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Food & Drink

3 best patios for food uptown

1. Cava

1560 Yonge, at Heath, 416-979-9918, cavarestaurant.ca. At 32 bucks a pop and a minimum of two people, Chris McDonald’s paella is a serious culinary commitment. And worth every penny for safron-scented bomba rice thick with crispy-skinned chicken, spicy house-made chorizo, calamari and Manila clams. Chef recommends necking it with an $85 white rioja “for its texture and cleansing acidity” before following with his $10 pistachio and lemon bombe paired with sweet sherry-steeped prunes.

2. Bi Bim Bap

950 Eglinton W, at Rostrevor, 416-787-7423, stonebowl.ca. Vegetarians have a hard enough time deciding where to eat, let alone finding a veggie-friendly resto with a sunny patio. Vegans have it even worse. But even though their cheerful,modish Seoul food resto serves meat (hey, they’re Korean!), owners Sam Lee and Janet Yun bend over backwards to accommodate hardcore herbivores. Look no further than stone bowls of roasted brown rice topped with all manner of meaty mushrooms and assorted seeds. Who knew healthy tasted this good? Closed Monday, some holidays.

3. Golden Star

7123 Yonge, at Doncaster, 905-889-6891. The Burger’s Priest may inspire religious epiphanies, but this old-school Thornhill drive-in has had a cult following since the 60s. The faithful come for the All-Star Burger Deluxe, 6 extremely juicy ounces of never-frozen medium-grind Nortown steak loaded with processed cheddar, beefy bacon and house-made barbecue sauce, the lot “run through the garden.”

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