Toronto neighbourhood hosting a huge food festival next week

One Toronto neighbourhood will host an enormous food festival next week, featuring a slew of cuisines from around the world.

After finding smashing success with their 2023 and 2024 festivals, Taste of North York is gearing up for their third year in a row, and it could quite possibly be their biggest and best event yet.

Run by NeighbourLink North York, a Willowdale community charity that operates two food banks and community programs for seniors, newcomers and youth, the festival doubles as a tasty way to explore the foods and flavours of North York and to support the community.

Running from June 6 to June 8, the festival will flood Mel Lastman Square with the sizzling specialties from the neighbourhood's Chinese, Korean, Indian, Persian, Latin, Ukrainian, Caribbean, Tamil, Japanese, Vietnamese and Filipino eateries, allowing you to explore what "Taste North York" really means.

Among the dozens of food vendors in the mix, you can expect eats from El Milagrito (Mexican street food), Tehranto (Persian), and M Cha Bar (Bubble Tea), to name only a few — but it's certainly enough to get your mouth watering, isn't it?

On top of the eats, the weekend will also feature a whopping 22 hours of live entertainment, including everything from the Willowdale Battle of the Bands to Ukrainian, Bollywood, Swing and Latin dancing, on top of live art, giant foosball and a family-friendly escape room.

In other words, plenty is going on to keep you busy while you work up an appetite for your next treat.

On Saturday, June 7 and Sunday, June 8, the festival will also host Meet & Eats, where you can explore dozens of local charities, non-profits, organizations and clubs to learn how you can get even more involved in the North York community.

At 6 p.m. on Friday, June 6, the festival kicks off with a special Filipino performance in honour of Filipino Heritage Month and to honour the victims of the Lapu-Lapu Festival attack last month in Vancouver.

The festival itself is totally free to attend, but you are encouraged to bring a non-perishable food item that'll go to the local food bank, and similarly, all net profits from the festival will go towards the food bank and NeighbourLink's community programming.

You can learn more about Taste of North York 2025 by visiting NeighbourLink's website.