Hillcrest Village

(St. Clair between Christie & Oakwood)

By Tom McGreevy, SLA Toronto Chapter

If you are coming to Toronto for the first time and you feel a bit adventurous… willing to venture off subway lines and see Torontonians where they live… then consider that it is worth getting outside the downtown core to actually see and understand the city.

There are many areas worth visiting including the one known as the St Clair West community. Many Torontonians hearing "St Clair West" would think of the Corso Italia area (St Clair west of Dufferin). Although Corso Italia is worth visiting if you like all things Italian, this is not the area I'm telling you about.

Instead I'm going to tell you about Hillcrest Village, a small area roughly encompassing 10 blocks at St Clair between Christie & Oakwood.

Why the name "Hillcrest Village"? In the Toronto area there was an old glacial lake now called Lake Iroquois that drained roughly 12,000 years ago. The steep ridge rising north of Davenport and south of St Clair is the old beach ridge for that lake. You can see the ridge clearly on many major streets, best on Avenue Road, Bathurst, or Christie. So the 'hill' of "Hillcrest" is actually a beach ridge, while the 'crest' is the beach proper. As for the area of Toronto currently known as The Beach, it was deep under very cold water.

Well, enough prehistory… let's zoom to the present.

Although Toronto is generally a multicultural city, Hillcrest Village is especially alive with restaurants and shops representing diverse cultures. No single culture dominates here. This, in my opinion, is to the benefit of everyone who lives in the area, or visits it.

Restaurants in the neighbourhood include those serving Italian, Mexican, North African/Mediterranean, Malaysian/Thai, Chinese, Greek, Caribbean, South American, and Japanese cuisines (not to mention McDonald's, KFC, & Starbucks). Many have small patios in the summer.

Since this is a residential community many other types of shops share the streetscape with restaurants. There are bakeries, vegetable shops, a butcher, ethnic grocery stores, a local supermarket, ethnic cafes, fast food joints, lots of other kinds of retail stores (clothes, drugs, hardware, rugs, antiques, computers, flower shops, corner stores, photo studios, funeral homes, hair/beauty salons, dollar stores), community halls (Hungarian), churches, and low rise apartment buildings. It is a wonderful neighbourhood (a bit architecturally challenged…).

My personal favourites and some potential places to sample include:

• Pain Perdu (French boulangerie-pâtisserie)
  736 St Clair Ave W
  (416) 656-7246
• Patachou bakery (French)
  833 St Clair Ave W
  (416) 927-1105
• Atlas One Café (North African)
  820 St Clair Ave W
  (416) 656-4817
• El Palenque II Restaurant (Mexican, with very good Mariachi music on weekends)
  816 St Clair Ave W
  (416) 653-5593
• Pi-Zan (Mediterranean/North African)
  815 St Clair Ave W
  (416) 653-3315
• Ferro (Italian)
  769 St Clair Ave W
  (416) 654-9119
• Vanipha Lanna (Malaysian/Thai)
  863 St Clair Ave W
  (416) 654-8068

Some other interesting places to sample:

• Da Gianni & Maria Trattoria
  794 St Clair Ave W
  (416) 652-3982
• Dominican Restaurant
  879 St Clair Ave W
  (416) 656-6501
• Filippo's
  744 St Clair Ave W
  (416) 658-0568
• Mi Tierra Restaurant
  828 St Clair Ave W
  (416) 654-8886

How to get there:

Take the University-Spadina subway (northbound) to St Clair West station. Take the westbound streetcar to Christie (4 stops) and walk west from there. This takes about 20-30 minutes from Union Station.