Eat the City: Toronto’s Best Specialty Grocery Options

A huge fridge, a pristine stove, and a month or two in a new city—of course you want to do some absolutely amazing cooking.

Whether you’re recovering from a medical visit, sticking to a specific diet, or just absolutely on the go during your workday, there are plenty of reasons to check out Toronto’s grocery delivery options while staying in a fully-furnished DelSuites condominium. But for every Instacart buggy or supermarket-run service, there are a few delivery plans just off the beaten track: offering specialty grocery services, international products, or vegetables grown lovingly close to home.

We’re happy to profile a few of Toronto’s best specialty grocery delivery services—and help you make the most of that big, shiny, alluring kitchen.

Foodshare Toronto

Foodshare Toronto’s Good Food Box can hardly be called offbeat. It’s been delivering fresh, healthy, affordable fruit and vegetables across the city for over 30 years—and rolling the profits into community gardens, school programs, and incubators that nurture new Toronto food businesses.

But the box itself—a favourite among budget-conscious Torontonians—is infinitely adjustable: orders can be sized up or down, requested pre-cut for disabilities, and customized to arrive at your lobby weekly, biweekly, or monthly. You can also support racialized farmers with the Dismantling White Supremacy box, taste more diverse options, and support local agriculture.

The Good Food Box also offers add-on options like pasture-raised meat, bread, crackers, local honey, and coffee from fair trade Toronto roaster Alternative Grounds.

Iqbal Halal Foods

Locally-owned Iqbal Halal Foods, one of Toronto’s biggest halal markets, is enough of a neighbourhood hub that it hosted Thorncliffe Park’s pop-up vaccine clinics. But for shoppers outside Toronto’s Midtown, this halal superstore also delivers: not just their own meat and produce, but a huge swath of South Asian and Middle Eastern brands, from Pakistan’s Shangrila to Vimto.

Next-day delivery is free over a $129 order, and they’ll deliver up to 150km from their flagship store inside a week: everywhere in the Greater Toronto Area and throughout Southern Ontario.

Kosher City Plus

From North York to Midtown, Kosher City Plus delivers everything you need to set up a kosher household for a month—or a whole year. With an in-house bakery and deli including freshly baked challah, a line of kosher gluten-free products, and Cholov Yisroel and Passover brands, they cover the whole calendar. And it’s not limited to food: Kosher City Plus also brings affordable seasonal holiday supplies and Hebrew-language magazines and newspapers to your door.

With deliveries from Monday to Thursday—and no fee after a $100 minimum order—they’re the easiest way to set up your temporary kosher kitchen.

T&T Supermarket

It’s not exactly offbeat, but British Columbia-based East Asian grocery chain T&T Supermarket is a classic.

Since COVID-19 hit, T&T offers next-day delivery—and same-day pickup!—on everything from produce, meat, seafood and premade meals to the pantry staples you need to fully stock an Asian kitchen. If you’re outside their delivery zone? They’ll pop non-perishables in the mail to almost any postal code in Canada—which means there’s no reason to go without oyster sauce or gojuchang ever again.

Delivery is $7.99 for orders over $100, and a wide range of payment options including Wechat Pay and AliPay are accepted.

Dufferin Grove Farmers’ Market

One of west Toronto’s most enduring—and celebrated—farmers’ markets took things online when COVID-19 closed in, and they’re still bringing the farm directly to our doorsteps.

The Dufferin Grove Farmers’ Market webstore shows what its dozens of farmers, food producers, and diverse local brands are harvesting this week, and delivers your picks on market day.

As well as the usual seasonal produce, the market features sustainably-raised meat, fair trade chocolate, water buffalo and sheep cheese, Inuit-sourced fish, wild-foraged preserves, Tibetan, Mexican and Indian premade meals, and more.

Orders go in from 12pm Saturday to 12pm Tuesday every week, and Thursday afternoon deliveries—by cargo bike when possible!—cover most of downtown and Midtown, up to Lawrence Avenue.

100km Foods

Sometimes you’ve just got to pull out all the stops, and if you’re the kind of diner who likes to know exactly where your beets came from, 100km Foods has you covered: a wholesale local food distributor that turned to home delivery when COVID shut its high-end restaurant clients down.

100km’s organized produce, meat, and dairy boxes offer a rotating weekly sample of its farm-fresh products. But there’s also a regular selection of seasonal produce, meat, seafood, cheese, charcuterie, snacks, and pantry goods, as well as chef-made meals from some of the fine dining restaurants they supply.

With their products mostly grown in Niagara and Prince Edward County—and overwhelmingly organic and ecologically-conscious—it’s a true taste of Ontario regional foods.

Deliveries go out Wednesday to Saturday in most Toronto neighbourhoods, with a $6 delivery fee; free if your order’s over $100.

Fresh City Farms

Fresh City Farms started as an urban farm on decommissioned military land by Toronto’s Downsview Airport, and a veggie stand. Inside a dozen years, it’s bloomed into a homegrown grocery chain with multiple downtown locations, a dizzying selection of organic, local-grown, and small artisan-brand products, and an unswerving commitment to showcasing sustainable, healthy food. And that includes a bottle shop that focuses on Ontario wine, beer, and cider.

With most of its products labeled local, sustainable, and certified organic, you know exactly what you’re getting on Fresh City’s online shop—which is a real help if you eat gluten-free, keto, vegan, or dairy-free. And they still offer the organic produce boxes that transitioned them from farmstand to supermarket, weekly, biweekly, or on demand.

Deliveries go out seven days a week: $4.99 for a specific timeslot or $2.99 if you’re not choosy.

Roll your sleeves up in the kitchen

With full kitchens, full-sized fridges, and friendly concierges, a DelSuites furnished apartment rental makes trying Toronto’s best flavours easy. Contact us at DelSuites by phone at (647) 370-3504 or email info@delsuites.com to book your food-friendly accommodations.