1. Te Aro: 983 Queen St East: Big beautiful cafe where you can lounge outside in giant bean bag chairs. Sold!

2. Swirl: 946 1/2 Queen St East: Such great decor. It’s so hidden you will walk by it three times before you finally see the sign above. The wine is marvelous and so is the food (preserves in jars). Sounds odd but it’s really quite nice.

3. Hardware: 760 Queen St East: Incredible artistically designed/salvaged furniture. This was by far my favourite interior store in the area. And that is saying a lot because there A LOT of amazing interior stores in Leslieville. Here is a more complete overview (ESCAPADE) of interior stores, all of them where beautiful and well thought out!

4. Ed’s Real Scoop: 920 Queen St East: I’m not going to lie this is my favourite place to go in Leslieville. I went twice in one week and it blew my mind both times. I’m talking about Red Hot Chili Chocolate Gelato! Cassis! Blood Orange! Green Apple! Strawberry Balsamic! It’s amazing there are more, so many more!! It’s probably for the best this place is so far away from my home. But I think about it a lot. I miss it.