The oldest ten blocks of Toronto, and the only part of the downtown that still reads as a nineteenth-century city. Old Town is where the town of York actually was: a public market that has been trading on the same block since 1803, a Gothic cathedral spire, an 1892 flatiron a decade older than New York's, and a dog fountain that is the least serious piece of public art in Canada. Fifteen minutes east on foot, the Distillery District is the same century in a different key — forty-odd Victorian industrial buildings on thirteen car-free, cobbled acres, whisky-making from 1832 to 1990, pedestrianised in 2003 and now full of galleries, boutiques and a theatre. Between the two runs a stretch of King and Front Street East that is quietly becoming the city's most interesting restaurant strip.
Who it's for: Anyone who wants to eat well cheaply: the market's upper level is the best-value lunch in central Toronto and nothing there costs twenty dollars. History-minded travellers, because this is the only place the pre-1900 city is legible on the ground. Photographers — the Flatiron, the cobbles, the dog fountain. Families, thanks to a free post office museum where children write with quill pens. And anyone with one good dinner in them: Ardo and Madrina are both in the Michelin Guide's Toronto selection and both cost less than their downtown equivalents.