The best new restaurants in Toronto all have a few things in common. Kitchens for one. These restaurants also apparently share a common thread of lunacy in their restaurateurs. I mean you'd have to be madder than a March hare to open a restaurant at the very bottom of the current economic trough, in a year more notable for restaurant closures and downsizing operations than for new places to nosh.

The following pixels are a fragment. They may, like Kafka's castle, or Sein und Zeit, remain unfinished indefinitely since brunch is not the only reason to shade the threshold of Hoof Cafe and sadly, an evening visit just isn't in the cards at the mo'. But if you need a new brunch hangout I can't think of many better ones than Grant Van Gameren & Jen Agg's take on booze 'n' fast breaking.

Read my full review of The Hoof Cafe in our restaurants section.

Located at Sheppard and Leslie, Taro's offers some of the freshest fish available for retail in the city, something that a growing number of restaurants in the downtown core have picked up on. But beyond supplying commercial establishments, this store is a veritable culinary wonderland, filled with treats to eat on site or to prepare at home. Those who crave a little authentic Japanese flavour and who take their fish seriously will not be disappointed.

Read my profile of Taro's Fish in the Grocery Stores section.

School? More like a zoo. Sunday noontime means throngs of famished folk loosely queued and snaking back out the entrance waiting to get a seat at School Bakery and Cafe - a bright, lofty, Liberty Village cafe.

Fortunately, mere moments before tempers get unmanageable and threaten to get our contingent thrown into detention, a tray of hot, deliciously crumbly cranberry scones pulled fresh from the oven makes its way through the buzzing crowd taking the edge off. Suddenly the nearly 20-minute wait for a seat seems a little more bearable and the quickly devoured pastry is hopefully a sign of good things to come.

Read the full review of School Bakery and Cafe in the restaurant section.

Zane Caplansky's been on a bit of a roll this week. His humble Monarch Tavern deli digs were graced Monday by two high-ranking members of the fooderati: Bonnie Stern, and Ruth Reichl.

Bonnie's a cooking school guru and all around food media type who's done a lot for raising the level of cuisine in the city, and Ruth's the editor-in-chief of Gourmet Magazine who stopped in Toronto as part of a national book tour.

Ruth apparently knows her smoked meat being an inveterate New York deli fiend; she also spent a good chunk of her formative years studying in Montreal. After chowing down at Caplansky's she effused in a review (okay, it was more a tweet than a review):

"Caplansky's smoked meat awesome. Along with the single most decadent knish ever made, involving smoked meat, puff pastry, schmaltz..."

I mean we could've told her that if she'd just asked.

I want to lie to you. I want to keep you as far away from the foot of Sukhothai's smiling elephant awning as possible. Sorry Jeff, Nuit, this may not be good for business but I'm a selfish bastard and don't want to share your food with anyone else. If people knew how good your tiny little outpost of Northern Thai nosh was, they'd gather every friend and march them fife and standard straight down Parliament en masse-- a crazed culinary Drumcree ready to usurp the rightful place of hungry regulars in the snaking take out line while leaving behind a grand guignol of blood and noodles staining the streets crimson with hot sauce-- like a brothers Chapman diorama... well.. minus the Nazis...

Okay, so the only riots you're likely to experience here are the flavours running riot in your mouth as you eat some of the best, tastiest, most authentic Thai this city has to offer.

Read the full review of Sukhothai Restaurant in our restaurant section.