TL;DR

Toronto

• Stay
  • Hyatt Regency Toronto, 370 King St W, Toronto, ON M5V 1J9, Canada
    • A little bit of a walk to my office but otherwise a lovely hotel that welcomed me warmly. Also some nice views (minus the major construction across the street).
• Eat/Drink
  • Byblos Downtown, 11 Duncan St, Toronto, ON M5V 3M2, Canada
    • This place was shortlisted by several of my friends and colleagues, and with good reason. This modern Mediterranean marvel (god I love alliteration) is a feast for the eyes and the taste buds. We had the Marrakesh Garden, Fried Eggplant, Pear Salad, Thrice Cooked Fries, and Fried Chicken – can’t go wrong with these!
  • Nodo Junction, 2885 Dundas St. W, Toronto, ON MP6 1Y9, Canada
    • They claim to be Italian comfort food, and boy are they. So tasty, in a cozy atmosphere. Great place for a team dinner.
  • Holy Cow Steakhouse, 254 Queen St W, Toronto, ON M5V 1Z8, Canada
    • Try the steak. I didn’t, opting for the omurice instead, and I was terribly disappointed. Don’t stop here.
  • Le Gourmand Bakery, 152 Spadina Ave., Toronto, ON M5V 3S6,
    • Instead of summarizing with my inadequate words, why don’t I just share what’s on their website: “Simply the warmest, crispy yet gooey, liquid dark chocolate gushing, firm yet soft, decadent treat. The OG Toronto chocolate chip cookie hand-crafted at Le Gourmand is loved the world over for being one of the most exhilarating gustatory experiences. Only the finest chocolate graced with the highest quality ingredients are used in our cookies. Release your worries and spoil yourself by indulging in a stroke of pure sweet pleasure.”
• See/Do
  • The Symes: Event Venues Toronto, 150 Symes Rd, Toronto, ON M6N 0B1, Canada
    • Because this wasn’t a work trip, I didn’t have time to do much on my own, but we had one night to attend a Pinterest customer event at the Symes. This event space was beautiful and a great spot to host a large-scale event (several hundred attendees).

Trip Background

My team at Pinterest decided to do our Spring 2023 offsite in Toronto for a few reasons:

• getting to know our newest teammate who was based in Ottawa
• meeting other colleagues based in Canada
• seeing a client event

I was excited to go back to Toronto, as the last time I was there was in 2013, on a trip with two of my best friends.

Day 1 (May 8, 2023)

Landing at Pearson Airport after a short flight from Chicago, I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to go through Customs in Toronto. I took an Uber to the Pinterest office in downtown Toronto and got a tour of the office from my friend Yen.

After checking into the Hyatt Regency Toronto (I love the views), I walked over to Byblos Downtown to meet some friends and former colleagues.

I don’t think you can go wrong on their menu but if you want recommendations on what we ate, the Marrakesh Garden, Fried Eggplant, Pear Salad, Thrice Cooked Fries, and Fried Chicken were EXCELLENT.

Day 2 (May 9, 2023)

Our first full day of meetings was spent talking through our team strategy and a bunch of things I won’t bore you with here. But the evening was where this trip shined.

We took an Uber over to The Symes: Event Venues Toronto where Pinterest was holding an event for customers from all across Canada. Seeing a Pinterest event put together is like watching Phantom of the Opera on Broadway or a halftime show at the Super Bowl, in that it takes so much planning and effort to make the event come to life. So many gorgeous visual displays, a lot of tasty food and drink, and for some reason, our customers are always super fashionable (for the life of me I cannot figure out why – please note my sarcasm).

After the event, we were invited to join the Canada leadership team and the event planning team for dinner at Nodo Junction. Normally I’m much more attentive to what I eat and I capture all of the details but because this was a social work event, I was more focused on engaging my Canadian colleagues and enjoying the moment. That said, I did have three impressive bites:

Day 3 (May 10, 2023)

Um who knew there was a Canadian Walk of Fame in downtown Toronto?!? Of course Celine would be on it. But I had no idea Will Arnett was Canadian!

This is what I meant by cool laidback design in downtown Toronto. Not everything is dominated by skyscrapers (though those do exist). There are many of these shorter, cool-looking buildings like the brick 10-story above, and this one office had an airstream trailer bar/restaurant in its courtyard. So cool!

Our second full day of meetings was exhausting and I actually got some disappointing news about work at the end of my day. So I decided to go for a walk in search of dinner spots and happened to wander across Holy Cow Steakhouse. The promise of omurice drew me in and I should have done my research before coming here.

To end my night, I went to the Mix Bistro Bar at my hotel – and it was pretty lame. Super tall chairs that make me feel like a toddler. Half-decent cocktails but not a lot of service.

Day 4 (May 11, 2023)

On my final morning, I stopped at Le Gourmand Bakery to pick up some of their famous cookies for me (and some for the family). I would highly recommend any visitors to Toronto stop here!

I headed into the office for more meetings, and I started to realize how many amazing public art displays there are in downtown Toronto. I had no idea!

After our last day of meetings, several of us took an Uber together to Pearson Airport to return to the US. The journey took up well over an hour and upon arriving, my teammate (who now lives in Portland, ME) realized she had a ticket for Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport. To add insult to injury, that airport is only minutes from downtown and she had just slogged with us through gridlock traffic to get to Pearson!

Final Thoughts

Comparisons of Toronto and New York are misplaced. While Toronto may indeed be the business capital of Canada, it has such a lovely laidback feeling when contrasted with the big Apple. Not as congested, but still a lot of incredible food and diversity. If work brings you here, consider yourself lucky. And if you decide to come to Toronto for vacation, get outside of the downtown area – there is so much more to do here!