Dante's (Italian Dining Room & Take-out)

You have to love a restaurant whose menu features a disclaimer like this one:

“It’s bad to pay too much, but it’s worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money, that is all; but when you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought is incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run. And if you do that, you will have enough to pay for something better?”

Okay, so Dante’s won’t win the Nobel Prize for Economics any time soon. Still, the disclaimer rings true. Scanning the menu at Dante’s, one can’t help but notice that a veal sandwich costs $10.90, or that a helping of the Homemade Meat Lasagna will set you back $15.10. But both are as big as your head, and are full of so much taste they put Sbarro and its fast-food-Italian ilk to shame. Don’t overlook the pizzas either, which come as close to Chicago deep-dish as you’ll find in Toronto. True, the cooking here is better described as Italian-American than authentically Italian. But Dante’s has more than earned a spot in our listings, as a veritable suburban Toronto institution. A huge staff of delivery drivers serves most of the city, though you’ll pay a premium for making them drive to the city’s furthest southern reaches. Dine in customers get a kick out of the simple décor, red-checked plastic tablecloths, and sassy waitresses.

Price: $10-18 per entrée (and really, that’s all you’ll have room for).

Address: 267 Baythorn Drive, Thornhill (Just east of Yonge, south of Highway 7)
Phone: 905-881-1070
Website: www.dineaid.com/dantes/index.asp