Four Seasons was founded in Toronto by Isadore Sharp in 1961, and the glass tower it opened in Yorkville in 2012 is the company making its case at home. The 259 rooms are among the largest in the city, the address sits a block from Bloor Street’s designer run, and the whole operation hums with flagship confidence: doormen who remember names, housekeeping that borders on forensic, and a lobby bar that fills with the neighbourhood rather than just guests.
Daniel Boulud runs the food. Cafe Boulud on the second floor does polished French bistro cooking, from rotisserie duck to a very good burger, and d|bar below is Yorkville’s default meeting spot for cocktails. The spa is the other headline: 30,000 square feet over two floors with a light-flooded lap pool, and regularly ranked among the best in Canada. Book treatments before the weekends fill it.
Rates are the city’s steepest and spike brutally during September’s film festival, when half of Hollywood checks in. The rest of the year it is simply Toronto’s most complete hotel: quiet, walkable to the Royal Ontario Museum and Bloor Street, and run with the particular pride of a flagship. Ask for a corner room above the 20th floor for the skyline and the lake glimpses.
