Hi everyone! I hope you’re having a beautiful week. Today we’re back with another city guide, courtesy of best friends (and Health Gossip alumni), Lu Rey and Victoria Vyraeth. Read on to hear more about their favorite places to dine, dance, and linger…and if you’re new, check out our previous guide to Portland, Oregon here.
Victoria and Lu’s Guide to Toronto
Toronto isn’t always easy to pin down. It constantly changes with you — depending on the season, the people you’re with, or, naturally, your mood. There are so many ways a day in this city can stretch and unfold. Sometimes it’s loud and strange; other times, it’s just you and a corner that feels like a secret.
In this guide, you’ll find places that are special to us, tied to precious memories, celebrations, and moments of quiet rest. We’ve organized the city loosely by categories. Think of it as slipping from morning to night, and you can mix, match, linger, or run. A day in the life, if you will.
Coffee and Tea
VV: The perfect morning in Toronto has to start with meeting a friend for coffee. No exceptions. That is what Lu and I did the first time we met — the first of many coffees! It is a Toronto initiation. And if you’re on your own, a book and a good corner seat feels just as social.
LR: In terms of cafés, I like quiet places that are not too crowded. Pleasant, low-volume music and natural or dim lighting are essential for me to enjoy my time and engage in conversation. Also, I judge a place by their cappuccinos; nobody gets the froth right these days.
Rooster Café across from Riverdale Park
Café
VV: Their café terrace gives you a full skyline view without even trying. Lu and I have spent so much time here this summer. I recommend the olive oil–orange muffin. I like to walk my coffee across the street to Riverdale Park and sit on the grass. The park has a track, tennis courts, a pool, and trails that wind toward the Don Valley. There’s even a calisthenics playground, which I think is pretty cool. It’s my favorite place to spend a day off, and one of the best spots in the city to catch an epic sunset, since it sits on a hill.
“I judge a place by their cappuccinos; nobody gets the froth right these days.” – Lu
The Company We Keep
Café
LR: My go-to spot when I want to get work done. They use Hewitt’s Dairy, which in my opinion, foams deliciously. They also have a great selection of healthy food. My typical order is the smoked trout salad and a double latte, extra foamy.
Bampot House
Tea House
LR: A wholesome, self-proclaimed “anti-café” serving a wide variety of teas. They have low tables and floor seating, so you can take your shoes off and linger over a cup of tea.
Rooms
Café (“They have multiple locations. My personal favorite is 915 Dupont.” – Lu)
LR: Maybe the best quality coffee and matcha I’ve encountered in the city. The space is inviting and tastefully decorated. This specific location closes around 4:30pm, then reopens as a listening lounge + cocktail bar until late, if you’re into that.
Forest Bathing
LR: I don’t think I got to truly love Toronto until I started spending more time in nature. Known as “a city within a park”, Toronto is shaped by a wide network of parks and ravines that weave through the city and make it easy to stay active and grounded. Whether that’s jogging, walking, biking, or meditating under the morning sun. Vic and I can easily spend hours sitting on the grass, moving in-between conversations and quiet moments of parallel play.
VV: The city is home to over 1,500 parks and 160 km of trails, from the ravines that slice through neighborhoods to the waterfront paths along Lake Ontario. Urban forests, secret wetlands, and community gardens are an essential part of how Torontonians live. It reminds me how to breathe. I feel most at home when I am outdoors.
High Park
Park
VV: High Park is Toronto’s largest green space with nearly 400 acres of forest trails, ponds, and gardens that make the city feel far away. If you’re into creature watching, keep an eye out for wood ducks and herons around Grenadier Pond, and great horned owls and red-tailed hawks. Bring your binoculars!! There’s even a petting zoo. Last time we went, Lu played classical music on her phone for the cows, and I started to cry.
Cedarvale Ravine
Ravine + park
LR: Walking here makes me feel connected to the world, to God, to my ancestors. To access the ravine, you either go down a small hill or walk down some steps. This means the trail sits gracefully below ground level, away from any traces of the city.
If you go here, climb the tree (you’ll know which one), make a wish, and watch it miraculously make its way into your life.
Beltline trail + Don Valley Brick Works Park
Trail
LR: The Beltline trail cuts through different mid-town Toronto neighborhoods. Along the way, the trees grow so tall they almost swallow the sky. The entire journey ends at Evergreen Brickworks Park, which is a community space with an incredible weekend farmer’s market.
Tommy Thompson Park
Beach
LR: One of the best places for bird-watching, with 300+ recorded species (from their website). I recommend biking there, as the walk from the entrance to the furthermost point, Pipit Point, is about an hour. But, you know…sometimes a 2-hour walk is exactly what the doctor ordered.
“Urban forests, secret wetlands, and community gardens are an essential part of how Torontonians live. It reminds me how to breathe.” – Victoria
Toronto Islands
Park + beach
LR: To get here, you have to take the ferry. Again, I suggest bringing your bike to move around freely. There are three main areas of the island, all interconnected. Hanlan’s Point is a nude beach and surprisingly calm in the early morning. Centre Island is busier, more family-oriented. My favorite is Ward’s Island. It has a small café, a quiet beach, and plenty of shaded grass to nap on once you’ve had enough sun.
Wellness Break
VV: I’ve recently gotten into Chinese acupuncture and cupping. Chinatown and Leslieville have some of the best certified practitioners. Living in Chinatown, I love wandering the tiny herbal shops, jars of dried roots and teas everywhere; right now, I’m obsessed with chrysanthemum tea. Toronto also has some pretty advanced, biohacker-friendly gyms and wellness spots, like Sweat and Tonic. But honestly, my favorite kind of reset is still simple: a budget gym, or lying on the grass in the park and letting the city slow down around me (and it is free sun exposure + micro-meditation).
LR: Admittedly, most of my main active and wellness moments happen in the privacy of my home or out in nature in the above-mentioned places. That being said, I do like to invest in facials and water therapy to help my skin and feel grounded in my body. Water is especially healing for me, particularly in winter when it is too cold to function and I miss my pre-Canada life, when weekends meant easy access to the Caribbean Sea.
Body Blitz
Women-only water therapy
LR: Discounted price on Tuesdays. By the pools, there’s a landline to call the front desk and order an Ayurvedic tea or protein smoothie while you float in the Dead Sea salt water. In between circuits (a loop of different variations of salt pool, eucalyptus steam, cold plunge, sauna, and hot Epsom salt pool) you can relax on their lounge chairs to meditate on your post-sauna revelations.
“Water is especially healing for me, particularly in winter when it is too cold to function and I miss my pre-Canada life…” – Lu
Banya No.2
Slavic-style sauna and tea room
LR: A little outside the city, but worth the drive for an authentic Slavic bathhouse. This place is very intentional and grounding to help you recover from the heavy stress of modern living.
Janina Esthetics
Esthetician
LR: A lot of my friends have come here through me and loved it. Their extractions are painful and far from glamorous, but Halyna knows what she’s doing. Your skin clears up beautifully afterward, and I love that they offer herbal peels instead of the usual chemical ones.
Health Markets, Crystals, & Esoteric Goods
LR: Victoria and I love dilly-dallying around the city with no real plan, letting the day unfold however it wants. Sometimes it goes nowhere; sometimes we end up with a bag full of little treasures we collected along the way. These are some of my personal favorites for both window and real shopping.
VV: If you’re into adaptogens, aura sprays, or just looking for a small ritual to reset your week, these spots pretty much define the city’s curiosity with alternative everything.
Carrot Common
A community-focused retail and wellness hub in Greektown.
VV: It’s not one shop, rather a little market of multiple vendors. It’s where I like to go for organic skincare, supplements, and artisanal groceries — like seaweed snacks infused with adaptogenic mushrooms, MCT oil chocolate bars, and spirulina gummies.
Kensington Market
Kensington Market is a vibrant Toronto neighborhood, a patchwork of streets full of independent shops, cafés, vintage boutiques, and wellness spots.
VV: I lived in Kensington for a year. It has a kind of spiritual shopping-mall vibe you can’t really describe with words: crystals on one block, tarot cards on the next, thrifted scarves, incense, and hidden jazz bars tucked in between. Rooftop yoga, sound baths, unique plant shops, local butchers and fishmongers — the neighborhood is full of surprises. Even the 506 streetcar to get there smells strangely magical. For secondhand gems, check out vintage shops, Subrosa and Exile. For wellness essentials, hit up Essence of Life or The Green Post. And for something to eat, Tibet Café & Bar serves the best mokthuk, and butter tea (bho jha).
Health Hut
Shop
LR: A high-end spot for beauty, skincare, and wellness. They are one of the few Living Libations stockists, which I know is an essential brand in the Health Gossip ecosystem.
The Stop’s Farmers Market
Farmer’s market
LR: I’m convinced that the coolest people in the city can be found at the Saturday farmer’s market. Everyone’s so kind and helpful, and it feels so good to be surrounded by people who care about what they make. Here, I like to have a breakfast sandwich and pick up flowers for the week.
Flying Books & Bellwoods Books
Bookstores
LR: Two of my favorite places all under one roof. Upstairs, Flying Books has a great mix of local authors, new releases, and all-time classics. Downstairs is Bellwoods Books, full of vintage, secondhand, and rare finds. They focus on books by women, feminist literature, psychology, sexuality, and health.
Food & Nourishment
VV: In Toronto, sometimes the good stuff is hiding in plain sight. Brunch spots behind storefronts, markets you’ll walk past a dozen times before noticing, a smoothie bowl in the middle of winter, a pastry glowing in sunlight…all little portals.
LR: Good food is about care, setting, and how it makes you feel. Sharing a meal with a loved one can heal almost anything
Le Sélect Bistro
An indulgent Toronto classic since 1977.
VV: I really like French food, and this place is dreamy. Tartare, half a dozen oysters, duck confit. Aperitifs are a must. In my opinion, pastis is basically liquid wellness, containing ingredients like star anise, fennel seeds, hyssop, angelica, coriander, and licorice root. Lu, I, and our friend Alex went there for my and Alex’s birthday this year. I love sharing plates with friends.
Village Juicery
A Toronto-founded wellness staple, Village Juicery serves 100% organic, cold-pressed juices and plant-based meals designed by in-house nutritionists.
VV: I really like their Multi-C ( Ingredients: Orange, Carrot, Lemon, Ginger, Fresh Turmeric Root, Beetroot, Cayenne Pepper). I love cayenne in juice. I’ll put cayenne in anything, actually. Brain tonic is also good, and has a beautiful color. (Ingredients: Filtered Water, Apple, Lemon, Maple Syrup, Blue Majik, MCT Oil, Mineral Concentrate, Ginseng, Astragalus) Multi-C juice with cayenne, Brain Tonic with Blue Majik, ginseng, and astragalus.
Stop Restaurant
Eastern European cuisine
LR: A really unique menu that changes with the seasons. I saw this quote from one of their instagram posts, which summarizes their founding food philosophy:
“I hate a 25$ small plate restaurant, I dislike dishonesty in food and in general. I cook the way I think cooking should be. Everything matters, the taste, the vision, the generosity, the care.
And I have come to accept that I like classical cuisine, I like to eat food that tastes good, not the food that is painfully extracted out of a silly and unnecessary need to impress.”
White Lily Diner
Diner
LR: A classic diner. Everything is from their own farm or somewhere close-by. It conveniently opens early and closes late, so you can either stop by for breakfast or a late dinner.
Le Swan
French diner
LR: For when you feel flirty and romantic. This is a french diner elegantly serving comfort food. My go-to is jambon & raclette on a baguette, a chocolate malt milkshake, or a tuna melt.
VV: I second that. The most perfect old school malt. Make sure to book a reservation if you plan on dining over the weekend!
Evening: To Dance & Flirt
VV: Weekends here are a little laissez-faire: do literally anything you want! From late-night yoga classes to impromptu dance floors in tucked-away bars, the only rule is to feel good while doing it.
LR: Practicing intentional nights out in the city will keep you connected to the culture and your community.
The Little Jerry
Dinner, disco
VV: This is a really cute, late night spot. It’s where dinner and disco coexist perfectly. It’s small, they spin vinyl, and they always have tinned fish on the menu...peak chic!
Cafeteria
Nightlife + creative venue
LR: I need to dance at least once a month or I start to feel really strange. This is the place right now. Every weekend, if I ask around, someone is always going.
On a busy night, it can get sooo sweaty that it’s like a natural occurring sauna. You get home feeling and looking amazing. Skin glowing, hair damp, body buzzing — ready for a cold shower and the best night’s sleep of your life.
Paradise Theatre
Cinema
LR: One of the theatres I frequent most. They have great curation of films, mostly classics, restorations, special screenings, and art-house cinema.
Paradise Grapevine
Wine bar
LR: Down the street from Paradise Theatre. A tasteful, candle-lit organic wine bar. I think it has proven to be one of my favorite spots to go on a date.
Nutbar superfood cafe is the only
thing I’d add for Toronto! 💞