Toronto's signature winter dining festival — Winterlicious runs two weeks every January/February with 200+ restaurants across the city offering specially priced prix-fixe menus at $23, $33, or $43 per person. Restaurants that are ordinarily $150+/person become accessible, and the restaurant scene comes alive in winter's slowest month.
Neighbourhood: City-wide · Address: 200+ participating restaurants across Toronto · Hours: Two weeks in January/February | Check toronto.ca/winterlicious
Why Visit
Winterlicious is your chance to try some of Toronto's most hyped and high-end restaurants for a fraction of the price, making the city's culinary scene genuinely accessible for two weeks. Set menus let you sample the chef’s best stuff without committing to a full bill.
What Makes It Unique
Unlike other food festivals, Winterlicious covers nearly every neighbourhood and cuisine, so you can hop from new-school Thai to classic French in a single week. Major players—think Canoe, Kōjin, Auberge du Pommier—often open reservations to locals who could rarely afford their regular prices. It’s also one of the few large-scale dining events in TO that happens in peak winter.
If you’re coming to Toronto in the dead of winter, Winterlicious is one of the smartest ways to eat really, really well without lighting your wallet on fire. Every January or February, for two weeks, more than 200 restaurants across the city roll out special prix-fixe menus, usually at $23, $33, or $43 per person. That means places you’d normally save for an anniversary, a work bonus, or someone else picking up the bill suddenly become realistic on a random Wednesday night.
What makes Winterlicious fun isn’t just the discount, though that’s obviously a big part of it. It changes the mood of the city. January in Toronto can feel long, grey, and kind of sleepy, and then reservations open and suddenly everyone is texting each other links, comparing menus, and trying to decide whether to book the fancy French spot, the hotel restaurant with a beautiful dining room, or the place they’ve walked past a hundred times but never justified trying. It gives people a reason to go out in a season when it’s very easy to stay home and order noodles.
The format is simple: participating restaurants offer set lunch and/or dinner menus with a few choices for each course. You’re not getting the entire regular menu, and yes, some spots clearly keep the Winterlicious options tighter than others, so it’s worth actually reading the menu before you book. The best restaurants treat it like a proper showcase and put out dishes that feel thoughtful, seasonal, and worth the reservation. The weaker ones phone it in with safe options and upsells. That’s why a little planning matters.
My honest advice: the second bookings open, have your top three choices ready and book immediately. The big names can disappear within hours, especially for Friday and Saturday dinner. If you’re flexible, go in the first week and aim for a weekday. You’ll usually get better availability, the staff isn’t as slammed yet, and the menus still feel fresh. Lunch can be an especially good move if you want to try somewhere expensive for even less money.
Because it’s city-wide, Winterlicious is also a great excuse to explore beyond your usual neighbourhood. You might end up downtown in the Financial District one night, on Ossington the next, and then in the east end trying a restaurant you’d never have made a special trip for otherwise. Transit really depends on where you book, so check the location before you commit, especially if you’re stacking dinner with a show or drinks after.
Go in expecting a busy room, a set menu, and a slightly more streamlined version of the restaurant than usual. That’s part of it. But when you get it right, Winterlicious feels like a cheat code for Toronto dining: date-night energy, genuinely good food, and the rare chance to try some of the city’s best restaurants at a fraction of the normal price. If you like eating out and you’re here during those two weeks, it’s absolutely worth building part of your trip around it.