Leslieville & Riverside

Things to know

• There is no subway station in this neighbourhood. The 501 Queen and 506 Carlton streetcars are how it works, plus Broadview station at the north end for the park and the Brick Works shuttle.
• The single most useful piece of transit here is the free Evergreen shuttle bus, which runs seven days a week year-round from the Broadview Station parkette on Erindale Avenue every 30-45 minutes — that is how you get to the Brick Works without a car.
• Reservations discipline matters more here than downtown: Ricky + Olivia needs booking well ahead, Puerto Bravo takes bookings by telephone only, and Maha's, White Lily and Bonjour Brioche take none at all and run queues.
• Sunday morning is the neighbourhood's best window — the Leslieville Farmers' Market at Greenwood Park and the Brick Works market both run then.
• And check anything you read elsewhere against the current year: this district has had exceptional restaurant turnover since late 2024.
• Scope notes. We include Riverside, Leslieville, Riverdale and the Gerrard India Bazaar (Little India), and we attach Evergreen Brick Works here — it sits at 550 Bayview in the Don Valley north of Riverdale, reached by the Broadview Station shuttle or on foot up the Lower Don Trail from the bottom of Riverdale Park, and no other Toronto neighbourhood in this catalogue is closer to it. We exclude the Beaches (Queen East from Woodbine to Neville Park), which is a separate neighbourhood three kilometres further east with its own boardwalk and its own dining strip — including the Bib Gourmand Georgian restaurant Tiflisi at 1970 Queen East, which is therefore not covered here. We also exclude the Danforth and Greektown to the north, East Chinatown at Broadview and Gerrard beyond the immediate edge, and the Port Lands to the south.