What to know
- Modern Indian fusion in Kensington Market: The Cottage Cheese is a cozy, 40-seat restaurant known for contemporary takes on South Asian dishes. Recognized by the Michelin Guide in 2025, it offers a frequently rotating menu, friendly service, and a dining experience that blends food with cultural context.
- Creative, flavour-forward menu highlights: Standouts include reimagined street food like pink samosa chaat with sweet yogurt and tamarind, avocado-filled dahi kababs, spicy chilli garlic prawns, a mango moilee chicken curry, and a fragrant rose-infused paneer curry served with garlic naan. Desserts like gulab jamun with a knafeh base add a global twist.
- Overall dining experience and value: The meal is generous, filling, and generally balanced in spice (mild to medium), with flavours designed to complement rather than overwhelm. It sits in the mid-to-high price range (around $50 per person), offering a polished, inventive take on Indian cuisine best suited for adventurous diners.
Quietly tucked away on the corner of Oxford St. and Augusta Ave. in Kensington Market sits a restaurant popular for urban-style Indian dishes that light up customers’ tastebuds.
The Cottage Cheese is a cozy restaurant named after the owner’s favourite food, called “paneer” in some parts of India.
The restaurant is home to dozens of classic South Asian dishes, altered slightly to enhance the taste in an non-traditional but cohesive way.
The Cottage Cheese was recognized by the Michelin Guide in 2025, noting the friendly and informative servers and delicious contemporary-Indian food.
Now Toronto was invited to try the restaurant’s menu, and we were pleasantly surprised.
Our experience
When we entered the establishment, we were quickly met with friendly staff ready to greet us, in a small, 40-seat dining room. The space was beautiful, with flush sunlight and greenery wrapping onto the ceilings and walls.
We were given quite a thick booklet for the menu, which blends dishes available for order with rich historical context. The menu updates with fresh new items every four months, keeping the customers wanting more.
After settling in with the menu at our table, both my colleague and I were overwhelmed with the dozens of choices, but the staff graciously guided us, and shared with us their most popular items.
We started off by trying the pink samosa chaat and dahi avocado kababs for our appetizers.
The first dish was a classic samosa chaat, a street food originating from North India containing crushed samosas, potato, chickpeas and chutney, but the dish also included a sweet twist. The restaurant made it something their own by implementing sweetened yogurt and tamarind chutney.
As someone who already enjoys a classic samosa chaat, the sweet addition was welcomed. It wasn’t too overpowering and didn’t take away from the savoury taste of the ingredients either. I could definitely see why it was one of their most popular appetizers, and recommend it for other customers confused on what to order for a starter.
We also were given mixed vegetable fritters, which were small but packed a hearty punch.
The dahi avocado kababs had a deep dried, fritter like exterior with an avocado filling. My colleague particularly enjoyed this dish. It was crispy on the outside with a soft inside, and I thought it was a nice addition to our appetizers and with no spice, meaning anyone could and should try it. Kababs are often meat dishes, but this vegetarian option was a pleasant surprise. Visually, it was beautifully plated as well.
We ended off our apps by ordering spicy chilli garlic basil prawns, and as a fan of all of those flavours, these really hit the spot. No flavour was too overpowering — they were very harmonious. Spice-wise the prawns had a kick but were still tolerable, garlicky and delicious.
With all of the appetizers we tried, my colleague and I were feeling a bit full but we pressed on because we heard raving reviews about the next couple of items, from both the staff and customers online.
For our main dishes, we began with a chicken mango moilee curry, which combined chicken with fresh mango, coconut milk and mustard seeds. I’m personally not a fan of mixing sweet with typically savoury foods, nor am I a fan of coconut, but this dish’s ingredients mixed together well, with neither flavour overpowering the other. I would definitely order this again.
We also tried a rose petal paneer curry, a cottage cheese and rose infused butter chicken sauce-like combination. In South Asian culture, most curries are typically eaten by hand, so we ordered some green garlic naan to accompany the paneer.
The paneer was aromatic ahead of tasting it, and the colour was a gorgeous mix of pink and orange. I initially went in with a piece of naan, but because I’m personally used to eating paneer with spice that is dry-rubbed, and I don’t eat it with naan, I found eating the curry with it dampened the taste, and I had to go in for a second bite with a fork.
The rose flavour was pretty pungent so if you’re not a fan of a richer taste I wouldn’t recommend this dish. Otherwise, I found it to be flavourful and sweet with the tomato base.
We finished off with dessert, and chose a classic: gulab jamun. These sugar dough balls are soaked in syrup and rose aroma and are a staple for South Asian parties and weddings.
The Cottage Cheese’s take on the dessert placed two gulab jamuns atop a nest made from knafeh for a Dubai-inspired twist.
This delicacy is very sweet, so if you don’t have a sweet tooth, one bite might just be enough for you. I have a sweet tooth and ate both clean off the plate, perfectly ending off our experience at the restaurant.
Final thoughts
All in all, our experience at the restaurant was a pleasant surprise. If you’re going into this only expecting and wanting classic Indian food you’ll be disappointed. This is a culinary experience that flips traditional Indian dishes on its head, but does it with grace and intention.
Each dish was created with specific flavours in mind, ensuring nothing was ever “too much.”
The spice levels also ranged from mild to medium, meaning anyone is able to enjoy it, without fear of overbearing spice levels that erase the flavours entirely.
Additionally, the restaurant is on the mid-to-higher end in terms of cost, so customers can expect to pay around $50 dollars to fill up. And portion wise, I found everything to be very filling. If I was just ordering one curry and naan, it would potentially be able to feed two people.
I went into The Cottage Cheese not knowing what to expect, but I’m coming out of the experience wanting more. I’ll definitely be coming back, especially to see what’s new when they update their dish selection in a few months.
Be sure to check out The Cottage Cheese to check out their spring menu.
