Lifestyle, Travel

Fall Weekend in Toronto

No Comments

I’m back with a new blog post and more travels to tell you about! I spent last weekend in Toronto exploring some Fall and holiday activities around the city.

Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel

As usual we flew in to Billy Bishop airport on Porter Airlines, it’s definitely the fastest way into the city. This time we stayed at the newly renovated Sheraton Centre Toronto. The hotel has a beautiful lobby with two bars(Dual Citizen and 43Down) and lots of space to sit, eat or work.

The room was spacious and comfortable. One of the key features at the Sheraton Toronto is the Club Lounge located on the 43rd floor. Offering sweeping views of downtown Toronto the Club Lounge is open for breakfast, all-day snacks and cocktails in the evening. It’s also a great place to relax, work or have a business meeting. You can upgrade your room to include access to the lounge.

We really enjoyed the breakfast at the lounge, the staff were so accommodating and the food was great. I really enjoyed the cold pressed juice made fresh daily in-house!

The Sheraton also offers lost of space for meetings and conferences. The hotel was busy as there were quite a few events going on during our stay but the attention to detail and customer service was amazing!

Activities

This trip was a little more relaxed for us in terms of activities as we were arrived late on Friday evening. Toronto has so much to offer in general, especially around the holidays. I started off my Saturday with some shopping with Laura Ackermans from Your Shop Girl

Your Shop Girl offers personal shopping and image consulting services. There’s a number of different packages for women and men that you can choose from. It’s also a great service to use if you want to get some Christmas shopping done! Laura took me on a quick tour of the trendy Queen St West area. We visited some local favourites like Horses Atelier, The Latest Scoop and Coal Miner’s Daughter.

Toronto is known for its entertainment industry and being home to the Toronto International Film Festival, but the city also offers many other specialized entertainment events. One of them is the Reel Asian Film Festival which features work but filmmakers of Asian heritage. We got to stop by the festival and catch some short films which also included works by South Asian filmmakers.

My favourite activity on this trip was our candle making workshop at Kandl Artistique Yorkville. This trendy boutique offers an olfactory experience! You can shop their existing candles or sign up for a workshop and create your own. Sashien and I really enjoyed the workshop, it’s a relaxing experience that’s a great date idea as well. The workshop runs about an hour and you get to choose your custom scent and name your candle. Once the candles are poured it takes about 30-mins to an hour for them to be ready for pick up so make sure you have something to do while you wait. The store also offers a cafe with snacks, tea, coffee and wine! Can you guess what I named my candle? The Weekend Fashionista of course!

Lunch

We checked out two spots for lunch on this trip. On Saturday we stopped by Le Sélect Bistro, a cozy French restaurant. This restaurant offers a great brunch menu with some traditional french items. I tried the Croque Monsieur and Sashien had the Beef Tartare. Both were delicious! The cocktails and wine list was also extensive and I was impressed that they had my favourite cocktail, a Kir Royale on the menu.

After our candle making workshop on Sunday,  we stopped by Signatures Restaurant at the Yorkville Royal Sonesta Hotel. The restaurant offers a new menu with items such as grilled shrimp, tacos and ravioli for lunch. Signatures is also a popular brunch spot in Yorkville and offers an elevated dining experience.

Dinner and Drinks

We had two amazing dinners in Toronto. On Friday evening we stopped by 43Down which is located inside the lobby of the Sheraton Centre Toronto. This restaurant is a great high end spot for dinner and drinks and features a new winter menu. We tried their duck fat fries, angus beef tartare and smoked aurora duck drumettes. The food was delicious but the real stars of the show are their drinks.

We tried the Boulavardier In Ice which has a really cool presentation where the alcohol is injected into a globe of ice. Once this is done you get to crush the ice and drink it. This is such a special cocktail that only 10 of them are prepared a night, so go early if you want to try it. 43Down also offers great smoked drinks such as the 43rd which comes in a smoke chamber.

On Saturday night we had another amazing dining experience at BlueBlood Steakhouse located inside Casa Loma. This was on our list of restaurants to try so we were very excited to experience it. We both tried the Wagyu beef steaks and they were done to perfection! For sides we went with garlic mashed potatoes and lobster mac & cheese, both so decadent.

The drinks at BlueBlood were also divine and I tried their famous Once Upon A Time cocktail. This truly was a dining experience! Everything from the decor, the drinks, food and ambiance was just perfect! If you’re celebrating a special occasion or simply feel the need to get dressed up for dinner then BlueBlood is the place to go!

After dinner we also stopped by Parc Ave for drinks. This new luxury cocktail bar and lounge is located in the Yorkville area and offers high end cocktails. We got there around 8pm but some parts of the lounge opened only at 10pm. If you plan on going to Parc Ave I’d suggest saving it as a late night spot. The bar and lounge are also quite small so it is liable to fill up as the night goes on.

We really enjoyed this weekend getaway to Toronto. If you haven’t visited the city yet then perhaps add it to your holiday travel plans. There’s so much going on in the city this time of year and a full list of activities and attractions can be found at Destination Toronto. They can also help you plan your trip to the city. A huge thank you to the Destination Toronto team for partnering with us on this trip!

 

Lifestyle, Travel

Things to do in Toronto this Summer

No Comments

I’m back! It’s been a while since my last travel blog post and I’m so excited to share what I’ve been up to. Summer is finally here in Canada and what better time to start planning some vacations or staycations! For those of us in Ontario we have an added incentive of the Ontario Staycation tax credit. I although I’m based in Ottawa I always try to get at least one trip to Toronto in each Summer. It’s definitely Ontario’s largest and most popular city with so many sights to see and things to do, there’s something for everyone.

I visited Toronto a few weeks ago and had such a fabulous time thanks to Destination Toronto and their ideas on just about everything you could possibly need to know about planning a trip to Toronto.

Travel + Accommodation

As I live in Ottawa I could have chosen to fly, drive or take the train to Toronto but I really wanted to maximize my time in the city so Sashien and I chose to fly. We flew Porter Airlines directly  to Billy Bishop Airport which is conveniently located in the heart of the city. Transportation out of the airport is quick and easy and you can either take the ferry, a taxi or Uber. We chose to Uber and used it to get around to most places during our weekend stay.

In terms of accommodation options Toronto has endless possibilities based on your needs and price point. On this occasion we were hosted by the Ritz-Carlton and we thoroughly enjoyed everything the hotel had to offer. This place is definitely worth the splurge! From the personalized guest key cards to the friendly and accommodating staff the Ritz-Carlton exudes five star service. We also had the chance to check out their onsite spa My Blend by Clarins. This spa was exquisite and offers so many high end services exclusive to Clarins, we both had the rebalancing massage and left feeling relaxed and ready to take on the weekend!

Sights + Attractions

Toronto has so much to see and do it’s impossible to see everything in one weekend but we did visit some really unique and interesting places on our trip. Of course there’s the traditional CN tower visit and the trip to Ripley’s Aquarium, which are great family friendly activities but as we had both seen them in the past we wanted to check out something different. One of our first stops was Little Canada which is an exhibit featuring animated miniatures of various cities and vistas around Canada. The exhibit is a work in progress as they build different parts of Canada. We enjoyed visit miniature versions of Toronto, Ottawa and Quebec City. This is a great family friendly exhibit!

If you know me in person then you’re quite aware of my shoe addiction, so this shoe-a-holic definitely couldn’t pass up a chance to visit the Bata Shoe Museum. This museum covers the history of shoes and features notable footwear from various centuries. At the moment there’s a brand new exhibit called Future Now which explores over fifty futuristic footwear designs from the auto-lacing Nike MAG to the virtual RTFKT x Staple Meta-Pigeon.  My favourite item at the museum were the Christian Louboutin shoes for Barbie, how cute!!

If you’re looking for something more on the relaxing side then you must check out Hoame Meditation Studio. They offer a number of different meditation classes and experiences. We took a breath work meditation class at Hoame, I must admit I struggled with this one as I’m quite the chatterbox and we had to stay quiet. But if  zen is your thing then you should definitely check it out.

Theatre + Shows

We arrived in Toronto on June 10th just in time for the National Ballet of Canada‘s opening night of Swan Lake. I’ve always enjoyed Tchaikovsky’s pieces so I was thrilled to get to see Swan Lake. The ballet runs until June 26th at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts. If ballet is not your thing you can also check out Harry Potter and the Cursed Child which is playing throughout the Summer and into the Fall. If you’re in to musical theatre there’s also many other shows scheduled for the Summer a full list can be found here. I would highly recommend Singin’ in the Rain which plays this Fall. In addition to these there’s also concerts and other shows to check out.

Restaurants + Nightlife

We checked out a lot of great restaurants during our trip and Toronto definitely has so many choices to offer. On day 1 we had lunch at Oretta located on King St. West. I loved the decor and ambiance in this traditional yet modern Italian restaurant. They also have another location in midtown. This is a lovely spot for a casual drink and some gelato.

As we were staying at the Ritz-Carlton we got to check out some of the restaurants at the hotel, my favourite was Epoch which features indoor and outdoor dining spaces. This newly renovated restaurant features signature drinks a brand new menu and a patio with a great view of the CN Tower. I really enjoyed grabbing a cocktail outside, I would recommend the Lychee Queen cocktail. We also had breakfast at Toca which is located inside the hotel, Toca stands for Toronto Canada and the main attraction in this restaurant is their Cheese cave. It’s definitely a unique feature and a must see if you’re at the hotel.

Yorkville is one of my favourite areas of Toronto featuring high-end shops and unique restaurants. We stopped in for lunch at Bar Reyna which was totally worth the hype! We loved the mediterranean spin on traditional brunch dishes. I also really liked the ambiance and the decor on their patio. For drinks I’d recommend 7 am in Ibiza it’s a great take on an espresso martini!

One of the highlights of our trip was our dinner and evening at Lula bar. This was such a fun experience. Lula Bar is a latin resto-bar that features live bands and salsa dancing on the weekends. We enjoyed a three course meal, there is a set menu to choose from; followed by a salsa class and live music. I would highly recommend checking them out if you’re spending a weekend in Toronto.

On our last morning in Toronto we had breakfeast at OEB Breakfast Co. This restaurant is a great family friendly place that offers gourmet style meals at an affordable price. If you do go be sure to check out the Canadian Lobster and Shrimp Crepe. It’s such a fancy first meal!

Of course there are so many dining and entertainment options in Toronto and you can learn more about them on the Destination Toronto website.

Other fun stuff

One thing I didn’t cover yet was shopping! Toronto has so many malls it can be overwhelming but my favourite is definitely Yorkdale Shopping Centre. Not only does it offer an assortment of stores and designer boutiques it also houses my favourite Macaron shoppe Ladurée. I’ve visited in the past and wrote about my high tea experience there, you can read all about it here.

If you’re looking for the city that has something for everyone then Toronto is definitely for you! We had such a wonderful time on our weekend stay, a huge thank you to Destination Toronto for helping us plan our trip. We’re already planning another trip back this Summer. Don’t forget to check out Destination Toronto to help you plan the ultimate Toronto vacation and see Toronto now!