TastyPals
Login / Sign up
Taste ID
AboutMethodologyApp
GuideUpdated July 16, 2026

4 Best Places for Margaritas in Toronto

Where to find the best margaritas in Toronto — each restaurant rated 4.0★ or higher. Top-rated at 9.8★. Spanning mexican kitchens. Curated by TastyPals.

The best places for margaritas in Toronto are Placos Tacos Mexican Food & Bar, La Nayarita, Molkagtez Mexican Cuisine, and more. Start with Placos Tacos Mexican Food & Bar if you want the strongest overall first pick.

By Marcus Chen•4 ranked picks•Published July 13, 2026•Updated July 16, 2026
Methodology•Editorial team
Placos Tacos Mexican Food & BarLa NayaritaMolkagtez Mexican Cuisine
4 Best Places for Margaritas in Toronto
Google

Top picks at a glance

#1Placos Tacos Mexican Food & BarMexican • Kensington Market • $#2La NayaritaMexican • Toronto • $#3Molkagtez Mexican CuisineMexican • Toronto • $

Who this guide is for

Toronto's margarita scene rewards those who know where to look, and our editorial reviews surfaced four spots that consistently rise above the rest. Leading the pack are La Nayarita and Molkagtez Mexican Cuisine, both landing at 9.6/10. At Molkagtez, the margaritas are, by most accounts, a genuine programme rather than an afterthought — a long list that matches the cocktail-bar energy of the room, with ceviche providing a lighter counterpoint to the sizzling volcanic-rock dishes. Over in Kensington Market, Placos Tacos Mexican Food & Bar (9.4/10) leans on a stocked bar that pushes it from a quick taco stop into a full hang, especially on Sundays when a DJ is reportedly on the decks. Rounding out the list, Wilbur Mexicana (9.1/10) keeps margaritas firmly in the mix. What makes navigating this scene worthwhile is the range: from serious, program-driven cocktail lists to neighborhood spots where the drink is part of a bigger night out. These four give you the clearest map to Toronto's best.

Quick picks

Placos Tacos Mexican Food & Bar
Mexican • Kensington Market
Placos Tacos landed on Kensington Avenue in early 2024 and, by most accounts, hit the ground running.
La Nayarita
Mexican • Toronto
La Nayarita plants a flag for the coastal cooking of Nayarit — western Mexico's Pacific shoreline — on Queen West, and by most accounts it is doing something the city doesn't have much of: a Mexica…
Molkagtez Mexican Cuisine
Mexican • Toronto
Molkagtez Mexican Cuisine in Parkdale has built its entire identity around the object in its name: the molcajete, a volcanic-rock mortar that reportedly arrives at the table still sizzling, loaded…
Browse all Toronto restaurantsBack to Toronto hub
Editorial details
Author: Marcus Chen
Published: July 13, 2026
Last updated: July 16, 2026

On this page

  1. 1. Placos Tacos Mexican Food & BarView →
  2. 2. La NayaritaView →
  3. 3. Molkagtez Mexican CuisineView →
  4. 4. Wilbur MexicanaView →

How the restaurants compare

Editorial restaurant image stand-in for Placos Tacos Mexican Food & Bar
Google
Placos Tacos Mexican Food & Bar
Kensington Market • Mexican
9.9/10
TastyPals Score
Price
$
Best for
cheap eats
Mood
Kensington Market
Editorial restaurant image stand-in for La Nayarita
Google
La Nayarita
Toronto • Mexican
9.9/10
TastyPals Score
Price
$
Best for
tacos
Mood
Casual
Editorial restaurant image stand-in for Molkagtez Mexican Cuisine
Google
Molkagtez Mexican Cuisine
Toronto • Mexican
9.9/10
TastyPals Score
Price
$
Best for
tacos
Mood
Casual
Editorial restaurant image stand-in for Wilbur Mexicana
Google
Wilbur Mexicana
Toronto • Mexican
9.9/10
TastyPals Score
Price
$
Best for
tacos
Mood
Casual

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

Placos Tacos Mexican Food & Bar — Placos Tacos landed on Kensington Avenue in early 2024 and, by most accounts, hit the ground running. The space — a colourful house hung with Día de los Muertos art, with a back patio that opens up in warm weather — reads more like someone's home than a restaurant, which is apparently very much the point. For a neighbourhood that rewards personality over polish, it fits right in. The menu centers on handcrafted tacos made from fresh ingredients and traditional recipes, and they are consistently what reviewers reach for first. Diners have repeatedly called them the best tacos in the city — with a few going as far as ranking them above tacos they've had in Mexico, which is the kind of claim that travels fast in a food-obsessed neighbourhood. The burritos reportedly hold up their end of the menu, and the house salsas are described as a genuine part of the experience rather than an afterthought. A stocked bar means margaritas are in the mix, which pushes Placos from taco stop into something closer to a full hang — especially on Sundays, when a DJ is reportedly on the decks. For practical purposes: this is a price-level-one spot in one of Toronto's most casual, walk-around neighbourhoods, so it suits a loose lunch as easily as a low-key group dinner on the patio. The kitchen is known for turning plates around quickly without the food suffering for it, and the staff are widely described as warm and genuinely engaged. If you're going on a Sunday, that's the move — get the tacos and the margaritas, and stay for the DJ. View restaurant →
La Nayarita — La Nayarita plants a flag for the coastal cooking of Nayarit — western Mexico's Pacific shoreline — on Queen West, and by most accounts it is doing something the city doesn't have much of: a Mexican kitchen with a genuine regional point of view that reaches well past the taco-and-burrito default. Regulars and food writers alike have called it the best Mexican in Toronto, and that reputation doesn't seem to get much pushback. The quesabirria tacos are the entry point, and they're what most people come in knowing about — properly stewed birria with the slow-cooked richness the dish is known for. But the menu's real argument is made further down the order. The mole is consistently described as one of the best you'll find outside Mexico, which is a claim that gets thrown around too often to be meaningful, except that here it keeps showing up from people who know what they're talking about. The ceviche skews bright and coastal, grounded in the same Pacific-Mexico logic the kitchen organizes around. The Bonito — a fresh fish preparation — is reportedly where the kitchen's seafood instincts are clearest, and it's the kind of dish that signals a chef thinking about place and not just crowd-pleasing. Portions run generous and the pricing stays at a level that makes ordering broadly feel like a reasonable idea rather than a commitment. The room is colourful and deliberately low-key, with a back patio that doesn't get advertised much — worth asking about if the weather cooperates. This is a good call for a casual dinner where you want the table to share a lot of plates. The move, based on everything diners report back: start with the birria, then get the mole and the ceviche on the table before anyone talks themselves out of it. View restaurant →
Molkagtez Mexican Cuisine — Molkagtez Mexican Cuisine in Parkdale has built its entire identity around the object in its name: the molcajete, a volcanic-rock mortar that reportedly arrives at the table still sizzling, loaded with meat, cheese and salsa in a presentation that's equal parts ancient technique and deliberate theatre. The room leans hard into atmosphere — colourful decor, live DJs, themed nights through the week — and by most accounts, the kitchen keeps up rather than coasting on the vibe. For a price-level-one spot, that combination is not something you see every day in Toronto. The molcajete is the anchor order, the kind of centrepiece dish you build a group dinner around, and the taco menu is where the kitchen apparently shows real range. The hibiscus taco and cactus taco are the ones worth flagging specifically — both are vegetarian options that diners consistently point to as more than token inclusions, reflecting a menu that goes deeper than the party atmosphere might suggest. The ceviche rounds out the picture as a lighter counterpoint to all that sizzling volcanic rock, and the margaritas are reported to be a genuine programme rather than an afterthought — a long list that matches the cocktail-bar energy the room is clearly going for. Molkagtez is calibrated for groups and celebratory occasions rather than quiet dinners; the energy in the room is very much the point. The practical move is to come with four or more people, anchor the table with a molcajete to share, order a spread that includes the hibiscus and cactus tacos alongside the ceviche, and give yourself enough time to work through the margarita list properly. Reservations are worth making ahead of themed nights. View restaurant →

Get the App

Save these spots to your Toronto list

Keep the shortlist handy in the TastyPals app and find similar restaurants across Toronto.

Personalized city picksCleaner shortlistsBuilt for iPhone and Android
TastyPalsTonight
Your taste. Our picks.
Smarter follow-through after the guide: better restaurant context, quicker narrowing, less second-guessing.
For tonight
Date night spots with warm rooms and polished service
Next step
Keep exploring in the app when you want a tighter shortlist
Wilbur Mexicana — Wilbur Mexicana has been holding down a corner of King West, and the name is a genuine statement of intent: it's a nod to Wilbur Scoville, the chemist who gave the world the chili-heat scale. That's not just a fun bit of trivia — it signals what the kitchen is actually about. This is counter-order Mexican street food built around bold chile-forward flavours, customizable by design, and priced to keep the door open to everyone. It's not positioning itself as an authenticity exercise; it's positioning itself as a well-run, accessible taqueria that feeds people quickly and without drama. The Baja fish taco is widely cited as the anchor of the menu — beer-battered mahi-mahi with jicama slaw and chipotle crema, which is exactly what a Baja-style fish taco is supposed to be, and by most accounts Wilbur executes the format reliably. For something more substantial, the carne asada burrito is the move diners consistently point to when they need a full meal rather than a snack. But the thing that regulars come back for, and the element that consistently comes up in the conversation around Wilbur, is the self-serve salsa and hot-sauce bar — a wall of options that lets you calibrate heat and flavour to your own tolerance. It transforms a straightforward counter lunch into something more interactive, and it's clearly central to why the place has built the following it has. This is a King West lunch destination or an easy, low-commitment group dinner — not a destination for a long sit-down occasion. Counter service keeps things moving. Budget accordingly at price level one, spend more time than you think you need at the salsa bar, and treat the Baja fish taco as your baseline first order. View restaurant →

Explore next

Kensington MarketMexicanGroup Dinnerlunchtakeout

Related guides

Editorial collage of Toronto dishes
Google

Guide • toronto

Best Restaurants in Toronto 2026

The definitive Toronto restaurant list — Alo at the top, Edulis close behind, and ten picks that span a 40-year institution, a wood-fire Mexican kitchen, a West African tasting menu, and the east end bistro everyone is suddenly talking about.

Read guide

Get the App

Save these spots to your Toronto list

Save these spots to your Toronto list in the TastyPals app, then explore similar restaurants when you want a tighter shortlist for the night.

Personalized city picksCleaner shortlistsBuilt for iPhone and Android
TastyPalsTonight
Your taste. Our picks.
Smarter follow-through after the guide: better restaurant context, quicker narrowing, less second-guessing.
For tonight
Date night spots with warm rooms and polished service
Next step
Keep exploring in the app when you want a tighter shortlist