Coconut Cream Pie
The most famous dessert in the city. Order it when you sit down, not after.
French · Forest Hill
Scaramouche
The occasion restaurant Toronto has been booking for fifty years
FrenchForest Hill, Toronto$$$$Details being confirmed
The review
Scaramouche has been the answer to "where do we go for the anniversary" since the 1980s, and the reason is not nostalgia. The service is drilled to a standard almost nowhere else in the city attempts, and the room — tucked below Avenue Road with the skyline laid out in front of it — still gets a reaction from people who have been coming for thirty years.
The cooking is French-rooted and precise. Order whatever fish is right that week and trust it. The coconut cream pie is not a novelty item — it is genuinely the best-known dessert in Toronto, and you should order it at the start of the meal because it does sell out.
Honest notes: it is expensive without qualification, the formality will not suit every table, and it is closed Sunday and Monday. The Pasta Bar next door runs the same kitchen at roughly half the price and is the smart booking if the dining room is beyond you.
What to order
Seasonal Fish
Whatever is right that week, cooked with total precision.
Pasta Bar Menu
The adjacent room, half the price, same kitchen.
What works
- Service is the best-drilled in the city
- The skyline view from the dining room is genuinely special
- The Pasta Bar is a real value alternative
What doesn’t
- Expensive, unambiguously
- Formal in a way that will not suit everyone
- Closed Sunday and Monday
Verdict
A window table, the fish, and the coconut cream pie ordered first. Or the Pasta Bar.