Forget the tourist traps! Travel like a fashionable local in six of our coolest cities.
Toronto
The buzz Toronto the Good is on its way to becoming Toronto the Great: Art Gallery of Ontario is preening, post-Frank Gehry makeover, and the film festival is a worldclass event. Yorkville is a perennial hot spot, and Leslieville — in the east end — is heating up, but go west (Queen West) for the best bookstores, galleries and vintage shopping.
Stay Tucked away on the 32nd floor of the Hilton, the Margery Steele Signature Suite pays tribute to a Toronto fashion icon. The director of the St. Regis Room, Steele was the first to bring designers like Geoffrey Beene to Canada. Her good taste inspires decor that is both elegant and welcoming: pumpkin-coloured chiffon curtains, a mirrored walk-in closet and vintage photos of Steele on her international buying trips.
Shop and stroll Browse bestsellers at Type Books, which is as well curated as any designer boutique, then settle in with a latte and a ginger cookie at the White Squirrel coffee shop, named after the albino squirrel in Trinity Bellwoods Park. For cutting-edge labels like Isabel Marant and Marc Jacobs, stop in at Jacflash and Jonathan Olivia. I Miss You has the best vintage accessories in the city (think YSL pumps and Chanel clutches), while Toronto designer Virginia Johnson’s eponymous shop is an explosion of turquoise and watermelon prints on dresses, scarves and bags.
Dine and drink At the always busy Pizzeria Libretto, try the Duck Confit Pizza with Bosc Pear, baked in an oven imported from Italy. Foxley is the perfect neighbourhood bistro, featuring a tapas menu of dishes like Crisp Lamb and Duck Prosciutto Dumplings. Reposado, the city’s first tequila bar, showcases the sophisticated side of the mythic liquor: Order a flight of sipping tequila while admiring the servers. (Just say that you were checking out the stained-glass window behind the bar.)
ART CRAWL
The Sunny Choi Gallery is Queen West’s exciting new outpost, but for the latest place to check out contemporary art, head north to Dundas West. Highlights include the Alison Smith Gallery, which features cutting-edge photography and art. “It’s near-gentrification utopia,” says Smith of the neighbourhood’s appeal. “There’s a great energy — the cheek-by-jowl of galleries, car-repair guys and bakeries. The guys with last year’s BlackBerrys and pot bellies aren’t here yet. It’s just about perfect”.
Text by Laura deCarufel
Image of vintage finds courtesy of I Miss You
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