Gerrard Street East between Coxwell and Greenwood is Toronto's Little India — a dense strip of Indian grocery stores, sweet shops, sari boutiques, spice merchants, and restaurants. The produce markets here carry mangoes, fresh turmeric, bitter melon, and South Asian vegetables unavailable elsewhere in the city.
Neighbourhood: Little India / Riverdale · Address: Gerrard St E between Coxwell & Greenwood, Toronto, ON · Hours: Daily 10am–9pm (most shops)
Why Visit
Little India is the only spot in Toronto where you can shop for fresh bitter melon, pick up cardamom for chai, and grab jalebi all on the same block. Come hungry and curious—there’s way more than just curry here.
What Makes It Unique
Unlike other ethnic strips, Gerrard East’s Little India packs a concentration of sari fabric shops, Bollywood DVDs, and produce stalls in just a few blocks. You’ll see live mithai-making in windows, and ingredients you won’t spot at mainstream grocers—think fresh methi leaves and pani puri kits.
If you like food shopping that feels a little chaotic in the best possible way, spend an afternoon on Gerrard Street East between Coxwell and Greenwood. This stretch is Toronto’s Little India, and even if you’re not coming with a grocery list, you’ll end up leaving with at least a bag of snacks and something sweet. It’s not polished or precious. It’s a working shopping strip where people are actually buying dinner, picking up spices, grabbing samosas, and arguing over which sweet shop makes the better kaju katli.
What makes it worth the trip is the density of it all. Within a few blocks, you can bounce between Indian grocery stores stacked with lentils, rice, frozen parathas, chutneys, and every spice blend you can think of, then step into a produce market with crates of mangoes, bitter melon, okra, bottle gourd, curry leaves, and fresh turmeric root. If you cook South Asian food at home, this is where you go when the regular supermarket just isn’t going to cut it. Even if you don’t, it’s still fun to browse because you’ll see ingredients you probably won’t find easily elsewhere in the city.
The sweets are the real trap. You tell yourself you’re just going to look, and then suddenly someone’s packing a box with kaju katli, barfi, and gulab jamun while you stand there pretending you didn’t already decide ten minutes ago. They’re fresh, they’re excellent, and they’re weirdly affordable compared to what dessert costs in most of Toronto now. If you only buy one thing, make it the kaju katli. Thin, smooth, a little cool from the display case, with that rich cashew flavour that disappears too fast.
There’s also a very specific weekend rhythm here. Go on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon and the whole strip feels busy without becoming impossible. Families are out, aunties are stocking up on vegetables, people are carrying takeaway containers, and the smell shifts block by block from incense to frying oil to cardamom syrup. Get a mango lassi and drink it while walking. Pick up a couple of hot samosas and eat them immediately, because they’re best when the pastry still shatters and the filling is almost too hot.
A practical tip: don’t rush it. This isn’t the kind of place where you hit one shop and leave. Wander into a few grocery stores because prices can vary, especially on produce and sweets. Bring cash if you can, though most places take cards now. If you’re taking transit, get off at Coxwell Station and walk south to Gerrard; it’s easy. Most shops are open daily from around 10 to 9, but the street feels most alive in the afternoon.
It’s also one of the better low-cost food outings in the city. You can spend very little and still come away with a proper haul: fresh herbs, snacks, sweets, spices, and maybe a bag of mangoes if they look good that day. Even if you don’t buy much, it’s the kind of street that wakes up your appetite fast.