48 Hours in Downtown Toronto: History, Food, Views, and More

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48 Hours in Downtown Toronto: History, Food, Views, and More

Downtown Toronto is maybe one of the more underrated cities to visit in North America. While it’s no New York City or Seattle destination, Toronto has a very multi-cultural food scene that we found underrated. I (Sylvia) visit Toronto almost once per month for work, and had to take the opportunity to spend a solid weekend exploring the city. Read below to see how to plan out your weekend in downtown Toronto.

Planning Your Trip to Toronto

Best Time to Visit Toronto

downtown toronto in late september

The best time to visit Toronto is definitely in summer or early fall. Winters can be particularly brutal for those who are not used to living up here, and you never know when the last snow fall will be (April? May?). We did our trip at the very end of September/beginning of October and the weather was perfect. Any later and it starts getting cold, which isn’t ideal if you want to walk around and explore downtown Toronto.

The best time to visit Toronto is summer or early fall.

How Many Days to See Downtown Toronto?

You really don’t need more than 2 days to see downtown Toronto. You could honestly see all the highlights in a single day, if you wanted to arrive on a Friday and leave on Sunday morning/afternoon. Now, if you want to adequately explore the food scene, you’d need more like a month to taste it all. But, just to see the highlights, a few days is plenty.

2 days, or 48 hours, is plenty to see downtown Toronto. Add a day if planning to visit Niagara Falls.

Best Places to Stay in Downtown Toronto

To make most of the destinations walkable, you’ll want to stay in the heart of downtown, either by the waterfront or nearby neighborhoods. Here are some neighborhood options and their perks:

  • Old Toronto: most centrally located
  • Harbourfront: centrally located with views of Lake Ontario (but higher costs), also close to the waterfront trail if you enjoy a good walk/bike/run
  • Kensington Market: probably the more “fun” and quirky neighborhood to stay in, if you want to be close to good food, bars, vibes, etc but open to walking a bit more to get to downtown

If you’re open to staying at a Marriott chain, here are my list of favorite hotels to stay in downtown:

  • Toronto Marriott City Centre: such a cool hotel because it’s attached to the Rogers Centre (so yes, it gets expensive when there is a game or concert). The rooms are also arranged in a ring around the stadium, so it can be quite the hike to get to your room.
  • Delta Hotels: one of my favorites because of it’s central location, proximity to the waterfront trail, AND it’s incredible views of downtown Toronto from the club lounge. Check out the photos above for reference!
  • Sheraton Centre Toronto: it doesn’t have the most up-to date rooms, but the location is good. This one I like because of the HUGE lounge, but also the lap pool and gym are the best of all the Marriott’s I’ve visited. If you happen to be constantly training for some endurance race like us, this one is the best.

How to Get to Toronto

If you live in Michigan, the Buffalo, NY area, or within Ontario, then the obvious choice is to drive. Toronto is only a few hours from Buffalo (plus traffic and customs) and only 4 hours from Detroit suburbia. Toronto Pearson (YYZ) is a massive international hub, so it should be easy to find flights into the city from most places. It’s also only a 20-30 minute Uber with light traffic to downtown Toronto.

How to Get Around Downtown Toronto

Once in downtown Toronto, it’s easy to walk, take public transit, or Ubers to explore the city. 90% of our top destinations are within walking distance of each other. A few spots, such as Casa Loma or if you want to visit Niagara Falls, would require a car.

Google Map of Tagged Location in Downtown Toronto

As with all of our travel destinations, we always compile a convenient Google Map of all the places we went to and researched (because, as you can imagine, we don’t get to everything, but if we’ve done the research we might as well pass it along). You can check out the Google Map of Toronto below and also find out complete list of maps on our Travel Maps page.

Top Things to Do in Downtown Toronto

For a complete list and details on the top things to do in downtown Toronto, check our our blog post: Top 10 Things to do in Toronto. We will include all top things in our itinerary below, but if you just want the quick and dirty, here’s our list:

Toronto City Pass

For information purposes only (this is not sponsored), it’s good to know before you plan your trip to Toronto that they have a city pass available if you plan on hitting multiple destinations and want to save some money. The city pass includes Casa Loma, the CN Tower, and the water ferry from our list of recommended destinations. If you do only these three, the you break even with the pass. If you do more from their list (Royal Ontario Museum, Science Centre, Zoo) then the pass becomes worth it. The pass is ~$99 CAD. Admission to the CN Tower is $43 CAD, Casa Loma is ~$45 CAD, and the ferry ride is ~$9 CAD.

48 Hours in Downtown Toronto Itinerary

For the sake of this 48 hour itinerary, we’re going to assume you arrive in Toronto on an evening, and depart 48 hours later. If you get in and leave at a different time, you can shuffle meals and such around to fit your itinerary (ie move this first Friday evening dinner to Sunday evening).

In advance of planning your trip to Toronto, if you’re into sports, you’ll likely want to check out a Jay’s or Leaf’s game. Check out their schedules and plan around the game(s) using the sample itinerary below.

Evening 1: Dinner and Drinks

The first thing you’re going to do in Toronto, is eat. Toronto has some of the most (in density) international cuisines we have ever seen. You walk down Queens street and ever little shop is something different: French, Indian, Egyptian, Mexican, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Thai, Italian, etc. For your first evening in Toronto, pick your cuisine of choice at a top-rated restaurant and enjoy the city at night. Some recommendations are:

  • Quetzal: Michellin-rated Mexican, need a reservation
  • Pai: award-winning Thai, reservations recommended. Get the assorted platter or the laab salad (our favorite)
  • Canadian: Maple Leaf Tavern, Aloette (reservations recommended)
  • Spanish: Bar Isabel (also great for drinks)

There are way too many restaurants in Toronto to list them all, but just check the reviews and you should be good to go!

If you’re looking for some cool drink experiences for after dinner, here are some options to check out:

  • Bar Chef: all syrups and infusions made in-house for an emphasis on high quality cocktail ingredients for drinks made with a modern technique
  • Bar Raval: for the vibes, a Barcelona-esque bar with small plates to share
  • Shameful Tiki Room: for the full tiki experience – very dark with no windows to the outside!

PS you can see all of our recommendations on our Google Map above or on our Travel Maps page.

Full Day 1: Hockey, Markets, Districts, and Culinary Adventures

Morning

To energize yourself for a big day, we recommend getting a light or hearty breakfast from a local coffee shop (Tim Horton’s, anyone??) or from St. Lawrence Market – specifically a breakfast sandwich from Paddington’s Pub (home of the oink!). You can’t go wrong with a pemeal bacon sandwich, or pastry from a local coffee shop like Dineen or Jimmy’s (if you want to avoid the classic Tim Horton’s). Regardless of your breakfast choice, head to St. Lawrence Market to window shop, eat, explore, etc.

After breakfast, head to the Hockey Hall of Fame. Whether you like hockey or not, the museum is very well put together, offering a peak into the history of the sport, monumental wins, hall of famers, and immersive experiences like the life-size changing room, shoot out, and goalie practice stations.

Afternoon

For lunch, we recommend hitting up one or two spots. Mystic Muffin is the perfect spot for a quick falafel sandwich and apple cake. Afterwards, head over to the Distillery District to enjoy a drink, ice cream, snack, or meal part 2. When the weather is nice, there are plenty of food trucks, live music, and more to enjoy. If you’d prefer to sit down for a nicer lunch, skip Mystic Muffin and pick a restaurant in the area.

For the afternoon, if you want to check out another museum, head over to the Ripley’s Aquarium for fun adventures with the fish and sea creatures. Alternatively, this might be a good point to check out a Jay’s or Leaf’s game, depending on their schedule.

Evening

For dinner, we recommend a couple options. One of our recommendations for the CN Tower is to actually get a reservation at the 360 Restaurant at the top, as it allows you to skip the line and go up a separate elevator. Though the experience is worth it, if you’re a big foodie, it is not THE BEST food you can find in Toronto. So, either do the CN Tower for dinner, or, do the CN Tower and then head to a restaurant of your choosing for dinner (we recommend checking out something in Kensington Market!). After the CN Tower, spend the rest of your night eating or drinking and exploring the Kensington Market neighborhood.

Day 2: Castles, Pizza, and Islands

Morning

For your second day in Toronto, grab a light breakfast, because you’re going to load up on delicious pizza for lunch. For the morning, grab an Uber or take your car to Casa Loma (parking is quite expensive so it might still be worth taking an Uber). Spend a few hours exploring the castle before driving over to Pizzeria Badiali for lunch.

Pizzeria Badiali generally has a long line for lunch and dinner, but it’s worth the wait. Expect to wait 30 minutes – 1 hour for slices. Alternatively, you can pre-order entire pizza’s online for takeout. Seating is limited, so you’ll probably want to grab the slices to go anyways. By far, their best pizza is the vodka, with the hot honey for dipping. The rest of the pizzas are also delicious, so pick your preferred toppings.

Afternoon

After lunch, head to the harbourfront to grab a ferry over to the Toronto Islands. For more details on pricing (around ~$9 CAD/adult round trip) and schedules, you can check out their website here. Honestly, the Toronto Islands were our least favorite destination during our weekend in Toronto, so if there’s anything you skip or replace with something else (like another museum, sports game, bar hopping, food tour, etc), this would be the thing to replace.

Once on the island, you can enjoy an afternoon on a beach, walk around, rent a canoe/kayak, rent a bike, check out the amusement park, etc. There aren’t any particularly spectacular restaurants or bars on the islands – for that we recommend staying back in downtown Toronto. Castaways Rum Shack is the only restaurant/bar on the island worth visiting.

Evening

At this point, your 48 hours are likely up. If not, pick another highly-rated, or even Michelin-rated restaurant for dinner. That’s a wrap! Hope you enjoy this itinerary.

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