Location: 550A College Street, Toronto
Website: https://bearsteak.ca/

BEAR Steak started out small, serving sandwiches out of someone’s house — a pandemic-era pop-up that was popular enough to graduate to a real-deal restaurant (albeit a tiny one with just enough room to grab your sandwich and go).

The place has gotten an enormous amount of hype since it opened, and let me tell you: it’s all 100% deserved.  The hype is real.

They only have a couple of sandwiches on the menu: roast pork, and their specialty, the original steak sandwich. The sandwich is beyond simple — it’s just thickly-sliced flank steak and chimichurri sauce on a Portuguese roll.  It’s so good.

You have to be pretty confident in what you’re serving to slice the steak this thick; if the meat isn’t perfectly tender, you’re going to end up pulling it out of the sandwich after your first bite, and no one wants that.  But the medium rare beef here somehow manages to be buttery tender while still having a satisfying meaty bite.

It’s also got a great beefy flavour that lets you know they’re using the good stuff.  The zippy, garlicky chimichurri adds a nice brightness that complements the beef perfectly, and the lightly crusty bread has just enough substance to hold up to the meat without overwhelming.  It’s one of the best sandwiches in the city.