Something of an anomaly on the avenue known for perogies, this chic urban lounge – imagine a slightly downmarket Lobby full of friendly people, surrounded by delicatessens – launches its beautifully lush secluded garden terrace for its first season this spring. Fancying itself a wine bar, it offers a sizable list of consignment wines that, although only marked up an average of 10 bucks per bottle, are all available by the glass. Watch for an upcoming barbecue menu featuring a rotating roster of classic summer fare like Mediterranean-style grilled sardines and calamari. Bonus: patio heated year-round.

No other resto in town has such a disparate card at war with itself – so-so fish and chips versus terrific Southeast Asian eats. The difference between this grungy diner and its downright luxurious backyard deck is just as jarring. Who knew this lovely oasis of calm lurked behind its fading facade? Bonus: still one of the most inexpensive good Thai spots in town.

Swansea, that affluent semi-retired burg that runs west from High Park to Bloor West Village, comes new to al fresco café society. Hogtown’s last booze-free zone, it’s only in the past five years that the area has embraced drinking in public, let alone on a patio in full view of the neighbours. The Yellow Griffin is typical of Swansea, a small Guinness-slinging pub with a six-table curbside veranda where the biggest attractions are Thursday’s poker night and Friday’s 80s disco. But, like most local bars and restos, business has been down.

"First SARS, then the anti-smoking bylaw. We had to do something!" says the Griffin’s Maria Lutkiewicz who, with her son Oliver , decided to think big and offer 1,470 variations of hamburgers, topping combos and side dishes.

That’s six different patties – ground beef, lamb or turkey, chicken breast, pork escalope and Yves’s veggie – 35 styles of fixin’s from the Kung Fu ($8.85), with scallion, peanut and Kung Pao sauce, to the Skippy Dipper ($8.45), with crunchy peanut butter and strawberry jam. Sides go seven ways: sweet potato and Belgian-style fries, breaded onion rings, two types of coleslaw, tart curried potato salad with bacon, apple and raisins, and superbly crisp waffled potato gaufrette.

Some burgers are just plain weird: the St. Peter’s ($11.45) on chicken breast with fishy roe and a smashed shrimp – I think not. But others, like the Bollywood ($8.95), lamb with mango chutney and tandoori yogurt sauce, or the Cubana Libre ($10.25), pork with peameal bacon, Swiss cheese and gherkins (hold the hot dog mustard), are keepers.

While its front space is a noisy Portuguese barbecue take-away, its huge, grassy family-style backyard decked out with rows of picnic tables and a water feature makes a great spot to pig out in the great outdoors. Besides suckling pig, count on succulent grilled-over-steam chickens doused with house piri-piri sided with roasted potato balls, gargantuan carnivorus platters of egg-topped steaks sided with smashed spud ’n’ olive, grilled sardines and barbecue salt cod. Roast pig on the patio all day Wednesday! Bonus: a second west-side location (2293 St Clair West, at Cobalt, 416-762-4279) as well as ones in Mississauga and Brampton.

Long a magnet for sun-worshippers and moon-howlers as well as one of the first patios in Toronto, the Dip celebrates its 37th anniversary this summer. With its old-school Italian menu – straightforward tomato-sauced pizzas, steamed mussels, leafy insalata – and rock-bottom prices, this family-run business prevails while neighbouring spots don’t last 37 minutes. True, few are here strictly for the food. Most come to soak up the optics on the sunny-all-afternoon terrace that by nightfall morphs into front row view of College Street in all its glory.

Once Café Societa – the culinary launching pad for superstar chef David Chrystian – this Parisian-style awning-covered curbside terrace complete with herb garden and oyster bar is now home to Rob Briden’s confident and accessibly priced card of classic bistro dishes. As well as his lauded $27 three-course steak frites prix fixe, a late-night lineup of somewhat lighter dishes – escargots with sautéed leek in Roquefort cream, grilled elk sausage with minty Cumberland sauce – will appeal to club kids and locals alike.

Located in owner Olivia Mizzi’s Victorian home just steps north of busy Café Diplomatico, this charming trellised secluded backyard hideaway is the perfect spot for a clandestine tryst. The mainstream Mediterranean mains take a backseat to the spectacularly relaxed setting – figure on old-school competency rather than foodie flash. Warning: don’t bother showing up Sundays for the fabulous backyard brunch – it’s currently not being served.

Down a narrow alley and up a flight of dark wooden stairs wait two of downtown’s loveliest outdoor dinner theatres, an intimate shady deck rung with flowerpots and a second flagstoned grotto below, complete with smoker and garden shed. It’s a rooftop with history, too. Back in the 80s, Jamie Kennedy and Michael Stadtlander operated it as Palmerston. Since then, the gastrodome has evolved into a cozy neighbourhood bistro with a wallet- and palate-pleasing three-course prix fixe francophone menu ($22.95 Monday to Thursday, $25.95 Friday and Saturday). Bonus: charming septuagenarian server Andre Malibert.

Named for the smoky Russian city whose domes inspired the decor of this casbah-like lounge, Souz Dal is appropriately open only after dark. A true College original, its candlelit enclosed rear patio’s a cross between some futuristic sci-fi flick and the set of West Side Story. Bonus: Sunday through Tuesday, Jolly Rancher and Soho cocktails will set you back a sensible $3.95.

The north market stretch of Nassau that runs between Bellevue and Augusta has to be one of downtown’s most happening blocks. But outlaw coffee houses, knitting boutiques and Rent-a-Wreck all take a back seat to the Bellevue’s bucolic all-day sun patio action. Figure in first-rate Mediterranean mains – blue cheese-topped lamb burgers, daily mussel specials and first-rate steak frites – and weekend brunch and its no contest of cool. Bonus: watch for a soon-to-be-implemented prix fixe dinner deal by early June.

Hidden discreetly away from prying eyes in a walled-in backyard behind a head shop, this hippy-dippy café also happens to be the only patio that allows its customers to smoke marijuana in the open. To the inevitable Bob Marley soundtrack – with occasional breaks for Dave Matthews or new-Pink-Floyd Coldplay – tie-dyed stoners and their grandchildren share tokes with suits or knock back Purple Haze smoothies while killing the munchies with Puff Mama’s hemp cookies and sandwiches like the Brain Melt (havarti, salami and roast beef). Bonus: a makeshift rock-lined pond complete with snapping turtles.

The stretch of Baldwin between McCaul and Beverley is home to more outdoor dining options than any other block in town. Sadly, the best thing about most of them isn’t the food but the leafy view of other patios. Centrally situated, this long-running French bistro – now in the hands of Paul Biggs, ex of Le Select – has both views and eats, including a lunchtime two-course $17.95 prix fixe, a $27.95 three-course dinner and a lovely trellised brick terrace.

First-timers have a hard time finding this obscure inner courtyard complete with burbling water feature hidden down the alleyway behind the Poor Alex Theatre. Eventually, they find a grotty grotto decked out in rickety Goodwill castoffs serving cheap all-day breakfasts like chorizo with eggs, homemade fries, balsamic-dressed greens and Brit-style fried whole wheat toast. Not bad pad thai, too, considering.

For years now, KK has been winning NOW’s Readers Poll in the Best Patio category. It’s not difficult to figure why: moderately priced Mediterranean mezes – baba ghanouj, lamb burgers, vegetarian couscous with hand-cut frites – all served on a romantic rooftop under a spreading chesnut and evening stars.

Taking its well-chosen name from Latin with attitude, Latitude has two outdoor eating areas. Those who prefer truck exhaust with their pan-seared tilapia over potato pavé in Tequila saffron cream will prefer the curbside tables out front, but most head for its Miami modernist rear garden, especially for its acclaimed nuevo Latino brunch and a couple of Caipirinhas. Extensive New World wine list, too.

Taking up two three-storey Victorian homes in the south Annex, the Madison is party central for the nearby University of Toronto. A maze of interconnected rooms, all red-velvet banquettes and brass draught pumps, lead to four separate covered and heated decks that face into the evening sunset. The spot’s so popular, lineups snake down the alleyway and out front to the street. And while management insists that customers wear shoes, remember that rollerblades are unacceptable footwear. Bonus: 20 beers on tap!

Since white-on-white is so last year, darlings, the secluded deck at the rear of this crazy-popular cocktail cantina has added a splash of needed colour – orange! – to its recently renovated decor. Still known for serving some of the best food in the nabe – market-seasonal noshes like crisp crab cakes with summer slaw ’n’ jalapeño tartar, roasted chicken breast with Mediterranean stuffing over vine-ripened tomato emulsion sided with grilled veggies and nutty wheat-berry pilaf – the joint also offers a $30 three-course steak and frites prix fixe Sundays through Thursdays alongside its lengthy martini list. Fancy an Anita Bryant?

Formerly Fenton’s, Toronto’s most glamorous restaurant circa 1977, this laid-back lounge off the Village’s main drag offers a Cajun card with soul food and Tex-Mex accents. Seats on its pretty curbside terrace are particularly desirable for weekend brunch, when dishes like banana bread French toast sided with bacon and raspberry crème fraiche satisfy those suffering the next morning from the night before. Bonus: $6 martini Tuesdays!

Now that the Looking Glass next door has shattered, er, shuttered, Liban’s two terraces – one street-side, the other more formal round the back – take the crown as the street’s most glamorous. While the backyard deck suggests a night at some Indonesian resort, the antebellum patio out front complete with portico would make the perfect stage for a drag king/queen reading of Gone With The Wind come Pride weekend.

Griping about the not-so-great grub chez Zelda is about as fruitless as whining about the Leafs – get over it, girlfriend! Instead, join the queue for a hard-to-get curbside table at the street’s cruisiest patio. There, tank up on Zeldatinis like the Bitch Slap – sour apple, raspberry and melon liqueur with cranberry juice – to non-stop 70s disco while taking in Saturday night’s Cheap Show hosted by drag queens Lena Over and Justine Touch. Bonus: the first Sunday of the month Zelda throws her trailer trashy all-you-can-eat Leather Brunch.

This pricey Italian trat located on a water-featured terrace at the rear of historic St. Lawrence Hall is one of the core’s most romantic destinations. While fountains tinkle, regulars tuck into starters like cookbook-correct Caesar salad and Atlantic Salmon tossed with fresh fennel and tart mandarin orange delivered to table on a slab of ice before following with Flintstonian secondi of Costoletta Milanese, the classic northern Italian Provimi veal cutlet. Bonus: thoroughly professional old-school servers.

Dwarfed by the four black modernist monoliths of the Mies van der Rohe-designed Toronto Dominion Centre, the terrace at Bymark sits at the centre of downtown’s liveliest mid-day dining scene. While most of the white-collar crowd brown-bag it next to a grazing herd of cast-bronze cows on one of the few green spaces in the core, here on the elegant Yabu Pushelburg-appointed patio, the captains of industry knock back sea salt margaritas and chow down on expense account lunches of butter-braised lobster with oxtail ravioli, prime USDA steaks and Hong Kong-style barbecued ribs.

Nestled in a grove of tall pine just a quick streak from a clothing-optional beach, this idyllic island café off the south-shore boardwalk is now open seven days a week from 10 in the morning till 10 at night. For what looks to prove their busiest summer yet, management have introduced a new chef – Helder Cabral, ex of Kubo and Kalendar, who promises roasted Chicken Supreme with baby new potatoes and spring veggies – as well as a front-yard beer garden for those who want to grab a quick pint while blading past. Bonus: dog and bicycle friendly!

Don’t tell anyone, but there’s a fabulous spot right on the lake that nobody knows about even though it’s been there for years hidden behind an inflatable tennis club. Throw in free parking and three decks on the water’s edge and those who fondly remember the similar but long-gone Sgana Café will make this their new summer hideout. Situated in the middle of a bleak parking lot, the Muskoka-style deck takes in a panoramic view of skyscrapers, idyllic Ward’s Island and passing sailboats. Although the reliable resto’s kitchen never falters – to start, baby spinach with Woolwich goat cheese and grilled pears, to follow, marinated triple-A steak frites with bozzy onion butter, to finish, Wanda’s Pie in the Sky’s fudge walnut brownies à la mode – everyone’s here for the dazzling scenery.

Set on 13 Victorian cobble-stoned acres, the former Gooderham and Worts distillery has morphed into a pedestrian mall of art galleries, design shops and gastro-pubs. Its prettiest patio belongs to this resto, set – where else? – in the distillery’s former boiler house. Under a towering brick chimney, adventurous day-trippers dig into braised hoisin-glazed back ribs sided with sun-dried tomato salad, while more conservative appetites are easily sated with veggie burgers with baby greens or hot dogs ’n’ fries.

Past the narrow stainless steel kitchen, up a few stairs and around the corner, this bike-friendly joint’s rear walled-in garden makes a great place to chill with a good book and an iced cappuccino. The rocket propellant referred to in the streamlined cafe’s name is caffeine, of course, jolting cups of joe that’ll kick-start anyone’s day. This long-running café – 13 years and counting – is a place to procrastinate over inexpensive pints of latte when you should be doing the laundry. Bonus: squeezed-to-order lemonade! Warning: the only food on offer – terrific house-made danishes and muffins – sells out by noon.

Once through this New York-style saloon complete with a Wurlitzer jukebox programmed with really golden oldies, find this celebrated fenced-in hideaway. Waiters in white aprons serve creditable burgers from the tree-lined terrace’s barbecue while regulars guzzle a large cross-section of microbrews, an all QVA Canadian wine list – many available by the glass – and over 200 single-malt scotches. Bonus: check out the winner of NOW’s Readers Poll category Best Tree six years running!

This funky east-side Caribbean roti shop might look like something straight out of Shaft with its luridly hued fuzzy 70s sofas and potted palms, but its secluded garden grotto out back – though still painted in seriously psychedelic colours – is one of the avenue’s most serene spaces. Overstuffed couches, pots of geraniums and the chef’s own special herb garden, too.

The stretch of Queen east of the DVP is quickly becoming a nabe of retro furniture shops, hipster bars and fashionable restaurants in unmarked storefronts. But other than this small fenced-in garden draped with boxwood and climbing clematis at the rear of this busy bistro, few have patios worth visiting. Although it’s just undergone a management change – Kim Saunders has left to concentrate on nearby Barrio, but the original crew’s intact – all of the spot’s original charm remains, including chef Lance Schmid’s formidable weekend brunches of Kristapson smoked salmon over truffled scrambled eggs. Bonus: Monday night $21 two-course and $25 three-course prix fixe.

Taking its name from the Pakistani metropolis as well as the Hindi word for kebab, Lahore Tikka House is the east side’s busiest summer patio scene. This grungy former KFC explodes onto its surrounding parking lot once weather permits and becomes a billowy sari-tented dining room complete with family-style picnic tables, plastic flora wrapped in fairy lights and a pedi-cab perfect for photo opportunities. Feast on a fiery card of tandoor-baked entrées sided with vegetarian biryani. Bonus: plastic tumblers of frothy sugar cane juice.

This summer, the Beach gets to experience what drove College Street restaurateurs batty last season – streetcar track construction. And since most of the posh nabe’s patios have a front-row seat on the roadwork, it’s going to be a long, dust-clogged and congested season out Kew Garden way. Those looking for a respite from it all can take to the fourth-floor rooftop deck of this regulation pub and rise above the hubbub. Bonus: a view that looks south over Ashbridges Bay Park and dappling Lake Ontario beyond.

This chic tented A-list haunt located off touristy Old Yorkville Lane must not have got the mass memo that white was last summer’s colour – witness white fences, white awnings, white wicker furniture and even white light fixtures yet. But those lucky to gain entry to this inner sanctum of cool – Canadian Idol’s Ben Mulroney, woohoo! – can add culinary colour with the likes of gazpacho with toasted pistachios, lobster ravioli and mussels four ways (steamed in sake, Corona, Pernod or Absolut Citron).

If you suffer from claustrophobia or acrophobia – or both – Panorama, the penthouse bar on the 51st floor of the Manulife Centre, won’t be your idea of a place to party. After a two-minute ride in a cramped elevator, you step out into an elegant nightclub in the clouds. Two outdoor terraces – one facing north toward tree-shrouded Rosedale, the other south to the downtown core and islands beyond – are lined with patio furniture and a sure-grip rubber carpet. No one’s been blown away. Yet.

The venerable downtown institution celebrated its 60th anniversary last year with a long-term overhaul of its three floors, including its rooftop Flight Deck. Gone are the high wooden fences that shielded the sunny deck from the street below, so patrons now have a chance to literally look down on the rest of Yorkville. Fitting with its name, the Deck features a retro streamlined aeronautic look – all rivet-studded stainless steel and aluminum panels – that reflects the esteemed pub’s heritage. Still in place, a pub grub menu ranges from trendy pad thai to something called Calgary Ginger Beef, a Pilot exclusive, apparently. Bonus: watch for a new automated awning come summer that makes patio partying virtually year-round.

Gourmet magazine has called it one of North America’s 10 best saloons, and who are we to argue? The rooftop bar at the Park Plaza – or whatever they’re calling the hotel these days – has been a historic landmark for more than 50 years. Not only was it one of Toronto’s first patios, but it was also a major hangout for local artists and writers like Harold Town, Graeme Gibson and Margaret Atwood (whose novel Cat’s Eye has a scene set in the bar). While the current rooftop terrace is only a 10th the size it was during its 70s heyday, it’s a great perch to monitor architect Daniel Libeskind’s crazy-quilt reconstruction of the ROM directly below.

Snuggled between two recreated 19th-century stone-crofters’ cottages – think Disney does French country – this out-of-the-way garden has been a dining destination for lovers since 1987. Next to a fountain ambiently burbling centre court and a wall of pruned apple trees that fill with fruit come late summer, chef Jason Bangerter offers a card of classic Gallic grub with contemporary spin. Hens’ eggs poached in Champagne, paired with toasted brioche and warm asparagus, anyone?

In a heritage building at the top of Hogg’s Hollow that once housed the notorious Jolly Miller roadhouse – established 1860 – this new-look supper club supplies a pricey surf ’n’ turf menu for local gentry who like to roost on its three-tiered terrace while keeping an eye on their multimillion-dollar piles and the golf course below. Bonus: oyster lounge.

Customers who know their suds fill this boozer’s back garden to sup microbrews (Wellington, Neustadt, Trafalgar and a slew more) and pig out on buffalo burgers under an impressive parachute roof. Add an upscale pub grub menu – juicy meat loaf in mushroom gravy with corn succotash, Truly Canadian barley risotto, or sherry- and soy-marinated Muskoka Ribs – and understand why this Rebel located on the site of a skirmish during the Upper Canada Rebellion yells around the clock.