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GuideUpdated July 16, 2026

12 Best Places for Steak Frites in Toronto

Where to find the best steak frites in Toronto — each restaurant rated 4.0★ or higher. Top-rated at 9.6★. Spanning french bistro and french kitchens. Curated by TastyPals.

The best places for steak frites in Toronto are Restaurant Ricky+Olivia, Scaramouche Restaurant, Le Baratin, and more. Start with Restaurant Ricky+Olivia if you want the strongest overall first pick.

By Marcus Chen•12 ranked picks•Published July 16, 2026•Updated July 16, 2026
Methodology•Editorial team
Restaurant Ricky+OliviaScaramouche RestaurantLe Baratin
12 Best Places for Steak Frites in Toronto
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Top picks at a glance

#1Restaurant Ricky+OliviaFrench Bistro • Leslieville • $#2Scaramouche RestaurantFrench • Toronto • $$$$#3Le BaratinFrench • Toronto • $$$

Who this guide is for

This guide covers the highest-rated spots for steak frites 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

Restaurant Ricky+Olivia
French Bistro • Leslieville
Ricky and Olivia occupies a modest room in Leslieville — Toronto's east-end neighbourhood that has long rewarded those willing to look past Queen Street's more obvious restaurant corridors — and by…
Scaramouche Restaurant
French • Toronto
Scaramouche has occupied a Midtown hillside, looking out over the Toronto skyline from a perch that has come to feel as much symbolic as geographic.
Le Baratin
French • Toronto
Le Baratin occupies a quiet stretch of Bloorcourt and operates on the logic of a real French bistro — short menu, a wine list assembled with actual conviction, a room that prioritizes the table ove…
Browse all Toronto restaurantsBack to Toronto hub
Editorial details
Author: Marcus Chen
Published: July 16, 2026
Last updated: July 16, 2026

On this page

  1. 1. Restaurant Ricky+OliviaView →
  2. 2. Scaramouche RestaurantView →
  3. 3. Le BaratinView →
  4. 4. Bernhardt'sView →
  5. 5. La PaletteView →
  6. 6. Eastside SocialView →
  7. 7. DreyfusView →
  8. 8. GardelView →
  9. 9. Maison SelbyView →
  10. 10. The CommonerView →
  11. 11. AdelaideView →
  12. 12. La PlumeView →

How the restaurants compare

Editorial restaurant image stand-in for Restaurant Ricky+Olivia
Google
Restaurant Ricky+Olivia
Leslieville • French Bistro
9.9/10
TastyPals Score
Price
$
Best for
hidden gem
Mood
Leslieville
Editorial restaurant image stand-in for Scaramouche Restaurant
Google
Scaramouche Restaurant
Toronto • French
9.9/10
TastyPals Score
Price
$$$$
Best for
date night
Mood
Special occasion
Editorial restaurant image stand-in for Le Baratin
Google
Le Baratin
Toronto • French
9.9/10
TastyPals Score
Price
$$$
Best for
date night
Mood
Upscale
Editorial restaurant image stand-in for Bernhardt's
Google
Bernhardt's
Toronto • French
9.9/10
TastyPals Score
Price
$$$$
Best for
date night
Mood
Special occasion

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.

12 ranked picks

Restaurant Ricky+Olivia — Ricky and Olivia occupies a modest room in Leslieville — Toronto's east-end neighbourhood that has long rewarded those willing to look past Queen Street's more obvious restaurant corridors — and by most accounts the kitchen operates well above what the address or price point would suggest. The concept sits squarely in the neighbourhood bistro category: a small, owner-scale dining room where the relationship between kitchen and dining room is reportedly legible in how the evening moves, rather than obscured by layers of management. That intimacy, according to those who follow it closely, is part of what gives the place its character. The menu is understood to be seasonal and attentive to what's available rather than fixed around year-round staples — the kind of approach that requires a kitchen willing to update constantly rather than coast. The natural wine list is consistently cited as a genuine asset: small producers, a rotating by-the-glass selection, and floor staff who can reportedly discuss the bottles with actual knowledge rather than rehearsed summaries. At a price level that keeps the room accessible, that level of wine curation is uncommon and appears to be a deliberate part of the proposition. Ricky and Olivia operates without a reservation profile that requires planning weeks in advance — at least for now — which makes it the kind of room where regulars develop before the broader conversation catches up. Leslieville locals have been the primary audience, and that hasn't visibly changed the kitchen's ambitions. If you're going for the first time, go on a quieter weeknight, allow the staff to guide the wine pairing, and don't expect a long menu — the point here is restraint and precision, not range. Booking ahead is advisable given the room's size. View restaurant →
Scaramouche Restaurant — Scaramouche has occupied a Midtown hillside, looking out over the Toronto skyline from a perch that has come to feel as much symbolic as geographic. Keith Froggett has overseen the kitchen for the duration — a tenure that, by any honest measure, stands apart in a city where restaurant longevity is rarely matched by consistency. The restaurant operates across two formats: a main dining room pitched at the full special-occasion register, and a pasta room that functions as the more approachable entry point. The pasta room in particular is frequently cited as a reference point for anyone tracing the arc of upscale Toronto dining — a place where properly made pasta has been served in a warm, deliberately formal room to the city's uptown establishment for four decades without apparent anxiety about whether it remains fashionable. The kitchen's reputation rests on classical French discipline applied without revisionism. No verified dish list is available here, but one exception demands mention: the coconut cream pie has appeared on the menu long enough to become a civic reference point, and it is consistently cited — by serious food writers and returning regulars alike — as among the finest desserts produced in Canada. That a single dessert can anchor part of a restaurant's identity across decades says something specific about execution standards. Reportedly, the draw is less novelty than the precision of repetition: a kitchen that has made the same thing long enough to understand exactly what it should be. Scaramouche sits at the top of the price range for Toronto dining, and the question it answers is not whether the food is current but whether sustained quality across forty-plus years constitutes its own justification. By most accounts, it does. Reservations are advisable well in advance; if the occasion allows only one stop, the pasta room with dessert is the considered entry point. View restaurant →
Le Baratin — Le Baratin occupies a quiet stretch of Bloorcourt and operates on the logic of a real French bistro — short menu, a wine list assembled with actual conviction, a room that prioritizes the table over the turn. The space is reported to be small and warm, with close-set seating that tips toward communal rather than crowded, and the kitchen's reputation rests on cooking the classics straight rather than reinterpreting them. That's a harder discipline than it sounds, and by most accounts Le Baratin holds to it. The menu centers on the kind of dishes that reward patience in the kitchen. The steak frites is consistently cited as the anchor order — a properly sourced cut served with frites reportedly cut thin and fried twice, the method that keeps them from going soft through a long dinner. The escargots are prepared in the garlic-parsley butter the dish requires, no deviations. The duck confit is known for rendered, crackling skin — the marker of a confit given real time rather than rushed through service. For dessert, the crème brûlée is the move, and diners regularly pair it with something from a wine list that runs deep through French regional producers chosen to drink alongside the food rather than to perform. As a room, this one is better for a date than many places with stronger kitchens — the pacing is unhurried, the tables don't turn fast by design, and a reservation for two on a Tuesday reportedly feels like the evening's own occasion. It handles a quiet weekday lunch as well, and the wine program is consistently mentioned among the city's more serious bistro lists. Book ahead for weekend evenings; the room fills early and holds its tables. View restaurant →

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Bernhardt's — Taverne Bernhardt's occupies a well-regarded position on Dundas West, one of Toronto's most genuinely competitive dining corridors, where longevity is earned through consistency rather than novelty. The concept is French bistro — not the approximated, loosely European kind, but a program that appears to have thought carefully about what classical bistro cooking means when it lands in a Toronto context. That distinction matters. The room is reported to be quiet enough for actual conversation, and service pacing is consistently cited as one of the operation's more deliberate strengths — an evening here is not, by most accounts, one that rushes toward a second seating. The menu centers on bistro fundamentals: steak frites, seasonal proteins prepared through classical technique, and a cheese course that is assembled to order rather than presented from a trolley. These are not ambitious departures from the format; they are the format, executed with apparent care. The wine list runs broadly through France, with enough regional range that a guest arriving with a specific preference — Loire, Burgundy, southern Rhône — can generally find something appropriate without compromise. Diners consistently describe the list as well-matched to the length and tempo of the meal. Practically speaking, Bernhardt's functions best as a weekend reservation rather than a spontaneous decision — though quieter weeknights reportedly allow for walk-in success. The restaurant holds its position on Dundas West not through a rotating concept or seasonal reinvention, but through the steadiness of its cooking and the quality of its room. For a dinner that requires the occasion to feel considered — an anniversary, a long-overdue conversation — it appears to offer the conditions for that without demanding you perform enthusiasm for the surroundings. Book ahead for Friday or Saturday. View restaurant →
Dreyfus — Dreyfus occupies a compact room in Harbord Village — a neighbourhood that sits adjacent to, but quieter than, Kensington Market — and has built a reputation consistent with that distinction: considered rather than showy, with a wine-bar sensibility that positions sharing plates and natural wine as a complete evening rather than a prelude to something else. The concept draws consistent comparisons to the Bar Isabel mode of casual-serious dining, though the register here is reportedly more relaxed, the room small and deliberately unhurried in a way that makes a two-hour Tuesday dinner feel entirely appropriate rather than indulgent. The kitchen is known for leaning into seasonality, with a menu that rotates to reflect ingredient availability rather than anchoring itself to signature permanence. Because no specific dishes are currently verified, what can be said with confidence is that the approach — sharing plates composed around the kitchen's judgment rather than a guest's strategic ordering — is consistently cited as the point. Diners who order broadly and trust the room's logic apparently fare better than those attempting to engineer a composed meal from descriptions alone. That is, itself, an editorial position worth noting: it places confidence in the kitchen and asks the guest to follow. The natural wine list is among the more purposeful in this part of the city, reputedly oriented toward small European producers without adopting a rigid orthodoxy about what natural means in practice. Staff knowledge of the list is frequently noted as a genuine asset — conversations about what to drink reportedly go somewhere useful rather than landing on a house recommendation and stopping there. Dreyfus takes reservations; for a weekend table, booking ahead is advisable. A practical point of entry: come with someone you are comfortable lingering with, because the room is designed for exactly that. View restaurant →
Gardel — Leslieville has always had a particular appetite for restaurants that wear their influences openly, and Gardel fits that posture precisely. Named for Carlos Gardel — the French-born, Buenos Aires–raised godfather of tango — the restaurant uses that biography as a design brief: European technique in conversation with Latin American flavour, anchored by chef André Burgos's personal history cooking alongside his grandmother. Co-owner Adam Kelly (of Vatican Gift Shop) brings a curatorial sensibility to the project, and the result is a room dressed in Art Deco detail that signals occasion without demanding formality. At a price point that keeps Leslieville regulars returning rather than just landing once, Gardel is positioning itself as the neighbourhood's answer to brunch that actually has a point of view. The menu's most-discussed dishes reveal exactly what that point of view is. The Yuca Gnocchi — truffle béchamel, shaved Parmesan — is the kind of dish Burgos has spoken about investing serious creative energy into: it takes a Latin American staple and routes it through French technique, which is precisely the Gardel thesis in edible form. The Steak Frites pushes that fusion further: a 7-hour sous-vide flank steak with chimichurri, frites, and red cabbage slaw — slow, deliberate preparation paired with the brightness of Argentina's most iconic condiment. The Scallop Crudo with marinated canary melon vinaigrette is the kitchen's lighter register, the kind of dish the menu leans on to signal that this is not a one-note brunch operation. These aren't rotating specials; they're the signatures that give diners a reason to form habits here. The practical move: the Yuca Gnocchi is the dish most cited as the reason to return, so lead with it. The room is quaint — this is not a cavernous reservation-or-nothing situation, but weekend brunch in Leslieville fills rooms fast, so booking ahead is the obvious call. If you're choosing between the crudo and the steak, split them — the menu is built around that contrast between bright and rich, and ordering one without the other misses the point Burgos is making. View restaurant →

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LeslievilleKing WestRoncesvallesBrunchFrenchDate NightGroup Dinnerhidden gem

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