Little Italy on College: where to eat pasta, pizza and proper espresso
Toronto's Little Italy on College Street, how to tell a real trattoria from a room trading on the name, and the phone number for every kitchen.
Little Italy sits on College Street west of Bathurst. The neighbourhood has changed, and these days the strip is as much cocktail bars and late nights as it is red sauce, but the Italian kitchens that anchor it are still there, and the espresso bars have never left.
The trick on College is telling the real thing from the room trading on the postcode. A few checks do most of the work.
How to tell a real one
- The menu is short. A trattoria doing a dozen things well beats one doing forty. A four-page menu of every region at once is a warning.
- Pasta is made or cooked properly. Fresh where it should be fresh, cooked al dente, sauced lightly rather than drowned. If the carbonara has cream in it, they have decided you will not notice.
- Pizza is Neapolitan or it is not. A proper Neapolitan pie is blistered, soft in the middle, cooked in a very hot oven in ninety seconds. It is meant to be a little wet in the centre. That is not underdone.
- The espresso bar is the soul of it. Order a coffee standing at the bar. A good one pulls a short, thick shot and does not blink when you skip the pastry.
The kitchens
These are the Italian restaurants in the directory, most of them on or around College.
Before you go
Ring first for a weekend dinner, because College fills at night and the small rooms take bookings that go quickly. Many do lunch and close the gap before dinner, so an afternoon walk-in can find the kitchen shut. The number on each page is the restaurant's own.
Written by See The Six · kept current from the directory, last checked 2026-08-24
