So where should you go to eat and drink? There are a million places. I have tried a little less than half of them. Here are a few to get you started. I am going to focus mostly on the immediate area around the conference. I use immediate loosely; I am a pretty avowed pedestrian. Unless noted these places are all easy walking distance for me or Boyan.
There is a map online at
https://a.tiles.mapbox.com/v3/flac0.i226ko2d/page.html#15/43.6633/-79.4014
A section is reproduced inside the back cover of the program. The full map has the boldfaced neighborhoods roughly outlined.
You need to get off of the Campus to find beer. The conference site is closer to the north side of campus (at Bloor St). On the section of Bloor St that is nearby there are lots of bars. West of Spadina (in the Annex area), a 10 minute walk from the conference. This area is pretty college-y, which means lots of bars but most offering little else. Don’t order the wine. The bars east, and north of Bloor, on Prince Arthur Street (the Bedford Academy and the Duke of York), are probably the closest bars to the conference site and the hotels. The hotels of course have bars; the Park Hyatt has a rooftop bar with a decent view.
Further east (past Avenue road) is Yorkville. Even though this is the place where you could have seen folks like Joni Mitchell and Neil Young back in the 70’s, it is now a fancier neighborhood full of places with old people, overpriced food and drink. (Maybe the same people that were there in the 1970s are still there.) It is popular with celebrities during the film festival season. There are nice patios there, wine bars (including Ciao) and the Oxley with real cask ale. If you want to order wine this might be a better direction (but see Harbord St below for another idea).
For a better beer selection it takes a little more walking. Two places, both a 15 minutes’ walk are: heading east BarVolo (587 Yonge St) and heading west Victory Café (581 Markham St). I prefer BarVolo but the area around it is not great, perfectly safe, just not much interesting to eat. Both are just a little south of Bloor. In the same category, to the south, is Sin and Redemption (136 McCaul St), which also has a long beer list, especially Belgian beers. Most importantly: it is on the route back from the conference dinner.
After the conference dinner, if you don’t want to come back to the conference area right away, you can also walk south to Queen Street. To the west is a strip (creatively called Queen West) with plenty of bars nearby. In general Queen Street gets better the further you go west; if you get as far west as Trinity Bellwood Park there is a very nice brewery (actually a bit north on Ossington Ave.) called Bellwoods Brewery. But that is VERY far west, not walking distance for after the conference dinner.
The same areas (Annex and especially Yorkville) have restaurants as well as bars. In addition, at the first light south of the conference site, if you turn right (west) and cross Spadina, you are on a stretch of Harbord St with many higher quality restaurants. Splendido is quite high end, and good. My favorite place on that stretch is the Harbord Room. THR is the Harbord Room’s “second” room if you can’t get a table at Harbord Room. There is also 93 Harbord and Loire in that area, as well as a Peruvian restaurant called Boulevard Café, all of which are good. Harbord Street is a good compromise between quality and distance. You may want to call or check opentable for a reservation. These places are also good places for a glass of wine; the Harbord Room, for instance, has a nice (but small) bar with nice cocktails as well. (There is also something called Harbord House, which is more of a pub, and not related, but fine for a beer.) Although walking south is probably not the best option, there are bars once you reach College St heading directly south from the conference site. A little further south, almost to Sin and Redemption, is a very small oasis called Baldwin Village; it has a few restaurants, including Agave y Aguacate (a good place which received extreme praise from Anthony Bourdain), a decent ramen place Kinton and a very interesting gelato place serving handmade, Italian-style gelatos, but with entirely Asian flavours. So if you want a durian ice cream, you need to head in that direction. (Really. They have durian ice cream.) Definitely an option after the conference dinner.
If you are willing to take a cab, there are too many places to list; a good list is the one at http://www.postcity.com/Kates-Top-100/ In terms of places reasonably close-by with lots of choices; both Little Italy and the Dundas and Ossington neighborhood have many, many bars and restaurants (as does Queen West and King West, a few blocks south of Queen). Little Italy is better developed but Dundas and Ossington is where many of the most interesting places in town are located. In general you should avoid heading toward the tall buildings (called the downtown core) for food/drink. The people down there have no taste, it seems; and wear ties. Of course there are great places entirely on the eastside, such as the Danforth, Cabbagetown, and especially Leslieville, and places further west like Parkdale and Roncesvalles (Queen really really really west), and to the north at the intersections of Yonge and roads like St.Clair and Eglinton, but that radius includes countless places. Want one specific suggestion? OK I’ll give you two. My favorite dinner place is Ursa, on Queen St (well west; get a cab). Interesting ingredients and plating, delicious and beautiful, but be prepared: small portions, so price per pound will not seem like a bargain. My favorite lunch place (aside from the boxed lunches on site, of course) is Seven Lives Tacos, in Kensington Market. Kensington is an offbeat place with lots of informal places to find food, and a variety of places to drink. Across the street from Seven Lives is a trendy (or at least recently-trendy) cocktail place (which also has a nightly tall can beer special) called Cold Tea. It is hard to find (hint: inside something called the Kensington Mall) but the internet can help; the door is down a long hallway in an unassuming building, and has no markings to make you think you are in the right place. Maybe my tastes are different from yours, though. So how about some more suggestions? On the grid that follows are some recommended choices for different “representative agents” (yes I copied this idea from an in-flight magazine). Then just decide which agent best represents your tastes.
We will of course have coffee onsite. It will be genuine coffee, and fully caffeinated if you like. I can vouch for nothing more. Many people go to Mercurio (just north of the conference site on Bloor at St.Georger) for espresso; quality is really nothing special but a decent place to sit. They also have beer and wine until they close around 7. If you want a better coffee, and have time for a walk, either walk north to Ezra’s Pound (on Dupont, the next big street north past Bloor, but kind of a hike; crowded in the morning but usually OK in the afternoon) or to Kensington Market, where there are several good places, my favorite being Café Pamenar on Augusta. Seven Grams, on Avenue Rd north of the Park Hyatt, is also pretty good, and in the neighborhood but the wrong direction. Some people love (in an almost cultish way) Sam James coffee, but it is well west on Harbord St., and therefore quite a walk. Enjoy the city, and let me know what you find. I’m always interested in hearing about new places!