Tantalize food-loving friends and family with yummy gifts from Toronto’s top gourmet, coffee, wine and craft beer hotspots.
Slam dunk your last-minute gifting with mouth-watering finds from Toronto’s most exciting food and beverage boutiques. From handcrafted chocolates to artisan sauces, locally roasted coffee, fine wine and more, here are the best places in Toronto to shop for yummy foodie gifts this holiday season.
Downtown Winery Bottle Shoppe
Toast the holiday season with a glass of red, white or rosé at Downtown Winery, then pop by their bottle shop to pick up a bottle (or two) for holiday host gifts.
This family-owned bottle shop in trendy Ossington Village has a wide range of natural wines and other varietals from Portugal, Argentina, Italy, California and the nearby Niagara wine region.
For gifting, consider an unfiltered syrah rose from Portugal or go sweet with a Canada iced vidal to enjoy with dessert.
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Chocolat de Kat
Infusing the holiday season's fave flavours into gourmet chocolate, Chocolat de Kat in Midtown has created three holiday box sets filled with handcrafted bonbons.
Choose between the Premium Chocolate Hanukkah Box, featuring nine exclusive flavours inspired by Jewish pastries and sweets, the Premium Chocolate Advent Calendar (which sells out every year), and the 16-piece Cookie Tin Bonbon Collection, a gift-ready set of confections in a reusable container.
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Stock T.C.
Stock T.C. is a local-fave, upmarket grocery store in the Yonge and Eglinton neighbourhood, and the place to shop for tasteful goodies for every food lover on your list.
If you know someone who craves extra heat on everything they eat, pick up a bottle of locally crafted 6IXHEAT Pomegranate Hot Sauce. Kozlik’s Canadian Mustard is a must, available in a variety of small-batch blends, including Niagara Classic and Triple Crunch.
Pilot Coffee Roasters
Winter mornings just got a little cozier with Pilot Coffee Roasters Holiday Winter Blend. This year’s version features direct trade Kenyan and Guatemalan beans roasted to bring out notes of cinnamon, dark chocolate and jelly doughnut. Bonus: a portion of proceeds is donated to the Red Door Family Shelter.
With nine cafés throughout Toronto, the roastery makes powering through your gift list that. much. easier.
Omusubi Bar Suzume
Located a stone’s throw from Kensington Market (arguably Toronto’s best neighbourhood for vintage shopping and global eats), Omusubi Bar Suzume serves up Japanese comfort food from a stand in the Market 707 shipping container market.
Stop by for seasonal, home-style dishes like oden or donburi, but don’t leave without a jar of house-made nori jam, azuki jam or amazake for the Japanese food lover on your list.
Coco Market
In Midtown’s Rosedale neighbourhood, Coco Market is an upscale convenience store and one-stop shop for a range of locally made and unique items to add to any stellar gift basket. Add spice to any meal with locally made and superbly crunchy CC Spicy Garlic Chili Oil, or grab a pre-made The Local Edit gift box filled with some of the shop’s favourite Toronto brands.
Bandit Brewery
Give the gift of an at-home beer flight with Bandit Brewery’s Holiday Box, filled with four 355 ml beer cans and a unisex Bandit hoodie.
Turn your beer run into a cultural experience by visiting the Museum of Contemporary Art beforehand (it’s located a stone’s throw away) and then sitting down at Bandit’s brewpub for seasonal brews and a menu of elevated shareables.
Olive Oil Emporium
Swing uptown and hit the Olive Oil Emporium to taste their wide range of oils and vinegars and pick up their 12-Bottle Sampler-Gourmet Olive Oil and Vinegar Gift Set that anyone on your list will enjoy. This set features the most popular flavours, with seven vinegars and five oils to enhance holiday cooking, arranged on a reusable wooden tray.
Panettone from Eataly
Thanks to panettone’s extremely long shelf life compared to other holiday bread and cakes—second to only the immutable fruit cake—this is one dessert you can bring home to share later.
Pick up a seasonal panettone from Eataly, located in Yorkville and the west end’s Sherway Gardens shopping mall. Choose between flavours from classic pandoro to decadent pistachio cream. Then, sit down and take a breather with a freshly pulled macchiato and just-filled cannoli.
