1
Google
Gastropub•St. Lawrence Market•$
Scotland Yard Pub
Scotland Yard Pub has been operating in the St.
classicmarketreliable
Read restaurant page
9.9/10
TastyPals Score
9.4 Google
9.4
5,042 Google reviews
GuideUpdated July 16, 2026
8 Best market Restaurants in Toronto
The best 8 restaurants for market in Toronto — curated by TastyPals editors.
The best market restaurants in Toronto are Scotland Yard Pub, The Carbon Bar, Notte Ristorante (formerly Amano Trattoria), and more. Start with Scotland Yard Pub if you want the strongest overall first pick.
Google
Top picks at a glance
Who this guide is for
This guide covers the highest-rated restaurants for market in Toronto, sorted by Google rating and editorial judgment.
Quick picks
Scotland Yard Pub
Gastropub • St. Lawrence Market
Scotland Yard Pub has been operating in the St.
The Carbon Bar
Barbecue • St. Lawrence Market
The Carbon Bar sits in the St.
Notte Ristorante (formerly Amano Trattoria)
Italian • St. Lawrence Market
Notte Ristorante (formerly Amano Trattoria) is a italian restaurant in St. Lawrence Market in Toronto that is worth opening when you want a clearer read on the menu and the room.
Editorial details
On this page
How the restaurants compare
Google
Scotland Yard Pub
St. Lawrence Market • Gastropub
9.9/10
TastyPals Score
Price
$
Best for
classic
Mood
St. Lawrence Market
Google
The Carbon Bar
St. Lawrence Market • Barbecue
9.9/10
TastyPals Score
Price
$$
Best for
classic
Mood
St. Lawrence Market
Google
Notte Ristorante (formerly Amano Trattoria)
St. Lawrence Market • Italian
9.9/10
TastyPals Score
Price
$$$
Best for
classic
Mood
St. Lawrence Market
Google
The Old Spaghetti Factory
St. Lawrence Market • Italian
9.9/10
TastyPals Score
Price
$
Best for
classic
Mood
St. Lawrence Market
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.
8 ranked picks
Scotland Yard Pub — Scotland Yard Pub has been operating in the St. Lawrence Market area — five minutes from Union Station — and the room has apparently never felt the need to explain itself. The neighborhood keeps cycling through new concepts doing the thoughtful-lighting thing, and Scotland Yard keeps doing what it's always done: draught beer, eleven screens, and food priced for people who aren't doing math before they order. It's the official Toronto home of Spurs supporters, which tells you most of what you need to know about the ethos — loud, loyal, and entirely unironic about what it is. If you're looking for a kitchen doing something clever, this isn't the address. If you want a proper pub that actually functions like one, the reputation holds up.
The menu centers on British pub staples with one Canadian concession. The Guinness Stew served inside a Yorkshire pudding bowl is the dish regulars and reviewers consistently point to first — the format is functional rather than theatrical, with the pudding reportedly absorbing the gravy so the whole thing coheres as you eat through it. Bangers and Mash shows up described as straightforward and properly executed: dense sausages, onion gravy that's reportedly savory rather than merely brown, mash that doesn't overcomplicate itself. Fish and Chips is characterized across accounts as reliably crisp, the kind of rendition that doesn't embarrass the category. The Yard Poutine is the menu's nod to its Canadian context. None of this is meant to be revelatory — the consistent read is that it delivers exactly what it advertises, which, in a city full of pubs that underperform on both counts, is apparently not as common as it should be.
Practical note: Spurs match days fill the room fast, and getting there early isn't optional if you want a seat. Weekday lunches run quieter, which is when the St. Lawrence Market crowd takes over and service reportedly has more room to move. Bar seating for atmosphere; booths if conversation is the point. Start with the Guinness Stew. View restaurant →
The Carbon Bar — The Carbon Bar sits in the St. Lawrence Market corridor doing something that sounds straightforward but is genuinely rare: serious American-style BBQ crossed with enough international influence to keep the menu from feeling like a theme park. The concept centers on smoked and low-and-slow cooking, but the kitchen doesn't stop at the Mason-Dixon Line. You get Ssam-wrapped burnt ends alongside a hamachi crudo, which signals a room that takes the pit seriously without being precious about what comes off it. For the neighbourhood — one of Toronto's oldest food districts, a place with high standards baked into its DNA — that kind of range lands well. Price level puts this squarely in the accessible range, which means it punches well above what you'd expect for this category of cooking.
The menu is built around two anchors: the Pitmaster Platter and the Smoked Beef Brisket, which together represent the kitchen's core identity. Brisket of this style — low smoke, long cook, bark-forward — is what separates a BBQ program from a BBQ gesture, and diners consistently point to it as the reason to return. The Burnt Ends Kimchi Ssam reads as the menu's most original move: smoked burnt ends wrapped in the Korean ssam tradition, which tells you where the kitchen's creative instincts actually live. Nadya's Creole Salmon is the kind of named dish that signals a chef with a real point of view — Creole seasoning applied to salmon is a specific tradition, not a shorthand. For lighter openers, the Hamachi Crudo and the Seafood Platter give the table something to work through while the heavier plates arrive.
The move here is to anchor the table with the Pitmaster Platter and let it set the pace — it's the most complete read on what the kitchen does best. If your group runs toward composed dishes over pure BBQ, Nadya's Creole Salmon is consistently noted as a standout alternative. The Carbon Burger exists for good reason: it's the off-ramp for anyone at the table not committed to the pit program, and reportedly a strong one. The room fills, so booking ahead — especially Thursday through Saturday — is the practical call. View restaurant →
2
Google
Barbecue•St. Lawrence Market•$$
The Carbon Bar
The Carbon Bar sits in the St.
classicmarketreliable
Read restaurant page
9.9/10
TastyPals Score
9.0 Google
9.0
3,613 Google reviews
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Duke's Refresher St Lawrence — Duke's Refresher occupies a specific and deliberately chosen lane: a 450-seat, 70s-inflected room inside St. Lawrence Market equipped with arcade games, a mini basketball court, and table tennis — not despite its location in one of Toronto's most serious food neighbourhoods, but because of it. SIR Corp, the group behind Far Niente and Reds Wine Tavern, made an intentional counterintuitive bet here, and by most accounts it reads as conviction rather than miscalculation. The room is designed for groups who want forty-plus taps, live music, and the option to play ping-pong between rounds. That is not a hedge toward respectability — it is the concept, committed to without apology.
The menu, overseen by Chef Tim Tutton, is structured around dishes that can survive a kitchen running at full capacity on a Friday night — a harder standard than it appears at scale. The Spicy Pig Burger and Haddock Fish & Chips function as the anchors, both reportedly consistent performers under volume. The Poutine has drawn specific and repeated praise in documented customer feedback; given the proximity to Market vendors, diners appear to hold it to an appropriately elevated standard. The Bacon Caramel Mini Donuts are consistently cited as the late-order move — unambiguous in intent, reportedly popular as a closer. The Sweet and Spicy Pizza serves the practical function of accommodating tables that cannot align on a single direction. None of this repositions Canadian pub food; it executes within its register at price-point one, which is the correct ambition for what the room is.
Practical considerations matter here more than most. The semi-private spaces are worth requesting for groups above eight — the full floor can render smaller parties acoustically invisible. The bar area reportedly allows more deliberate engagement with the tap list than the arcade side permits. The well-documented local pattern: arrive after the Saturday Market closes, order the Poutine and the Mini Donuts, and get ahead of the evening crowd before 6 p.m. or accept that you have joined the event rather than attended a meal. View restaurant →
8
Google
Burgers•St. Lawrence Market•$
MICHELIN ★
Duke's Refresher St Lawrence
Duke's Refresher occupies a specific and deliberately chosen lane: a 450-seat, 70s-inflected room inside St.
classicmarketreliable
Read restaurant page
9.9/10
TastyPals Score
8.6 Google
8.6
2,294 Google reviews
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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