Maybe the best way to spend a day in Toronto is just to wander around and soak in some of the city’s many diverse neighbourhoods. While you’re here you should explore the Entertainment District, where Ocho and the Hyatt are to be found, along with restaurants and shops and theatres and cinemas and bard and nightclubs. But here are the other places we find ourselves in on sunny summer days.

Queen West
There really isn’t a bad stretch of Queen – Toronto’s coolest street – but given the choice, we’d go west. From University to Spadina (and right past Ocho) Queen is lined with typical high street stores, but offers some funkier shops, restaurants, and cafes once you get past Bathurst. Our favourite bookstore, Type, is right across from Trinity Bellwoods, which is also one of our favourite parks. Then you’re on West Queen West, lined with cool gift shops and galleries and restaurants and bars – like the Drake and the Gladstone and the Done Right Inn. Finally, once you get past Dufferin you find yourself in Parkdale, which is a little less gentrified but has some of the city’s best bars and restaurants (good luck getting into Grand Electric, a popular Mexican place that doesn’t take reservations). The last couple blocks of Queen are lined with antique shops, and then you’ve hit the shoreline and high park. Or turn around and take the streetcar back!

The Distillery District
This former whiskey distillery has been turned into a pedestrian-only historic neighbourhood stuffed with great restaurants, shops, cafes, and art galleries. You can visit working studios to see artists and craftspeople doing their thing, tour the Mill Street Brewery, or get some fresh candies at Soma Chocolatemaker. And if you’re headed this way, might as well hit up nearby St. Lawrence Market as well.

Kensington Market
Kensington is a microcosm of everything that makes Toronto great. The neighbourhood is crowded with mom-and-pop shops running the gamut from army thrift stores to high-end designer botiques. The market is home to a culturally-diverse population and draws Torontonians (and visitors) of all stripes to its bars and restaurants. We like the speakeasy Cold Tea as well as hole in the wall Thirsty and Miserable; Trinity Common has good food and good drinks, Poetry is a great jazz bar and date place, and we like the vibe (and the bartenders) at Handlebar. There are dozens of small food vendors, too, including some great Latin joints, the city’s best German Doner, and practically anything vegetarian or vegan if that’s your jam. It’s also just steps away from Ocho!

Chinatown
We are getting married on the edge of central Toronto’s largest Chinatown. Spadina and Dundas are lined with Asian restaurants, knick-knack shops, grocers, and market stalls. There’s some great cheap food and shopping, and some truly foreign food and shopping too. The sidewalks can get pretty crowded here, and folks tend to stroll along slowly, so it’s maybe best to avoid if you’re in a rush – but why would you be? Take your time and enjoy the sights and smells. If you get a chance, check out People’s Eatery; we haven’t been yet but we’ve heard great things. Oh, and Grossman’s Tavern, which has been around approximately forever, is where you’ll usually find our musical act playing to a happy crowd.

Dundas and Ossington
You will find Peak Hipster at the corner of Dundas and Ossington. Since we’ve moved to Toronto hipsterdom has moved west along Queen from Trinity-Bellwoods, straight up Ossington, and now snakes west along Dundas. If you don’t mind plaid and ironic facial hair you will find plenty of Toronto’s very best bars here. Bellwoods Brewery on Ossington is one of our favourite microbreweries (and the patio is awesome, though tough to find a seat on a sunny day); Sweaty Betty’s and Reposado – the latter is a tequila bar – are our other favourite bars and patios on Ossington. We’ve spent lots of time at the tiny Communist’s Daughter on Dundas; it has a great jukebox and live music on the weekends. (Saturday afternoon the bartender plays trumpet and sings while slinging drinks.) Get Well is maybe our favourite bar on Dundas, though. It has an old school arcade and a great pizzeria in back. Between us – the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game is broken so player two gets infinite lives. That’s the only reason Jess is always able to kick Matt’s ass at it.

Yorkville
If you want to shop while you’re in town and don’t care how much is left in your savings when it’s done just head straight to Yorkville. Bloor Street is called Canada’s Fifth Avenue, lined with Burberry and Tiffany’s and Hermes, but the really rich among us go to the little one-off botiques in the dense cluster of streets north of Bloor. For those of us with a little less disposable income it’s still worth a visit; in addition to typical high street retailers like The Gap, H&M, and Winners, you’ll also find a number of great little cafes and restaurants, and there’s a pretty little park near Cumberland and Bay. The Pilot and Hemingways are the biggest and oldest bars in the neighbourhood, but our favourite is The Oxley, a high-end and pretty authentic British pub. (If you want to experience it without trucking up to Yorkville you can visit its sister pub, The Queen and Beaver, near Dundas and Yonge.) If you’re visiting The ROM, take some time to wander Yorkville. And maybe get lost in U of T’s beautiful Victoria College while you’re at it.

Where else to go...
Some of our favourite neighbourhoods that are a little further afield include the Annex, a cozy student-and-professional neighbourhood with great shops and beautiful houses (Matt used to live there and both of us want to live there again); Cabbagetown, which has some of the best-preserved Victorian streetscapes on the continent and has loads of quaint alleys and dead-end streets to visit; Greektown, which claims to have North America’s highest concentration of restaurants from virtually every cuisine in the world; Little Italy, which has some of the city’s best bars and restaurants; Liberty Village, which is a little like the Distillery but a bit more of a working neighbourhood and a bit less touristy; and the Junction, where Dundas is lined with great shops and restaurants including some of Toronto’s best antique shops.