We visited the hotly anticipated Lunch Lady restaurant in Toronto — here's everything you need to order
Toronto’s first-ever location of Lunch Lady opens its doors on June 26, and here’s everything you need to eat and drink when you visit.
What began as an unassuming street food stall in a Saigon alley quickly rose to international fame when it — and Mrs. Nguyễn Thị Thanh, the woman behind it — appeared on a 2008 episode of Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations.
Though the stall, where Cô Thanh cooked up her signature noodle soups, was already a hotspot among the community, the attention brought on by the show appearance catapulted Thanh and her food into global notoriety, culminating with the 2020 opening of a Lunch Lady brick-and-mortar location in Vancouver.
Five years and consecutive Michelin Bib Gourmand nods later, the restaurant set its sights on the East Coast, securing the Ossington space that was most recently home to Boehmer and gearing up for a June 2025 opening.
Getting here wasn’t smooth sailing, though. On her way to Toronto to celebrate the restaurant’s opening, Cô Thanh suddenly and tragically passed away, rocking not only the restaurant’s team but all those eager to, at long last, try the legendary chef’s food.
After pushing back the opening date to honour Cô Thanh’s life, Creative Director Michael Tran, Chef Benedict Lim, and the rest of the team behind Lunch Lady Toronto are now ready to honour Cô Thanh’s legacy in the best way they know how: by sharing her food.
Lunch Lady Toronto officially opens to the public on June 26, and we got a preview of some of the dinner menu items you can expect to choose from during your visit, so here are all the things you need to try on your first trip.
Mo Hanh Focaccia
The Mo Hanh Focaccia is a far cry from your standard restaurant bread basket. The scallion focaccia is served with a selection of house-made pickles, whipped seasonal butter, and foie gras pate, meant to embody a deconstructed banh mi.
Deconstructed or not, it’s the perfect gateway into the diversity of flavours and textures you’ll be introduced to throughout the meal.
Bo Tai Chanh/Beef Carpaccio
Another appetizer at the top of our list is the Bo Tai Chanh Beef Carpaccio ($24), which, if you’re feeling extra wild, is a dream when stacked atop a slice of the focaccia.
It’s topped with peanuts, crispy shallots, Thai basil, mint, perilla, and lime vinaigrette for a surprisingly refreshing and bright bite to kick off the meal.
To round out the perfect first course, we recommend adding on an order of the Tom Chien Gion Crispy Prawns ($24), which are fried with the shell still attached (yes, you’re supposed to eat it), and dipped in a tangy chili lime sauce.
Mi Xao Toi/Garlic Noodles
The entire Lunch Lady story revolves around noodles, so it’s of the utmost importance that you consume as many as is humanly possible during your visit. Sorry, we don’t make the rules.
If you’re not opting for Cô Thanh’s signature noodle soups (both the Wagyu Beef Pho and Vegan Pho are available on the dinner menu), the Mi Xao Toi Garlic Noodles ($24) are a must-order. They’re a must-order even if you’re also getting pho, actually.
Spaghetti-adjacent egg noodles are generously coated in XO garlic butter sauce, topped with a poached egg and loaded with a heap of parmesan cheese. Upon mixing in the runny egg yolk, you’re left with something that would be reminiscent of a Carbonara if it weren’t for the numerous overlapping umami flavours in the sauce.
It’s already a fairly rich dish, even with lime juice cutting some of the creaminess, but you can also opt to add red crab for an additional $14 to really hit it home.
Steak Luc Lac
Speaking of rich, the Steak Luc Lac ($52) is your best friend if you’re in the mood for an utterly indulgent dish.
An 8-oz. Canadian prime ribeye from Martin’s Family Farm in Elora is cooked sous vide and topped with black peppercorn sauce and burnt scallion butter. It comes served with crispy cassava, which makes a worthy replacement for potatoes in this steak frites spinoff, but if you want, you can also add waffle fries for $6.
The steak is pleasantly fatty, cooked medium rare and served pre-cut into bite-sized pieces, ready to be plucked up by your chopsticks. In other words, heaven.
Suon Nuong/Pork Tomahawk
The Suon Nuong Pork Tomahawk ($46) is an unexpected star on the menu. At the centre is a 14-oz. grilled bone-in pork chop, topped with pineapple, blistered shishito peppers, and a caramelized jus.
It arrives with a second plate piled high with lettuce leaves, herbs, and a spicy, fresh herb vinaigrette, so that you can assemble your very own lettuce wraps using the dish’s various components. Go heavy on the sauce and herbs for a perfect, summery bite.
Che Ba Mau/Three Layer Dessert
You may have assumed that, with so many complex savoury dishes, dessert would come as an afterthought on the menu. If that’s the case, you would have assumed wrong.
The small-but-mighty dessert menu boasts just three items: a Vietnamese Coffee Tiramisu ($14), a Black Sesame Basque Cheesecake ($14) with mango compote and sesame tuille, and, perhaps one of the best items on the entire menu, the Che Ba Mau Three Layer Dessert ($14).
It would be impossible to overstate just how good this take on a sticky rice cake really is. It’s so good, in fact, that ours was gone in under five minutes.
A bright green pandan sticky rice cake is cooked French toast style, creating a crispy crust on the top and bottom, at which point it’s generously drizzled with a bright strawberry red bean compote and topped with coconut condensed milk gelato and mung bean streusel, creating the ultimate symphony of textures, flavours, and even temperatures, as the rice cake is served steaming hot.
When you visit, all the other dishes are optional, but this one is a must.
Pho-Spiced Old Fashioned
Of course, you’ll need something to sip on to wash down all that food, and the Pho-Spiced Old Fashioned ($17) is among the most unique cocktail offerings on the menu.
Before the name scares you off, it’s neither savoury like pho, nor particularly spicy, but it is a wonderfully aromatic take on the classic cocktail, with ample — though not overpowering — aromas of anise, cassia and cloves joining forces with the tried-and-true combination of whisky and bitters.
Tropic Thunder, Tamarind Sour, Vietnamese Iced Coffee
If jumping right into an Old Fashioned gives you pause, the cocktail menu also offers a selection of lighter, sweeter cocktails, like the Tropic Thunder ($17) with coconut-infused rum, Campari, pandan syrup, pineapple, lime and pineapple coconut cold foam, or the Tamarind Sour ($17), with Amaretto, tamarind syrup, calamansi, and rum.
The menu also boasts a broad selection of variations on Vietnamese iced coffee, as well as non-alcoholic options like Vietnamese Horchata ($8) and Saigon Street Tea ($8).
During lunch service, the restaurant will be closer aligned with Lunch Lady’s roots, serving up noodle soup lunch specials that vary by day alongside a standard menu of classics, appetizers and sweets. If there’s one thing we know for certain, we will be back.
Lunch Lady Toronto
Address: 93 Ossington Ave., Toronto
Phone: 647-748-9550
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