Top 5 Hakka restaurants in Toronto
Published March 28, 2025 at 3:16 pm
Hakka food in Toronto blends Indian and Chinese influences. Hakka translates to “guest families,” and is recognized as a subculture and language around the world. Hakka communities have migrated to places like Taiwan, Indonesia and especially India, where Hakka people adjusted Chinese flavours and techniques to the taste of locals to create Indian Chinese cuisine.
Chili chicken, often paired with noodles, is one of the most popular dishes in the cuisine, but there’s also a whole word of other satisfying options to choose from. Some dishes are drier and more crispy, others dripping with sauce, and some are sweeter while others are more spicy. Sauces tend to be bold, tangy, rich and glassy with a deep amber colour, a combination of salty and aromatic ingredients like soy and garlic mingling together in harmony.
Here are some of the top Hakka restaurants in Toronto.
5 – Bawara
This Indian restaurant near Dundas West subway station has a formidable menu of Hakka food. The name translates to “crazy,” and the Hakka dishes here live up to that by being crazy good. Their chicken fried rice is a great staple option, very fluffy with a decent kick of spice due to large chunks of chili pepper.
They also serve fried momos doused in your choice of sauce, soups, crispy chili paneer, Bombay dishes that fuse Hakka and tandoori spices, and extra hot Devil’s dishes.
The Hakka noodles at this cheery Etobicoke restaurant are shorter with a bright orange colour. The popular “mixed” version comes with chunks of meat and juicy little shrimp hidden in the nooks and crannies and large pieces of crunchy green onion. Add some of their smoky hot sauce to add a pleasant burn to your meal.
Their menu is extensive, with lots of options for appetizers, soups, salads, momos, chili wraps and biryani, and a wide selection of preparations for all kinds of proteins, including tofu and paneer.
3 – Danforth Dragon
This restaurant named for the street where it’s located has a healthy selection of Indian-style Hakka Chinese cuisine that includes lots of options for pakoras, jeera dishes, chili dishes, Manchurian dishes and Hakka chow mein.
Their take on chili chicken is a great go-to option, with huge, glistening chunks of chicken meat and big slices of onion smothered in a chunky chili sauce with a bold hit of spice to it. The steamed rice it’s served with is nicely sticky but still fluffy.
2 – Hakka Legend
The executive chef and founder of this restaurant hails from Mumbai, so you know the cooking here is legit. With multiple locations in Scarborough, Oakville, Ajax and Markham, their reach and widespread reputation speaks for itself.
Chili eggplant from Hakka Legend comes swimming in a pool of spicy dark brown sauce that’s perfectly absorbed by the fibrous vegetable. A creeping heat is balanced out by a deep, rich savoury flavour. They’re also well-known for their Chicken 88 dish infused with Indian spices.
1 – Yueh Tung
This restaurant on Elizabeth Street is one of the best places to try Hakka food in Toronto, hands down. Not only have they been feeding people in Toronto chili chicken for decades, they also lay claim to the invention of Manchurian chicken. They say people were intimidated by the name “chili chicken,” so they decided to essentially make a similar recipe but without the chili.
It’s still a favourite to this day, with bite sized pieces of crispy crunchy chicken drenched in a sweet, sour and savoury sauce. It’s popular served over simple noodles which are soft where they’ve soaked up the luscious sauce and crunchy in the corners and on the bottom.
They’re also known for their pakoras and traditional Hakka dishes like slow braised pork belly, noodles and soups, as well as Hakka-Cantonese dishes such as ginger and green onion lobster or spice and pepper chili tiger shrimp.
