I was recently home in Toronto, having tea with my mother, who was visiting on the way back to her current home in the New York City area. She had been in Malta for a couple of weeks, her first time in over 40 years, and had much to share.
Immigrants are not tolerated or even more patronisingly celebrated in this city – they are wanted, needed, expected and welcomed. In other words, they are this city
“Everyone had an oven – that was new,” she said enthusiastically.
“I don’t remember that much of a litter problem in Valletta when I was a little girl,” she said wistfully.
“These pastizzi are cold and greasy,” she said disapprovingly, waving to the plate before her, much to the chagrin of the café owner still within earshot. “After the ones I’ve eaten for the past two weeks, I can’t even look at these.”
All very amusing – but nothing quite as insightful as what followed.
“Compared to where I’ve just been, Toronto’s Little Malta is kind of depressing. I don’t know that it’s worth visiting unless you have family here. I should tell my relatives about the rest of the city though. It’s a lot cleaner here than in New York – and everyone’s so friendly!”
May I be candid? When it comes to visiting Toronto from Malta, that’s all you really need to know – that and where to go instead.
Global groove
Located in the province of Ontario and currently the largest city in Canada, Toronto is young by European standards. Incorporated in the 1830s, it was a rather modest hamlet until the period immediately following World War II, when massive waves of European immigration – some of it Maltese – prompted explosive growth, both financially and geographically. Since then, Toronto has grown exponentially, thanks in no small part to three crucial phenomena: successive waves of immigration from all over the world, including China, India, Korea, Vietnam, and – due, in no small part, to the legality of same-sex marriage – the United States; a seemingly unstoppable trend toward municipal amalgamation; and a rather significant suburban sprawl, which shall not be discussed here, and which is to be avoided at all costs by discriminating European travellers.
Today, Toronto’s reputation as the world’s most international city is under threat. Because, after decades of absorbing and integrating various cultural influences, a post-national identity and a post-ethnic aesthetic are emerging, fuelling a transition away from mere passive internationalism toward full-on globalism. Not in terms of corporate hegemony or economic interdependence, though those forces are certainly at work in the city whose motto reads strength through diversity. Rather globalism as a distinct, relatable, and identifiable movement in art, commerce, architecture, and entertainment.
The public square at the intersection of Yonge and Dundas streets, for example, offers itself as a spic-and-span, even-better-than-the-real-thing amalgam of London, Hong Kong, and midtown Manhattan, all the rough edges melted down by a warm maple glaze of Canadian positivity and insouciance. Thanks to tight quality controls, the saccharin pastiches of Las Vegas are avoided. Yet the streets are so clean they look positively Scandinavian. Then there’s the people watching. The square’s United Nations of fast food attendants are so polite they sometimes disarm. Worthy of particular surveillance are Canadian employees of Starbucks Coffee, who receive unlimited free beverages on breaks and between shifts. Their caffeine-fuelled enthusiasm can be epically entertaining – order yourself a pumpkin-spice-cake lollipop, then sit back and enjoy the show. Of course, for a real espresso, you’ll want to explore local legends like Mercury, Letteiri, Red Rocket, or Dark Horse.
Returning to my mother’s observation for just a moment, or perhaps the silver lining behind it, the neighbourhood once known as Little Malta is now more often referred to as The Junction. Recently, it has become home to a multi-ethnic, multi-generational, multi-disciplinary wave of artisans, designers, and craftspeople. Their creative output seems inspired by the city itself.
Ultimately, it may be tempting to mourn the gradual diffusion of Little Malta, Greek Town, Corso Italia, so on and so forth, into a greater pan-Torontonian sensibility. And it may also be worth noting that the same exact thing is happening to the city’s disappointingly dreary Gay Village. Nowadays, its most festive, well-lit attraction isn’t a discotheque but rather the flagship of the Loblaw’s grocery chain which, according to Monocle magazine, is the single greatest supermarket in the world. But all in all, Toronto’s brand of globalism represents a victory for immigrants. For immigrants are not tolerated or even more patronisingly celebrated in this city – they are wanted, needed, expected and welcomed. In other words, they are this city. Which is why, when you visit, you’ll feel right at home, even though you’ve never been anywhere else quite like this.
Touring Toronto
As any one of the innumerable Toronto travel guides will tell you, the city contains an overwhelming assortment of neighbourhoods (213 at last count) and an equally long list of museums, galleries and attractions. How to best strategise your entire itinerary is beyond the scope of this article – our focus, instead, is how to enjoy a sneak preview of the entire metropolis in a single day. From this initial experience, most visitors can intuit on their own how to spend the rest of their time in town.
Having hosted numerous friends and associates who were in town for a day or two on business or on the way to Europe, I can confidently inform you that, if you can only spend a limited amount of time in Toronto, there’s a secret weapon at your disposal. It’s the Toronto Transit Commission’s Queen streetcar line – or, as I like to call it, every visitor’s new best friend.
For the cost of a scenic, one-way, half-hour-at-most ride all the way east (approximately €4), you’ll find yourself in a picturesque Victorian-era village known as The Beaches. This charming enclave features powdery white-sanded beaches, enviable estates and surfside cafés, most with a penchant for pub fare gone gourmet.
When you board the streetcar back west, you’ll preview a series of artsy, hipster neighbourhoods like Leslieville and Corktown before arriving downtown. Hop off anywhere you wish – for such a large city, its core is joyfully, walkably compact.
If you’re craving a shamelessly commercial and quintessentially North American shopping experience, visit the Eaton Centre Mall. For a more edgy and authentic shopping experience, go for the eclectic boutiques of Queen West’s very own fashion district.
Once you’ve conquered downtown, take the Queen streetcar further west, to The Art & Design District, anchored by the Drake and Gladstone hotels, home to some of the neighbourhood’s most popular cafés, bars, and restaurants. Stay all night or board the streetcar west one last time for easy access to vibrant, youthful, welcoming neighbourhoods like Parkdale, Roncesvalles, Bloor West, and High Park, Toronto’s largest and most magnificent.
After this single-day tour, most visitors report an instant sense of what they want to see more (and less) of. At this point, a decent city map and listing service may come in handy. One of the best (and most accurate) can be found at www.thegridto.com, the print edition of which was recently named one of the world’s best-designed newspapers.
Mississuaga moments
If you are in the greater Toronto area to visit relatives, there is a very good chance you will find them not in Toronto itself but rather the neighbouring city of Mississauga, one of two places, the other being Malta itself, where the Toronto Maltese settled down in the 1960s and 1970s. Shiny, bright, and new, Mississauga is almost entirely pre-fabricated, with the requisite plague of big-box retailers, and is virtually, astonishingly, terrifyingly personality-free.
Smile politely as your cousins show you around their subdivision, then insist upon seeing the older, infinitely more charming, quite frankly superior neighbourhoods of Streetsville (a concise example of Canadian small-town living at its very best) and Port Credit (a more nautical and richer counterpart to The Beaches).
Visiting Hamilton
For European visitors, recommending a day trip to Hamilton – a city much smaller and poorer than Toronto, about an hour away by car or bus – may seem like an odd recommendation. However, Toronto’s skyrocketing cost of living (nearing par with Manhattan in some neighbourhoods) has prompted some of the area’s most exciting artists, designers, entrepreneurs and restaurateurs here. The result is a rare opportunity to witness a city, much like Brooklyn and Berlin, on the cusp of transformation.
Dine as locals do in Hess Village or from the bounty to be plundered at any one of six farmers’ markets; consider an eco-conscious ensemble at one of the boutiques on Locke Street; immerse yourself in the ambitious Brutalist architecture defining downtown; stroll through the Gilded Age grandeur of Dundas and Durand; and when you pass by a decrepit street, pock-marked with empty storefronts, do snap a picture. Chances are, when you return a few years later, there will be an organic-skincare-emporium in its place.
Visiting Niagara-on-the-lake
When Toronto residents speak of the natural beauty to be found just beyond the city’s borders, they are almost always referring to Ontario’s share of the Niagara Escarpment. The Escarpment, declared a World Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO in 1990, is considered by some to be one of the most beautiful natural attractions in a country already blessed with too many to count. Focus your time here at Niagara-on-the-Lake (not the trashy town of Niagara, which is south of the border) and the magnificent, breathtaking, almost unbelievable gorgeousness of the one and only Niagara Falls.