Why Kensington Market is Toronto’s best neighbourhood for food

David Whitley August 12, 2025

The mixture of cuisines from all over the world makes Toronto’s Kensington Market an incredible place for street food and casual restaurants.

The migration history of Kensington Market

The story begins in the distinctively bay-and-gable Victorian houses on Kensington Avenue. “They were built in the late 19^th century for English and Scottish immigrants,” says Jason Kucherawy, owner of the Toronto Urban Adventures. “So they had sitting rooms or parlours.”

The Jewish migrants that arrived later, however, could see no use for the parlours in the homes they’d worked hard to afford. They turned them into shops, and moved kitchens upstairs, living apartment-style above their small businesses.

Then, after World War II, there was an influx from Italy and Portugal. Toronto wasn’t as welcoming then as it is now, but the Jewish landlords didn’t care where people were from as long as they paid the rent. Kensington Market became the logical initial settlement point for several more waves of migrants after that.

Global cuisine in Kensington Market

“Wherever the hotspot in the world was, the people fleeing it came here,” says Jason.

The name is misleading – there is no market. But Kensington Market is full of small shops, cafés and restaurants, many of which combine cultures in rather unexpected ways. On Kensington Avenue, a case in point is Rasta Pasta, which has a Jamaican-style oil drum barbecue at the front but serves up Jamaican-Italian crossovers such as jerk pork panini.

Elsewhere, there are the likes of Caribbean Syrian Connection, where a West Indian juice bar sits at the front of Akram’s Shoppe selling authentic Middle Eastern foods.

Kensington Avenue vs Augusta Avenue

If Kensington Avenue is old school Kensington Market – slightly scuzzier and occasionally overdosing on the tie-dye Tibetan dresses – Augusta Avenue is the way it is heading. It’s more restaurants than shops, more artisan baking than existence-scraping. But it’s still independent – chains attempting to encroach quickly get snarled out of affordable and unashamedly global Kensington Market.

“This,” says Jason with very good reason, “is the neighbourhood where I come to eat.”