The Senator: Best Breakfast in Toronto

The Senator restaurant is now in it's 76th year, making it the oldest continuous restaurant in Toronto. Not much seems to have changed in those 76 years, the dedication to serving good, simple, farm fresh food was always there (now they even own their own organic farm) so if anything I'd bet maybe it's gotten better.

Various all day breakfast options are available. I ate here three times and each time ordered a different breakfast.

They were all really great, but I think the Huevos Rancheros ($10.95) was my favorite.  I love that they serve it with fried-on-the-griddle homemade corn bread and beans, but it's the local farm raised eggs that send it over the top 9ask for Tabasco sauce on the side).

 The counter was my favorite place to sit.  The rest of the room is all booths, all original.

The Senator opens at 7:30 am and is open all day for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  It was such a treat to have it up the street from my hotel.  Usually I would have shopped for groceries and had stuff in my hotel room, but this trip was pretty taxing, not to mention exhausting so it was nice to not have to cook and have a close regular place where I could relax and avoid the bland, over priced breakfast buffet at the hotel.

There are so many things that set this place apart it's hard to list them, obviously the great old fashioned decor and the incredible fun, efficient and friendly staff, the amazing food are all on the list, but I think the thing I  most liked about The Senator is how it is filled mostly with regulars.

This morning on my way to the airport to come back home I stopped in to have a bite to eat.  Across from me was a man with his wife ordering breakfast.  People stopped over and chatted with them, the waitress had an ongoing rapport with them and seemed to know what they wanted before they even asked.  The man was paralyzed and in a wheel chair, just after the waitress set the food down she went over to the counter and got a bottle of ketchup, came back, opened it and poured a generous amount on his plate.

It was obvious they had been coming here forever and that The Senator was their home, their place to come to feel taken care of and nourished.  That's certainly how I felt and I only went three times, when I walked in today with my luggage I said to the waitress who had served me each day I was there:

"I'm moving in!"