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GuideUpdated July 16, 2026

4 Best Places for Calamari Fritti in Toronto

Where to find the best calamari fritti in Toronto — each restaurant rated 4.0★ or higher. Top-rated at 9.6★. Spanning italian kitchens. Curated by TastyPals.

The best places for calamari fritti in Toronto are Edna + Vita, Buono Ristorante, Venga Cucina, and more. Start with Edna + Vita if you want the strongest overall first pick.

By Marcus Chen•4 ranked picks•Published July 16, 2026•Updated July 16, 2026
Methodology•Editorial team
Edna + VitaBuono RistoranteVenga Cucina
4 Best Places for Calamari Fritti in Toronto
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Top picks at a glance

#1Edna + VitaItalian • Corso Italia • value#2Buono RistoranteItalian • Leaside • value#3Venga CucinaItalian • The Junction • $

Who this guide is for

This guide covers the highest-rated spots for calamari fritti in Toronto. Whether you're a local hunting your next regular or visiting and want to eat well, these picks are sorted by quality and review depth.

Quick picks

Edna + Vita
Italian • Corso Italia
Edna + Vita occupies the former Reds Wine Tavern space on Corso Italia — a large, two-floor room that the ownership has split into distinct personalities.
Buono Ristorante
Italian • Leaside
Leaside runs at its own pace — wide sidewalks, school runs, Saturday errands — and Buono Ristorante on Bayview has positioned itself as the neighbourhood's quietly serious answer to the question of…
Venga Cucina
Italian • The Junction
The Junction has always operated a little outside the city's hype cycle, and Venga Cucina seems to suit that just fine.
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Editorial details
Author: Marcus Chen
Published: July 16, 2026
Last updated: July 16, 2026

On this page

  1. 1. Edna + VitaView →
  2. 2. Buono RistoranteView →
  3. 3. Venga CucinaView →
  4. 4. Bocconcino RestaurantView →

How the restaurants compare

Editorial restaurant image stand-in for Edna + Vita
Google
Edna + Vita
Corso Italia • Italian
9.9/10
TastyPals Score
Price
value
Best for
Italian dinner
Mood
Corso Italia
Editorial restaurant image stand-in for Buono Ristorante
Google
Buono Ristorante
Leaside • Italian
9.9/10
TastyPals Score
Price
value
Best for
Neighborhood dinner
Mood
Leaside
Editorial restaurant image stand-in for Venga Cucina
Google
Venga Cucina
The Junction • Italian
9.9/10
TastyPals Score
Price
$
Best for
hidden gem
Mood
The Junction
Bocconcino Restaurant
Woodbridge • Italian
9.9/10
TastyPals Score
Price
splurge
Best for
Italian dinner
Mood
Woodbridge

How we chose

We looked for restaurants that feel like a strong fit for the guide topic, not just the most obvious names in the city. The shortlist favors rooms with clear mood, dependable pacing, and enough distinction to help someone decide faster. Read our full methodology →

Room tone

Lighting, pace, and general energy all need to support the reason someone clicked this guide.

Food fit

We favored restaurants that feel best suited for the moment, not just restaurants with broad reputation.

Useful range

The final list tries to give readers enough variation in neighborhood, price, and style to compare real options.

4 ranked picks

Edna + Vita — Edna + Vita occupies the former Reds Wine Tavern space on Corso Italia — a large, two-floor room that the ownership has split into distinct personalities. Upstairs, Edna operates as the more composed dining room: multiple courses, a serious Italian wine and prosecco list, conversation that can hold its own against the room. Downstairs, Vita runs louder and more bar-forward. What unifies both floors is one of the more considered Italian wine programs available downtown, which diners and critics alike have flagged as a genuine differentiator rather than a perfunctory list. The menu balances the expected and the interesting in roughly equal proportion. Cacio e pepe represents the classicist anchor — a dish whose reputation lives or dies on restraint and technique, and one the kitchen has apparently taken seriously. Tagliatelle ai funghi sits on the curious side of the ledger, where house-made pasta is reportedly central to the kitchen's identity. The agnello alla scottadito — lamb chops prepared alla scottadito, meaning finger-burning-quick over high heat, a Roman preparation — is consistently cited as the dish to orient a dinner around. The mortadella and pistachio pizza draws on Roman-style tradition and has developed a following among regulars, while the octopus puttanesca rounds out a menu that takes its Italian regional references more seriously than a financial-district address might lead you to expect. Edna + Vita is positioned for business dinners, dates, and group occasions, and the two-floor format gives it genuine range across those use cases. Weeknight evenings upstairs fill quickly with an after-work crowd, so advance booking for Edna is the practical move — and arriving with some intention about the wine list is time well spent. View restaurant →
Buono Ristorante — Leaside runs at its own pace — wide sidewalks, school runs, Saturday errands — and Buono Ristorante on Bayview has positioned itself as the neighbourhood's quietly serious answer to the question of where to eat on a Friday. At a price point that won't rearrange your month, the room has committed, without apology, to being a proper Italian restaurant rather than an Italian-adjacent concept. The kitchen is reportedly run with genuine hands-on passion — the kind of place where the chef is known to come out and talk about the food not as theatre but as something closer to compulsion. That combination of care and accessibility is what keeps regulars anchored here and draws diners in from other parts of the city. The menu builds its identity around handcrafted pasta and premium seafood, and the Fettuccine Mare Monte appears to be the dish that has established Buono's reputation — ocean and forest on a single plate, with a balance that regulars consistently single out. The Salmone Fresco is praised for quality sourcing rather than preparation tricks. On the heartier side, the Veal Marsala is described as carrying the richness and restraint that separates a kitchen that respects Italian classics from one that merely references them. The Calamari Fritti is consistently noted as a clean, unfussy opener, and the Tiramisu has generated the kind of unsolicited superlatives online that no restaurant reliably engineers on its own behalf — worth treating as a non-negotiable close to the meal. Practically speaking, walk-ins on weekends are a gamble the room's regulars don't take — a reservation is the move. If you're seated with a group, the back of the room is reportedly better for actual conversation. End on the Tiramisu; the consensus is clear enough to trust. View restaurant →
Venga Cucina — The Junction has always operated a little outside the city's hype cycle, and Venga Cucina seems to suit that just fine. This is a casual Italian spot at a price point that encourages a second bottle without the mental math — the kind of room, by all accounts, that prioritizes comfort over the kind of lighting designed for content creation. The neighborhood has claimed it in the way neighborhoods claim the places they actually like: quietly, repeatedly, without being told to. The menu centers on a short list of Italian standards that diners consistently single out for getting the fundamentals right. The Fresh Pasta Carbonara draws the most attention — carbonara being the kind of dish that broadcasts every shortcut a kitchen takes, so when regulars keep returning to it specifically, that's worth noting. The Pappardelle is reportedly built around a braised lamb shank, the broad ribbons pulling together with a long-cooked braise that reads as the cold-weather anchor of the menu. The Burrata shows up in enough positive mentions to suggest it's handled simply and well — which, with burrata, is the entire point. Calamari Fritti rounds out the appetizer side with a reputation for avoiding the rubbery texture that tends to make the dish forgettable elsewhere. The room isn't large, and the Junction crowd has clearly figured Venga out — booking ahead on weekends is the practical move, not a suggestion. If you're going once and want the clearest picture of what the kitchen does well, the carbonara and the pappardelle are where to start, with the burrata alongside. This is a neighborhood restaurant doing what neighborhood restaurants are supposed to do, at a price that makes it repeatable. That's harder than it looks. View restaurant →

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Bocconcino Restaurant — In Woodbridge's heavily Italian corridor, where red-sauce joints compete for the same loyalists who've been eating Sunday gravy since they landed in Vaughan, Bocconcino on Trowers Road has held its ground for over 25 years by doing something quietly radical: refusing to modernize for its own sake. This is a family-run room anchored by owner Franco and a kitchen that prepares each dish to order — not a hedge-your-bets Italian-American hybrid, but a traditional Italian operation spanning house-made pasta, fresh seafood, and red meats. That kind of institutional patience earns a specific kind of diner: one who wants the real thing, made deliberately, in a room that feels earned rather than designed. The menu's pull toward northern Italian comfort is most legible in the Ravioli ai Porcini, which diners consistently single out as a standout — the earthiness of porcini in a filled pasta is a dish with deep roots in Italian kitchens, and reviewers treat it as a reason to return rather than a safe pick. The Penne alla Vodka has developed a following as one of the most-ordered mains at the table, the kind of creamy tomato-kissed pasta that lives or dies by restraint. Calamari Fritti is praised as a benchmark appetizer — reportedly crisp-fried and paired with a spicy marinara. The Veneziana salad, Pasta Fagioli, and Tiramisu round out what regulars describe as a menu built for the full arc of a meal rather than a single showpiece. The room itself — hung with original paintings throughout — reads as genuinely personal rather than decorative shorthand. Franco's front-of-house presence is frequently cited in reviews as a reason the experience coheres. For groups, this is a reservation you make rather than chance: the combination of set-menu-friendly pasta and a dining room that accommodates longer tables makes it a legitimate call for a twelve-top that wants to actually eat well. Book ahead, ask Franco what's running fresh that evening, and lead with the Ravioli ai Porcini. View restaurant →

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The JunctionLeasideWoodbridgeItalianDate NightdinnerGroup Dinner

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