15 Best Breakfast Restaurants in Toronto

Cafe Landwer is an Israeli café chain with genuine roots — founded in Tel Aviv in 1919, it carried its espresso-and-mezze identity to Toronto with the kind of menu confidence that only comes from a century of institutional cooking. The Front Street location anchors itself in the idea that Israeli café culture is its own thing: not a deli, not a falafel counter, but a sit-down all-day room where the menu spans Moroccan-inflected starters, grilled proteins, and desserts that pull from the Eastern Mediterranean and North African pantry. At price level one, it positions itself as an accessible daily-driver for downtown workers and weekend brunch crowds who want something more layered than an avocado toast situation.

The menu is where the kitchen's identity becomes legible. The Moroccan Cigars — crispy phyllo-wrapped rolls typically filled with spiced meat or potato — are a North African staple that Landwer has made a fixture of its starter lineup, and diners consistently point to them as a table essential. The Crispy Cauliflower reflects the Israeli café's embrace of plant-forward cooking without making it feel like a concession. Landwer's Famous Schnitzel is the headline protein: the Israeli-style schnitzel (a thin-pounded, breadcrumb-fried cutlet, typically chicken rather than veal) is practically a national comfort food, and the chain has leaned into its reputation here. The Mediterranean Grilled Salmon and the Sinia Kebab — a Middle Eastern baked minced meat dish served in a copper pan — round out the mains with regional specificity. For dessert, the Knaffe, a syrup-soaked semolina and cheese pastry from the Levantine tradition, is the right call for anyone who wants to understand what this kitchen is actually trying to say. The Outrageous Belgian Waffle addresses the brunch crowd directly and without apology.

The practical move: come for brunch on a weekday if you can, when the room runs at a pace that lets you actually sit with the menu. Order the Moroccan Cigars as your opening move, commit to either the Schnitzel or the Sinia Kebab as a main, and end with the Knaffe — it's the dish that most clearly connects Landwer's Toronto outpost back to its Tel Aviv origins. Weekend brunch draws a crowd, so arriving early or booking ahead is the sensible play.

Mildred's Temple Kitchen occupies a large, bright room in Liberty Village — a neighbourhood that has grown considerably since the restaurant established itself there, though Mildred's arrival predates much of that development. The scale of the space is deliberate: the kitchen is built to handle serious weekend volume, and the reservation system reportedly manages the flow with more discipline than most casual brunch rooms in the city. That combination of capacity and consistency is what has given the restaurant its institutional reputation in Toronto's west end.

Mrs. Biederhof's Wild Blueberry Buttermilk Pancakes are the signature — the plate the room is arguably built around, and the one most first-timers are steered toward. The Manhandler is the move for a bigger appetite, a loaded breakfast built for people who arrived hungry, while Chix + Waffles delivers the sweet-savoury contrast that has kept it on the menu through years of shifting brunch fashion. Lighter tables lean toward Veda's Choice and the Eats, Shoots + Leaves salad, where the kitchen's seasonal thinking shows more than its indulgent side. That mix — a few unwavering signatures alongside a rotating cast — is what lets Mildred's read as an institution without feeling frozen, and it is why diners consistently return across years of high-traffic weekend service.

For practical purposes: weekend reservations are advisable and widely recommended — the room fills, and walk-in waits can be significant. The surrounding Liberty Village area has expanded its dining options over the years, but Mildred's retains a clear reputational advantage over most of its neighbours in this category. If you are anchoring a west-end brunch plan, the restaurant's track record makes it the logical starting point — book ahead, confirm the current menu online, and arrive with the expectation that the room will be busy by design rather than by accident.