Ace Hotel Toronto

Ace Hotel Toronto opened on July 26, 2022 in the city's Garment District, the brand's first Canadian outpost after years of delays. The 123-room, ground-up building was designed by Toronto's own Shim-Sutcliffe Architects, pairing a suspended lobby overlooking St. Andrew's Playground with a dining program built around Michelin-starred chef Patrick Kriss.

The place

The hotel stands at 51 Camden Street, in the Garment District where Queen West, the downtown core and Chinatown meet — a stretch long defined by textile warehouses and now increasingly by galleries, music venues and independent restaurants. The Horseshoe Tavern and the Art Gallery of Ontario are both within walking distance, as is the headquarters of the Toronto International Film Festival, and Rogers Centre sits a short ride away. It is a location chosen less for postcard scenery than for proximity to the city's working creative and nightlife infrastructure, consistent with how Ace Hotel Group has picked sites in other cities.

The concept

Unlike most Ace properties, which typically adapt existing buildings, the Toronto hotel was built from the ground up and designed by local architects Brigitte Shim and Howard Sutcliffe of Shim-Sutcliffe Architects, marking the practice's first hotel project. The building centers on a lobby suspended above street level overlooking St. Andrew's Playground Park, built with a material palette of concrete, clay brick, copper and wood that nods to the neighborhood's industrial history. Ace's in-house design studio, Atelier Ace, handled interiors, filling the 123 rooms and suites with window benches, in-room vinyl record players stocked with a curated selection from Toronto label Arts & Crafts, and artwork sourced largely from local artists. The project had a long runway: first announced in 2018 with an initial opening target of 2019, it was pushed back repeatedly before construction and pandemic-era delays gave way to a July 2022 debut. Room categories range from compact "Cozy" rooms to larger suites, with amenities that include 55-inch smart TVs and designer toiletries throughout. The result reads as Ace's standard formula — a hybrid of hotel, coworking space and neighborhood hangout — translated for a market the brand had been trying to enter for the better part of a decade.

Dining & wellness

Alder, the hotel's ground-floor restaurant, was developed in collaboration with Michelin-starred chef Patrick Kriss, best known in Toronto for Alo and Aloette. The Lobby, the suspended bar overlooking the park, serves craft cocktails and small plates through the day. Evangeline, an all-season indoor-outdoor rooftop lounge also overseen by Kriss, opened on the top floor in the months following the hotel's launch and was positioned by the brand as its signature bar.