinara.
The team at Uncle Pete’s isn’t shying away from the debate. If anything, they’re amused by it.
“People say wild things online,” Petrovic laughs. “You forget sometimes that there’s a real person on the other side but honestly, it’s funny.”
A pair of ice dancers from the GTA just secured Canada their fourth bronze medal of the 2026 Winter Olympics. Figure skaters Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier captured bronze on Wednesday afternoon, marking their first Olympic medal after 15 years of skating together.
The ice dancing pair scored 86.18 in their opening rhythm dance, placing them in third. It was their free dance that secured them the bronze medal, scoring 131.56 for a total score of 217.74.
Gilles and Poirier both shed some tears at the end of their season’s-best free dance performance, as the crowd around them erupted, many waving Canadian flags.
The team went viral on Tuesday after a near-wardrobe malfunction during their rhythm dance — Poirier arm cuff snagged on Gilles’ tights during a lift and almost fell to the ice. Gilles quickly snatched up the cuff before it hit the ground and held onto it for the remainder of the skate, narrowly avoiding a one-point deduction that would have dropped them from their third place podium position.
France’s Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron won gold, while Americans Madison Chock and Evan Bates took silver.
Gilles and Poirier have competed in three Olympics together as an ice dancing pair. They made their Olympic debut at the 2018 PyeongChang Games, finishing in eighth, and just missed the podium at the 2022 Beijing Games, finishing fourth.
Gilles was born in the United States but studied fashion design at Toronto Metropolitan University and became a Canadian citizen in 2013 (her mother is Canadian). After two previous skating partners, she teamed up with Poirier to represent Team Canada in 2011.
Poirier was born in Ottawa and grew up in Unionville, attending the University of Toronto. He skated at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics with a different ice dance partner, Vanessa Crone.
Gilles and Poirier’s medal finish marks what likely will be a happy ending to their decorated careers — both aged 34, this is expected to be their final Olympics.
