Distillery Winter Village: Nov 17 – Dec 31
Join us and experience the magic of the holiday season. Stroll the cobblestone streets under the canopy lights while you shop for that perfect gift, marvel at the centerpiece Christmas Tree in Trinity Square, wave hello to Santa, and enjoy live entertainment.
This year’s 50 foot tall White Spruce Christmas tree has been designed by DIOR by PARFUMS CHRISTIAN DIOR, this year’s title sponsor of The Distillery Winter Village. It will be decorated with 400 custom midnight blue ornaments, 1,700 shiny and matte gold balls, and 70,000 twinkling lights. The tree also features 1,000 custom DIOR by PARFUMS CHRISTIAN DIOR star charms. Restaurants, shopping
Holiday Hills at Stackt Market
Holiday Hills will transform STACKT into a show stopping winter wonderland where you can immerse yourself in the holiday spirit with a whole roster of cozy, fun + festive activities + experiences.
From November 18 – December 31, Holiday Hills is a FREE festival that will take over a whole city block of Toronto with immersive photo installations and experiences, eye-catching holiday ambience, unique hospitality concepts, small business holiday shopping, community-led events, workshops + family programs.
Evergreen Brickworks Holiday Market – December 17 – December 22
Shop at one of the largest sustainable holiday markets in Toronto! Featuring a rotation of over 40 locally-crafted, sustainably produced and handmade vendors, you’ll be sure to find a unique gift for everyone on your list.
Grab a bite to eat of local street fare from the food trucks and food stalls. From dumplings to arepas, gluten-free goodies to gourmet grilled cheese, there is something for everyone to enjoy.
The Bentway – Polar Bear Skate
We’re thrilled to welcome back local neighbours and fun-seekers for our fifth year of winter programming at The Bentway! In addition to the Skate Trail opening December 17 (weather permitting), this year a number of festive favourites are back, including free skate rental nights, free hot chocolate nights, beginner skate lessons, and The Bentway’s Polar Bear Skate.
Adding some extra warmth this year, we’ll be celebrating the experiences of newcomers encountering Toronto’s cold season for the first time. Featured “First Winter” programming includes a glowing new art installation by Shellie Zhang, plus performance, music, storytelling, and community care initiatives. December 17, 2022 – February 20, 2023
Cavalcade of Lights
Since 1967, Toronto has announced the arrival of the holiday season with the Cavalcade of Lights. This glittering festival captures Canada’s winter spirit and transforms Nathan Phillips Square. The plaza is filled with over half a million LED lights, ice sculptures and Toronto’s official Christmas tree—typically a spruce tree around 18 m high. Enjoy fireworks, cultural celebrations, art installations and ice skating performances. For the past 20 years, the Cavalcade of Lights also had free Saturday night skate parties on the schedule, amping up the interactive magic until after New Year’s Eve.
Glow Christmas Toronto
Glow Christmas Toronto – It’s like being transported straight into a Christmas storybook, holiday-lovers of all ages can delight in the joys of the season without commuting to the North Pole. At Canada’s premium indoor holiday festival, you and your loved ones are invited to savour delicious food, sip on holiday inspired drinks, shop for one-of-a-kind gifts, decorate cookies with Mrs Claus and enjoy story time with Santa himself—all beneath the glow of a million twinkling lights. Takes please at Toronto Congress Centre, December 1 – 31st, 2022
Northern Lights is coming to the city for the first time ever, and it’s described as an “an unparalleled winter wonderland.” Said to be the “most immersive holiday experience in Toronto,” Northern Lights will transport you to a world filled with the cheerful lights, sights, sounds, and feelings of the holidays.December 1, 2022 – January 8th, 2023
List of MICHELIN Recommended Restaurants:
MICHELIN Guide: https://www.destinationtoronto.com/restaurants/michelin/
Other Culinary Updates:
Toronto is already known as a destination for their endless multicultural restaurants. Lately chefs are turning to the plant-based concepts and offering dishes showcasing the actual plants and grains in their simple beauty while also getting creative with textures and faux-meats. Below are some of the hot spots to hit up for vegan travelers.
Vegan:
Italian can be vegan and is done so perfectly at this eatery. The menu changes regularly with availability of seasonal ingredients and the creativity from the team of chefs. Highlights include Fritto Misto with lightly battered and fried maitake and oyster mushrooms, chili pepper, served with a pesto sauce, house made agnolotti filled with almond ricotta and mint, and a variety of pizzas perfect to share with the table.
Toronto’s plant-based food game is so strong now they even have vegan junk food: a lot of it. At Hogtown Vegan, guests indulge on the signature Un-Chicken and Waffles and other dishes like “phish ‘n chips” to fake steak to every kind of sandwich you can think of, this restaurant has possibly the biggest variety of junk vegan food you can find in the city.
Earlier this year, Toronto welcomed a taste of Montreal’s vegan food scene as the beloved and insta-famous LOV restaurant joins the neighborhood of King West. LOV stands for Local, Organic and Vegan, principles the restaurant tries to adhere to in every way. Standout dishes include dumplings stuffed with mushroom, leek, onion and cabbage and deep fried, Kale Mac n Cheese, Quinoa Croquettes and more.
Sustainable:
1 Kitchen
Located inside 1 Hotel Toronto, 1 Kitchen is zero-waste and utilizes their on-site garden, the Garden Pavilion, to supply produce, including herbs, edible flowers and fruits. In addition, they also have a composting program on location to turn organic wet waste into reusable soil, further supporting their garden and other plants within the hotel.
Hotel Updates and Eco-Friendly Approaches
W Toronto – Opened July 21, 2022
The W Toronto is the newest and most sought-after hotel destination in Yorkville. Surrounded by iconic galleries, sophisticated shopping, and electric nightlife, the brand-new luxury hotel is an urban oasis of culture and style located in the heart of one of Toronto’s most stylish areas – Yorkville. Explore what’s New/Next at the live music and DJ series in the Living Room.
More Hotel Selections
Gladstone Hotel
The Gladstone Hotel is a trailblazer when it comes to its sustainability model and social impact initiatives. Not only does the accommodation have numerous eco-friendly projects happening—green roofs, nontoxic cleaning products, compost and recycling initiatives—but the company is 100% woman-owned and queer feminist led.
1 Hotel Toronto
With nature as our true north, sustainability comes naturally at 1 Hotel Toronto. We allow nature to guide our journey, breathe life into our vision, inspire us to place intuition before expectation, and continuously realign us with our sustainability keystones—environmental impact, health and wellbeing, resiliency and ongoing performance improvement, and food and beverage responsibility.
Designed with a focus on the vibrant Toronto community and driven by environmentally sustainable practices and eco-friendly initiatives, the new Hotel X Toronto is a proud member of the Library Hotel Collection and perfectly encapsulates authentic hospitality by offering a modern hotel experience in the heart of Toronto’s most historic and iconic location.
The Meadoway
The Meadoway is transforming a hydro corridor in Scarborough into a vibrant 16-kilometre stretch of urban greenspace and meadowlands that will become one of Canada’s largest linear urban parks.
University Park
University Park is revisioning of Toronto’s iconic street as a 90-acre park, running from the provincial legislature to the city’s waterfront.
Hotels
The Ode Toronto
Ode is the latest Black-owned hostel in Toronto. Opened in 2021 and located in one of the most vibrant neighborhoods in Toronto— Dundas St West, Ode offers something completely different from the typical hospitality experience.
Othership
WELLNESS
If you’re looking to improve your self-care routine and make some new friends while you’re at it, this new retreat is the place to do it. Othership is a one-of-a-kind oasis in the city built for social connection and transformative experiences through a sauna and ice bath circuit.
Unbound Well
Toronto’s First Outdoor Wellness Playground. With an emphasis on hot and cold therapy, breathing techniques and movement, we promote thoughtful and somatic wellness experiences to support both physical and mental well-being.
Art Gallery Of Ontario (AGO)
Denyse Thomasos: Just Beyond
One of the finest painters to emerge in the 1990s, the late Trinidadian-Canadian artist Denyse Thomasos (1964-2012) left an indelible, yet frequently overlooked, mark on contemporary painting. A career retrospective, Denyse Thomasos: Just Beyond, brings together more than 70 paintings, many rarely seen, to show how she challenged the limits of abstraction, infusing personal and political content onto her canvases through the innovative use of formalist techniques. October 5, 2022 – February 20, 2023
Leonard Cohen: Everybody Knows
The first museum exhibition to present the holdings of the Leonard Cohen Family Trust, Everybody Knows immerses visitors in the many facets of Cohen’s creative life. Rare concert footage and archival materials, including musical instruments, notebooks, lyrics and letters are featured alongside photographs, drawing, and digital art created by Cohen across several decades. Opens December 7, 2022.
