Being a student is not easy! Apart from the constant assignments and stressful exams, students are typically broke. The only ramen that wouldn’t burn a hole in your wallet was probably instant noodles!
There’s no denying that Nongshim makes tasty noodles, but instant ramen just doesn’t compare with fresh and authentic Japanese-style ramen.
Once you get your first real job and can finally afford to spoil yourself, you deserve the best ramen in Toronto!
Toronto used to have only a few genuine ramens restaurants. However, this has changed over the years and now we are a city that attracts talented chefs from Japan. Even Michelin-starred Chef Atsushi Yamamoto decided to open his first overseas ramen restaurant here in Toronto over other international hotspots.
So, whether you’re thirsty for a rich and creamy bowl of tonkotsu ramen or longing for a lighter bowl of shio, there’s a top-notch ramen shop that is eager to greet you with an enthusiastic “irasshaimase!” (This means “welcome to the store.”)
Mind you, most of these popular ramen restaurants also serve some of the best vegetarian ramen in the city so don’t forget to bring your vegetarian friends along!
1. Ramen Isshin
Image by @ramenisshin
Address: 421 College St, Toronto, ON M5T 1T1
Phone: (416) 367-4013
Isshin is used to being in the spotlight. They easily won the hearts of many with their authentic Japanese ramen that is served with rich, creamy, and piping hot broth.
Red Dragon Miso Ramen is a popular item amongst people that love spicy food. The soup base is made with 15 blends of spices so your mouth is in for a treat. You would think that mixing 15 spices would result in them battling each other for supremacy, but the spices worked in harmony to bring you a spoonful of spicy flavour.
The ramen noodles are cooked nicely to the point where they’re soft and chewy at the same time. As an essential part of your bowl of ramen, you’ll find 2 thinly sliced pork belly cha-shu that are juicy and tender.
The menu has all sorts of ramen for you to choose from. One of Isshin’s goals is to be able to cater to different kinds of customers with various dietary restrictions. To meet this ambition, Isshin offers one of the best vegetarian ramen in Toronto that tastes just as flavourful as their Tonkotsu Ramen. On top of that, they even have kale noodles for vegans! How awesome is that?
Isshin has multiple locations in Toronto and has since expanded to Montreal. Regardless of which location you choose, you’ll enjoy the same great experience as their main shop on College Street.
If you still manage to have room for desserts, you must try their highly rated Black Sesame Ice Cream. However, since you’re so close to Little Italy, the best gelato places are within walking distance.
2. Hokkaido Ramen Santouka
Image by @santouka_toronto_yonge
Address: 91 Dundas St E, Toronto, ON M5B 1E1
Phone: (647) 748-1717
A popular ramen chain in Japan, Santouka, was born in 1988 shortly after the founder, Hitoshi Hatanaka, made a simple statement to his family — “I’m going to make delicious ramen.”
From that moment onwards, Hatanaka dedicated many months in the kitchen to come up with a recipe that is healthy and suitable for families to enjoy, yet flavourful enough to satisfy cravings.
Throughout the years, they kept the original approach of making their tonkotsu soup – minimal salt and preservatives — to maintain the unique mild flavour that allows you to drink the entire bowl of soup. All of their soups are handmade in-store from scratch with fresh and quality ingredients.
If you haven’t been to Santouka before, we highly recommend you to try their signature Tokusen Toroniku Ramen that put them on the world map.
When you order this item, the toppings and their special pork jowl (cheek) are served in a separate dish from the bowl of noodle soup. That way, you can taste the true flavours of the broth and appreciate how much work they put into brewing the pork bones.
It’s worth noting that the pork cheek is seasoned nicely that brings out the natural flavour of the meat and it’s so soft that it dissolves in your mouth. They make a limited amount of pork jowl every day so you want to be there early if you don’t want to miss out on it!
Needless to say, we’re glad that the founder decided to embark on his ramen journey. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have the opportunity to pig out a hearty and healthy bowl of ramen here in Toronto.
3. Ikkousha Ramen Toronto
Image by @ikkoushatoronto
Address: 249 Queen St W, Toronto, ON M5V 1Z4
Phone: (416) 901-2249
Have you tasted true Japanese noodle soup from Japan and won’t settle for anything other than authentic ramen? Well, Ikkousha is going to teleport you back to Japan with their famous Tonkotsu ramen.
Ikkousha is a well-known ramen shop that started in Fukuoka, Japan, and now has shops set up all over Asia, in the US, Australia, and now in Canada. Luckily, two of Ikkousha’s restaurants are conveniently located on Queen St., right in the core of downtown Toronto to satisfy your ramen cravings.
The first location (249 Queen St. W.) serves pork broth ramen and the second location (257 Queen St. W.) serves chicken broth ramen.
If you’re faithful to pork broth, then go to the Ikkousha Ramen (Pork) location. And if you want to try something new, visit their Ikkousha Ramen Chicken location. Both are really good!
Ikkousha is renowned for its Signature Tonkotsu ramen, which is a bowl of rich, thick, and creamy soup that has been prepared by boiling pork bones for many, many hours. It’s served with chewy noodles, pieces of tender cha-shu, and topped off with black fungus and spring onions.
The God Fire (spicy) and Black Tonkotsu ramen are other customer favourites so there’s plenty of a selection for you!
The best part about this restaurant is that you can customize your ramen by filling out their ordering sheet — similar to Yokato Yokabai in Montreal. You can adjust the soup’s saltiness (light or normal) and pick your noodle texture (soft, normal, hard, very hard). If you want more toppings or extra noodles, simply check off the boxes on the ordering sheet.
Now, don’t leave this restaurant until you’ve tried their gyozas. Isshousha specializes in ramen but they also make insanely good dumplings.
If this isn’t a taste of Japan, we don’t know what is!
4. Konjiki Ramen
Image by konjiki_ramen
Address: 249 Queen St W, Toronto, ON M5V 1Z4
Phone: (416) 901-2249
This famous Japanese ramen shop is a 1-star Michelin restaurant in Japan. Prior to that, Konjiki was featured on the Michelin Guide Tokyo Bib Gourmand for several years, from 2015 to 2018. The Bib Gourmand award recognizes restaurants that provide great food at reasonable prices — isn’t that what we all want?
The owner, Chef Atsushi Yamamoto, is unlike other Japanese chefs. He shines in pushing boundaries by spending countless hours crafting novel flavours to invent new and exciting recipes.
Konjiki’s Signature Clam Shoyu Ramen is a bowl of ramen noodles swimming in a unique full-bodied clear clam-based broth blended with pork and chicken broths. To enhance the flavours of the broth, they added truffle and porcini oil to it. Within the bowl, you’ll discover sous-vide cha-shu, porcini flakes, bamboo shoot, leek, and spring onions.
Even before you take that first sip, you can tell that you’re about to experience a delicious meal because as soon as the ramen arrives, your nose will pick up the aroma emitted from the clam broth.
For a lighter version of their featured ramen, you can get the Signature Clam Shio Ramen with thin noodles.
They have 4 different locations across the GTA — North York, downtown Toronto, Markham, and Yorkdale — for you to try their unique ramen.
5. RYUS Noodle Bar
Image by @ryus_noodle_bar
Address: 249 Queen St W, Toronto, ON M5V 1Z4
Phone: (416) 901-2249
Located at two different locations – one on Broadview Ave. and the other on Baldwin St., RYUS Noodle Bar is one of the best and tastiest Japanese noodle joints in Downtown Toronto!
Take your first sip of their ramen noodle soup and you’ll instantly notice how sweet and rich their broth feels and tastes.
You’ll salivate over their menu so much to the point where you’ll want to come back again for their high-quality signatures. Each dish is high in umami, and we guarantee you’ll love them all!
For first-timers who have never been to this place before, we highly recommend the Rich Shio or Nostalgic Japanese Shio noodle soup. These wonderful and mouth-watering chicken broth-based noodle soup bowls offer an intense amount of flavour without you feeling “heavy” or “fat.” It’s milky but quite light-packed with a lot of interesting flavours in each bowl.
This is the restaurant to go to when the day gets chilly or cold – their famous Shio noodle bowls will leave you feeling warm and cozy on a winter night.
6. Sansotei Ramen
Image by @sansoteiramen
Address: 179 Dundas St W, Toronto, ON M5G 1Z8
Phone: (647) 748-3833
Sansotei Ramen is your homegrown Canadian brand that is a very popular ramen restaurant chain in Toronto that specializes in pork bone soup, Tonkotsu.
The owner, Michael Zhang, is a Japan-trained Chef that attended the Yamato Ramen School — that’s right, Ramen School! While he was there, he developed his own unique recipe and brought it back home to Toronto.
The killer recipe is an irresistible broth that has been refined through many iterations until the soup base is simultaneously rich and creamy.
Although the menu at Sansotei is simple and only has a handful of ramen selections that change once or twice every year, it’s actually a good thing! With smaller menus, restaurants can focus on their signature dishes and not waste time and effort on items that they’re not specialized in. Plus, with fewer choices, you won’t have to sit there with decision paralysis!
To experience this fabulous recipe, we strongly suggest you try the signature Tonkotsu Black ramen paired with thick noodles. What you’ll get is a broth that is silky-smooth and brimming with flavours without it being too salty. The garlic oil adds an incredible depth to the ramen, enriching each and every bite.
The original Tonkotsu tastes just as good as the Tonkotsu Black, but minus the garlicky flavour. And if you want something hot, you have to try the Spicy Tantan!
All their ramen is topped with cha-shu, which has a good ratio of fat-to-meat that makes it melt in your mouth. The soft-boiled egg that is included in every bowl has a medium-runny yolk centre that gives it a gooey texture. As the egg yolk leaks into the soup, it adds richness to the broth making it pure delicious-ness.
Depending on which ramen you order, it may come with different toppings such as black fungus, bamboo shoots, green onions, and shiitake mushrooms.
You know you’ve had a fabulous meal when you read the SANSOTEI RAMEN words near the bottom of the bowl.
7. Kinton Ramen
Image by @kintonramen
Address: 249 Queen St W, Toronto, ON M5V 1Z4
Phone: (416) 901-2249
When you need comfort food right away and can’t be bothered with waiting in long lines or driving too far, Kinton is where you go to get the best ramen in Toronto.
Kinton is another recognized Toronto-native ramen restaurant that started in 2012, making it one of the first authentic Japanese ramen shops that popped up in the city well before ramen became all the rage.
Executive Chef Aki Urata at Kinton is very particular about the ingredients they use in their food and how the ramen is prepared. The restaurant makes their own noodles using quality flour and the cha-shu is made with fresh and high-quality pork that is locally sourced.
The essence of their distinct soup base is both complex and well-balanced. Its extraordinarily rich umami flavour is the labour of simmering pork bones along with chicken bones, fish broth, and fresh vegetables for more than 20 hours. You absolutely have to taste the soup base yourself to comprehend the deep flavours.
Their famous Pork Original Ramen is loaded with this delicious broth. As they pour the liquid gold over a bowl of freshly made ramen and top it off with two slices of slightly charred cha-shu mixed with other toppings, you’ll be thankful for cheat days.
If you want a lighter option to Tonkotsu, the Chicken Shoyu Ramen is a great alternative that comes with tender chicken breast. For vegetarians, you can skip the meat soup base and go straight to their vegetarian offerings. Their special vegetarian broth is made with fresh vegetables, which include carrots, onions, ginger, garlic, and napa cabbage.
What separates Kinton apart from its competitor is its open kitchen concept that delivers exciting visual entertainment. Sitting at the bar gives you the chance to peek inside the actual kitchen and experience a live show. It’s always fun watching chefs pour their hearts into making your bowl of ramen.
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