Restaurant in Toronto, Canada
West-end Italian with serious credentials, fair prices.
Rob Bragagnolo's Clinton Street restaurant earns its 2025 Opinionated About Dining Casual recognition with a focused Italian-Spanish menu built around Cantabrian anchovies, charcoal-grilled octopus, and diver-caught Newfoundland sea urchin. The Sunday paella is the reason to plan your visit around the weekend. Booking is easy relative to Toronto's more competitive tables, but the small room fills — reserve ahead.
Casa Paco is worth booking, particularly if you want to eat well in Toronto without the $$$$ price tags that dominate the city's most-discussed dining rooms. Rob Bragagnolo's Italian-Spanish kitchen on Clinton Street earns its 2025 Opinionated About Dining Casual recognition and a 4.8 on Google across 142 reviews — a combination that signals consistent execution, not just a good opening run. The Sunday paella alone makes a case for planning your visit around the weekend. If you are looking for Italian in Toronto at a more serious price point, Osteria Giulia or DaNico are the comparisons. Casa Paco is for when you want the cooking to be the point without the ceremony.
The room is small — a wee west-end house on Clinton Street , and the energy reflects that: close, unhurried, and neighbourhood-rooted. This is not a loud downtown spot. The atmosphere at Casa Paco runs toward intimate and casual, which means it works well for dinner for two or a small group, but it is not the place to take a table of eight expecting space to breathe. That physical scale is part of what keeps it sharp: smaller rooms tend to produce more focused cooking, and Bragagnolo's menu reads as exactly that.
Bragagnolo spent formative years in Spain alongside his wife Caroline Chinery, where the two ran three restaurants together. That Spanish residency shows up directly on the plate: Cantabrian 00 anchovies over tomato bread, charcoal-grilled octopus, and diver-caught Newfoundland sea urchin are the kinds of dishes that signal a kitchen paying attention to sourcing. These are not decorative gestures toward the Mediterranean , they are the menu's structural logic. For food-focused diners, the anchovy and tomato bread combination alone is a useful diagnostic: if that dish excites you, the rest of the meal will too.
The Sunday paella is the headline for weekend visitors and the leading reason to plan your visit specifically around that service. Authentic paella in Toronto is not common , most of what passes for it in this city is closer to rice pilaf. Bragagnolo's Spanish background gives him standing to do it properly, and the OAD recognition suggests the kitchen is maintaining that standard. If you are building a weekend meal around Casa Paco, Sunday is the day to go. The rest of the seafood-forward menu , octopus, sea urchin, anchovies , means the supporting dishes hold up regardless of the day, but Sunday gives you the full picture of what Bragagnolo is building here.
For weekend brunch or lunch explorers, Casa Paco occupies a position that few Toronto spots match: Spanish-Italian technique applied to high-quality Canadian seafood (the Newfoundland sea urchin is a deliberate sourcing choice, not a default) in a room that does not take itself too seriously. That combination is harder to replicate than it sounds. Comparable depth in a casual format can be found at Gia or Bar Vendetta on the Italian side, but neither brings the Spanish register that Bragagnolo works in.
Toronto's Italian dining options now run from neighbourhood casual up through the $$$$ tasting-menu tier. Casa Paco sits at the accessible end of that range without feeling like a compromise. Ardo is another point of comparison for Italian-inflected cooking with strong sourcing instincts; the two restaurants share a seriousness about ingredients that separates them from midrange Italian in the city. For the explorer who reads menus carefully and cares where the sea urchin comes from, Casa Paco is a meaningful addition to a Toronto eating itinerary , not a filler night, not a fallback option.
If you are building a longer Toronto dining trip, pair Casa Paco with higher-investment meals at spots covered in our full Toronto restaurants guide. For bars nearby, our full Toronto bars guide covers the west-end options worth knowing. And if the Spanish-Italian crossover cooking here appeals to you, it is worth noting that similar instincts , seafood-forward, technique-grounded, ingredient-led , show up at AnnaLena in Vancouver and, at a more formal register, at Restaurant Pearl Morissette in Lincoln. For Italian cooking with serious ambition outside of Toronto, 8 1/2 Otto e Mezzo Bombana in Hong Kong and cenci in Kyoto show what the cuisine looks like at the highest level internationally. Closer to home in Canada, Tanière³ in Quebec City, Jérôme Ferrer - Europea in Montreal, and Narval in Rimouski are worth knowing if you are eating seriously across the country. The Pine in Creemore is the regional day-trip option for ingredient-led cooking outside the city.
Casa Paco is at 50c Clinton St in Toronto's west end. No price range or hours are confirmed in our data , check directly before visiting. Booking is relatively easy given the casual format, but the small room means seats are limited; if you are targeting Sunday specifically for the paella, book ahead rather than walking in and hoping. For wider Toronto planning, our full Toronto hotels guide, our full Toronto wineries guide, and our full Toronto experiences guide cover the rest of the city.
Quick reference: 50c Clinton St, Toronto , casual Italian-Spanish , Sunday paella , OAD Casual 2025 , 4.8 / 5 (142 Google reviews) , booking: easy, but reserve for Sunday.
The anchovy and tomato bread is the clearest signal of what the kitchen does well , if that sounds good to you, order it first. The charcoal-grilled octopus and diver-caught Newfoundland sea urchin are the other dishes the OAD listing calls out specifically. On Sundays, the paella is the reason to visit; plan the rest of your order around it rather than treating it as an add-on.
The room is small and casual , this is a neighbourhood restaurant, not a production. The menu draws on both Italian and Spanish traditions, which is not a common combination in Toronto. Rob Bragagnolo ran restaurants in Spain before opening here, so the Spanish influences (paella, anchovies, octopus) are grounded, not decorative. Sunday is the leading day to visit if your schedule allows it. Come expecting a focused, ingredient-led meal rather than a broad menu with lots of options.
Booking is relatively easy compared to Toronto's harder-to-get tables. That said, the room is small, and the Sunday paella service draws a specific crowd. Book at least a week out for weekends to be safe , two weeks if you are set on a specific Sunday. Walk-ins may work on quieter weeknights, but do not count on it for prime weekend slots.
Yes. The casual format and small room make it comfortable for solo diners , there is no pressure to fill a table. The anchovy-forward, seafood-led menu is also well-suited to eating alone, since the dishes are not built around sharing large formats. If a bar counter is available, that is the natural perch for a solo visit; confirm when booking.
The room is small, which limits group size. Parties of two to four are well-suited to the format. Larger groups should call ahead to confirm whether the space can accommodate them , there is no confirmed private dining or group booking information in our data. For larger Italian dinners in Toronto, Osteria Giulia or DaNico may be more practical.
No confirmed bar-seating information is available in our data. Given the house-scale room, there may be counter or bar options , worth asking when you book. For a Toronto Italian experience built around bar dining, Bar Vendetta is designed specifically for that format.
The menu is heavily seafood-forward, which works well for pescatarians but is a poor fit for those avoiding fish and shellfish. No confirmed information on other dietary accommodations is available , contact the restaurant directly before visiting if this is a concern. The Italian-Spanish base cuisine typically offers flexibility on vegetable-forward dishes, but do not assume without checking.
For Italian cooking with more formal ambition, Osteria Giulia and DaNico are the natural comparisons at a higher price tier. For ingredient-led Italian in a casual register, Ardo and Gia are worth considering. None of them bring the Spanish crossover that Casa Paco does , the paella and anchovy dishes are not replicated elsewhere in the city at this level. See our full Toronto restaurants guide for more.
| Venue | Price | Booking Difficulty | Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Casa Paco | Easy | — | |
| Alo | $$$$ | Unknown | — |
| Sushi Masaki Saito | $$$$ | Unknown | — |
| Aburi Hana | $$$$ | Unknown | — |
| Don Alfonso 1890 | $$$$ | Unknown | — |
| Edulis | $$$$ | Unknown | — |
What to weigh when choosing between Casa Paco and alternatives.
The room is a small west-end house on Clinton Street, so large groups are a tight fit. Parties of two or four will be fine, but if you are planning six or more, call ahead to confirm availability before committing. The intimate format works against it for big celebrations.
Yes. The neighbourhood, unhurried energy of a small room tends to suit solo diners better than big, loud spaces do. Bar seating is not confirmed in our data, but a room of this size typically puts solo guests at ease. The focused menu means you are not overwhelmed with choices either.
Come on a Sunday if you can — the paella is the headline dish and it is only served that day. Chef Rob Bragagnolo draws on Italian roots and time running restaurants in Spain, so the menu spans both traditions. OAD listed it among the top casual restaurants in North America in 2025, which means it is on people's radar: book ahead rather than walk in.
For a step up in formality and price, Edulis on Portland Street covers a similar ingredient-driven ethos at a higher spend. If you want to stay in the casual Italian register but push the budget further, Don Alfonso 1890 at the Kanuhura in the city offers a contrast in scale. Casa Paco is the better call when value and neighbourhood character matter more than occasion dining.
Book at least one to two weeks out, and further in advance for Sunday paella service specifically — that is the most in-demand slot. Exact booking policies are not confirmed in our data, so check directly with the restaurant. Given its OAD 2025 recognition, walk-in availability on weekends is not something to count on.
The menu skews heavily toward seafood and meat — Cantabrian anchovies, charcoal-grilled octopus, sea urchin, paella — so it is not a natural fit for vegetarians or those with shellfish allergies. Specific dietary accommodation details are not confirmed in our data; check the venue's official channels before booking if restrictions are a factor.
Bar seating is not confirmed in our data for Casa Paco's Clinton Street location. Given the small house format, the room is compact and seating options may be limited. check the venue's official channels to ask about counter or bar spots before assuming walk-in bar access is available.
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