Toronto Smart Splurges

The 28-room Windsor Arms pampers guests (which have included icons like George Clooney) with state-of-the-art entertainment systems, jetted tubs, and 320-threadcount Frette linens, but service is the superstar draw here – with the city’s highest staff-to-guest ratio (6:1), they make everyone feel like a celebrity.

In February 2008, the fashionable Cosmopolitan Hotel opened its richly hued, well-endowed wine...more

Boys come to Fly (the inspiration for Babylon from the TV-series Queer as Folk) for the house and tribal beats, the beautiful bodies, and the fun-loving vibe. Even the ladies like to play at Toronto’s hottest gay club.

Art and revelry intertwine at this unabashedly ambitious, four-story pleasure palace designed by Peter Gatien (best known for his long-running New York City club Limelight). Here, everything from the pumping dance floor to the light-up bar is a spectacle – even non-scenesters get a kick out the hospital-themed washroom.

Daniel Libeskind masterminded the ROM’s angular, über-modern $270-million addition, which expanded the original 1914 structure to 388,000 square feet, providing space for the museum’s 6-million-and-growing international collection of historic and cultural artifacts – everything from dinosaur fossils and Stone Age Chinese implements to 20th-century Canadian art.