Two adjoining districts that share a border on Spadina and almost nothing else. Kensington is four blocks of Victorian houses whose front rooms became shops — a working immigrant market, National Historic Site since 2006, scruffy on purpose and politically hostile to chains. Chinatown West is a functioning Chinese and Vietnamese commercial district running up Spadina: sidewalk produce crates, herbalists, wholesale cookware, dim sum until 5am. Together they are the cheapest good eating in downtown Toronto and the part of the city that looks least like everywhere else.
Who it's for: Eaters on a budget, because five dollars genuinely buys lunch here and twenty-five buys an excellent one. Anyone interested in how immigration actually builds a city rather than how it gets commemorated. Vintage shoppers — this is the densest concentration of secondhand clothing in Canada. Cooks, for the butcher, the bakery, the Latin American groceries and the wholesale kitchen shops. Night owls, thanks to Chinatown's 5am kitchens. And people who like the Art Gallery of Ontario, which sits at the eastern edge of Chinatown and is free if you are an Ontarian under 25.