Kensington Market ‘Taste the World’ Food Tour

More about the tour

Explore Kensington Market with the tour that started it all. As the original food tour of one of Toronto’s quirkiest neighbourhoods, Tasty Tours takes you past the tourist traps to the family-run shops and hidden counters most visitors walk right past.

On this experience, you’ll travel:

1. Around the world, through food – Skip the lines at a mix of local favourites that show off Kensington’s global roots, from handmade Tibetan dumplings to flaky Jamaican patties. Thanks to our long-standing relationships with shop owners, you’ll get priority access and curated tastings from some of the best places in the market. Come hungry – this tour counts as lunch.

2. Through stories – Trace Kensington’s journey from a Jewish market into one of Toronto’s most diverse communities. Each stop has a little history, a little gossip, and a lot of flavour.

3. Through a local lens – Led by locals who know the market inside and out, you’ll get insider access to hidden corners and stories that make the market unlike anywhere else.

You haven’t truly experienced Kensington Market until you’ve been on a Tasty Tour of Kensington Market. Join us and discover the side of Kensington that most people miss.

(All participants will receive a complimentary neighbourhood e-guide with their ticket.)

More about Kensington Market and the tour

Tasty Tours was one of the first to offer food tours of the Kensington Market area, and we’ve been running tours in this neighbourhood for over 10 years now. Kensington Market and it’s neighbouring Chinatown was a natural choice for us to choose for a food tour, as it truly reflects the spirit of Toronto as one of the most multicultural cities in the world. Chinese, Mexican, Canadian…you name it, you can find it here. Kensington Market is an interesting area to visit because it has managed to retain its immigrant, working-class culture in the face of rampant gentrification. As you stroll down the streets of Kensington, you will notice that unlike most other neighbourhoods in Toronto, there is a surprising lack of large corporations in the neighbourhood.

That’s because Kensington Market residents fight to keep the big box stores out, allowing small, locally-owned businesses to continue flourishing in this area. This is why the neighbourhood has such special character and soul.

Kensington Market was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 2006, and is widely considered to be one of the most photographed spots in Toronto, for good reason. Kensington Market is a colourful neighbourhood made up of small eateries, boutiques, produce shops and other local stores lining pedestrian-friendly narrow streets, with many buildings decorated with eminently photogenic graffiti. People who are new to the neighbourhood are sometimes a little confused when they first arrive, expecting a more traditional market like St Lawrence Market selling mostly fresh produce. The name Kensington Market is actually a throwback to its original roots as a Jewish market in the early 1900s, but it has since evolved over the years to become the neighbourhood that we now see, with a mix of ethnic eateries, produce shops, vintage stores and more.

Having visited all the stores in the neighbourhood over the years, we like to consider ourselves Kensington Market experts.

In our humble opinion, Kensington Market is THE place in Toronto to get a huge variety of authentic, affordable eats within walking distance of each other, and that is why it is one of our favourite neighbourhoods in Toronto. After countless hours of research (and a lot of eating!), we’ve hand-picked a variety of different stores that we feel best represent distinctive threads in the fabric that is Toronto’s rich food culture, as well as a selection of stories about the neighbourhood, stores and food. All of the stores and samples were tested by countless locals and tourists, and we’ve tweaked the tour over time to arrive at the perfect mix of variety, amount and deliciousness for the majority of our guests.

After the tour, you’ll probably want to stick around the area. Shop at some of the vintage stores in the area, listen to some of the buskers in the area, or take selfies at the many graffiti murals in the neighbourhood. Feel free to ask your guide for more suggestions during the tour, as we would love to share more about one of our favourite spots in the city!

Whether a local or a tourist, Kensington Market is a unique and must-visit Toronto neighbourhood, and we guarantee you will eat or learn something new on this tour.