Guide to Toronto

Lash out

The Hazelton Hotel (118 Yorkville Avenue, 963 6300, thehazeltonhotel .com, from $505) is the hands-down champion. Think touch-button technology, vast swathes of black and green marble, the most luxurious bathrooms in town and a total wow factor, which combine for something genuinely special. The Queen stays at the Fairmont Royal York, pictured, (100 Front Street West, +1 866 540 4489, fairmont.com). The $577-plus junior suites are predictably regal — and extremely spacious. Less palatial but scoring high on space and facilities is the Cambridge Suites Hotel (15 Richmond Street East, 368 1990, cambridgesuitestoronto.com, from $339). It has a more residential feel — perfect for business travellers.

SHOP + PLAY

To market

Kensington Market (kensington-market.ca) is more of an area than a market in itself but during the day there are food stalls, as well as permanent shops. Occasional markets crop up in different areas of the city — the Distillery District has a farmers' market on Sundays, for example — but the city's pride is the St Lawrence Market (stlawrencemarket.com). It's the best place to get fresh food but there's plenty of craft and souvenir-hunting to be done inside, while antiques stalls sprawl on Sundays.

Go shop

The Eaton Centre (220 Yonge Street, torontoeatoncentre.com) is the big city centre mall with 250 stores to choose from. For a proper card-maxing spree, however, you should head along Bloor Street West. This is where the big name luxury brands — from Breitling and Swarovski to Hermes and Prada — can be found. For Toronto's best shopping experience, however, slip on some good walking shoes and hike along Queen Street West from Granville to Bathurst streets. You'll find the gamut, from vintage fashion and indie boutiques to specialty stationery, rare records and arty children's toys.

Live music

The Rivoli (334 Queen Street West, 596 1908, rivoli.ca) isn't exactly an ultra-regular live music venue but its back room has a reputation for hosting secret gigs by pseudonym-disguised major artists who want to test new material in an intimate venue. Iggy Pop, the Rolling Stones and David Bowie are among those who have showed up incognito in the past. The Rex Hotel Jazz and Blues bar (194 Queen Street West, 598 2475, therex.ca) is a fantastic spot for ... well, the clue's in the name. Acts appear seven nights a week, and the vibe is refreshingly unpretentious. Massey Hall (178 Victoria Street, 872 4255, masseyhall.com) gets more than its fair share of the medium-size to large bands.

Nightclubs

The Fifth Social (225 Richmond Street West, 979 3000, thefifth.com) is a pretty friendly, attitude-free joint where the music policy veers more towards the fun than the cool and people aren't afraid to show their enthusiastic lack of ability on the dance floor. This Is London (364 Richmond Street West, 351 1100, www.thisislondonclub.com) is a less frenzied affair. The opulent room tends to pull in the celebs and it's more a place to pose with bottle service than to dance like a loon. Revival (783 College Street, 535 7888, revivalbar.com) attracts some high quality DJs, and the emphasis is more towards soulful slinking and hip-hop than sweating it out to the doof-doofs.

SEE + DO

Icons

The CN Tower (301 Front Street West, 868 6937, cntower.ca), at 553.33m, was, until recently, the tallest free-standing structure on earth. The views from the observation deck are well worth shooting up in the superlifts for. From there, you'll see the Toronto Islands in Lake Ontario. These gorgeous, interconnected specks are accessed by ferry and have an old-time wholesome fun atmosphere — partly down to the amusement park and farm. Equally loveable, but infinitely more ridiculous, is Casa Loma, pictured, (1 Austin Terrace, 923 1171, casaloma.org). This is a classic rich man's folly — a 98-room castle in the middle of the city, with all manner of secret passages and other oddities.

Culture

After London and New York, Toronto is the biggest English-speaking theatre hub in the world, with most show tickets sold through Ticketmaster (ticketmaster.ca). There are numerous venues across the city, of which the double-decker Elgin and Winter Garden complex (189 Yonge Street, 314 2901, heritagetrust.on.ca) is the most architecturally remarkable and atmospheric. The T.O. Tix booth (corner of Yonge and Dundas streets, totix.ca) is the place to pick up a bargain — it sells spare tickets at half price on the day of performance. Museum-wise, the Royal Ontario Museum (100 Queen's Park, 586 8000, rom.on.ca) is huge and has many excellent exhibits, although stronger narrative threads wouldn't go amiss.

On foot

The city's Parks, Forestry and Recreation Department has put together Discovery Walks that are downloadable at toronto.ca/parks/trails/discover.htm. The downtown one rambles for six kilometres around some of Toronto's most impressive buildings and is dotted with explanatory maps on the ground. For walking tours, Muddy York Tours (487 9017, muddyyorktours.com) offers two-hour guided strolls on niche topics, such as Toronto's movie and theatre scene, its 19th-century history and its supposedly haunted streets. On the Toronto Islands, getting off at the Centre Island ferry terminal and walking via the boardwalk to the Ward's Island dock for the return trip makes for a blissful couple of hours.

Follow the leader

If you're after an orientation and key sites tour, then Toronto Hippo Tours (703 4476, torontohippotours.com, $43) combines a bus schlep and a cruise in an amphibious vehicle painted to look like a cartoon hippopotamus. Many of Toronto's highlights are architectural, with Victorian-era classics mixed in with skyline-defining glass towers that help the city double as Chicago and New York in Hollywood films. The Toronto Society of Architects (torontosocietyofarchitects.ca) runs themed tours for $20. Finally, you can't come all this way without seeing Niagara Falls — it's a 90-minute to two-hour trip and Toronto Tours (torontotours.com) turns it into an action-packed day out.

EAT + DRINK

Cafe culture

If you fancy playing it by ear, then Baldwin Street, to the west of the McCaul Street intersection, is a fabulous cafe and restaurant strip. Prices are reasonable at all establishments, locals eat there too, and you can tuck into anything from dim sum or Vietnamese to Indian or Mexican. In Kensington Market, Torito, pictured, (276 Augusta Avenue, 961 7373, torito restaurant.com) is an excellent, relaxed tapas joint where "small plates" are generous and the flavours are tremendous. Meanwhile, The Beaver (1192 Queen Street West, 537 2768, thebeavertoronto.com) is a spot to loaf, with good pastries, cracking burgers and a relaxed, endearingly geeky vibe.

Snack attack

Canteen (330 King Street West, 288 4710) is a fresh face on the block and is as close as you can get to having a chef lovingly create your ready-to-go sandwich. It's half cafe, half salad and sarnie takeaway but the breads and ingredients are of the highest quality. If you're after sustenance on an amble down Queen Street West, then Chippy's (No.893, 866 7474) provides what everyone seems to agree is the best fish and chips in town. Otherwise, if you're in the downtown area, the secret is to head to Toronto's interlinked underground city of malls and subways — there's a food court on virtually every corner.

Top of the town

For a literal top of the town, 360 The Restaurant (868 6937, cntower.ca), above the observation deck at the CN Tower, offers spectacular rotating views from 351 metres up. Unlike other such tourist-trap restaurants, 360 has not become lazy on the food — it's genuinely good. Canoe (364 0054, oliverbonacini.com), on the 54th floor of the Dominion Bank Tower, is nearly as vertiginous and the modern Canadian menu is widely recognised as the best fine-dining splurge in Toronto. Closer to earth, Chiado (864 College Street, 538 1910, chiadorestaurant.com) is a classy but very charming Portuguese joint, with a particularly strong reputation for seafood.

By the glass

The bar at the Drake Hotel (1150 Queen Street West, 531 5042, thedrakehotel.ca) is hip — the back wall is a giant Rorschach Test and there's a palpable buzz — but the crowd is mostly local. It's equally at home with DJs or pub quizzes, cocktails or beer. A few blocks along is Cafe Taste (1330 Queen Street West, 536 7748, cafetaste.ca), a cosy, unpretentious place that specialises in wines from the Niagara area. Don't laugh — it has the same latitude as southern France. Beer lovers should work their way through the microbrew menu at the Mill Street Brewpub (55 Mill Street, 681 0338, millstreetbrewpub.ca) in the Distillery District.

Hot tip

By North American standards, Toronto's downtown area has plenty of life to it — people do actually live there rather than work in the office blocks before going home elsewhere. But stick to it and you are missing out. Spread out to the west — particularly along Queen Street — and east (Cabbagetown, Corktown, Distillery District, the Danforth) and you'll find numerous beating hearts. It's a city where the challenge is to find a bit you don't like — it's great to just hang out in a thoroughly underrated city and forget about ticking off the usual museums and attractions.

Getting there

For one-stop flights, you can either change in Los Angeles from Qantas (qantas.com.au) to Air Canada (aircanada.com) or go with the Canadian flag carrier all the way from Sydney, changing in Vancouver. Prices start at about $2750, although cheaper deals are usually available for more exhausting two or three-stop routes.

Visas and currency

No visas are necessary to visit Canada but if you are transiting via an airport in the US, you will need to do the ESTA paperwork (https: //esta.cbp.dhs.gov/esta) before arrival. The Canadian dollar is about at parity with the Australian dollar.

Calling Toronto Most numbers have a 416 dialling code, while Canada's country code is +1. Add +1 416 to any seven-digit number listed here if calling from Australia. Other numbers are in full.

Further information

seetorontonow.com, ontariotravel.net.

David Whitley was a guest of Ontario Tourism.