Salad in Toronto

43 restaurants in Toronto list salad on their menus, and the 40 cheapest are listed above. The cheapest is State & Main at $5.50, listed as Caesar Salad. The typical price across town is $14.95, and the dearest of the 40 listed is $22.00 at Carmelina Restaurant, so the two ends of the list are $16.50 apart, which is 300% more for the same dish. Of the 40 kitchens listed, 20 charge more than a dollar under the typical price, 7 sit within a dollar of it and 13 charge more than a dollar over.

We track salad in 49 other areas and compare them all on salad across Canada. The typical price there runs $11.95 at the median, so Toronto is dearer than most of them, with a lower typical price than 11 of the 49. The lowest best price anywhere we cover is $4.00 at Billie Jax Grill & Bar in Whitby, ON, and the highest best price is $8.99 in Chilliwack, BC. The nearest area with it is Brampton, about 12 km away, where the best price is $4.00.

Where is the cheapest salad in Toronto? State & Main, at $5.50 on 396 The East Mall. The same dish reaches $22.00 elsewhere in town, so where you order it changes the bill by $16.50.

What should salad cost here? About $14.95 is the typical price across the 43 kitchens in Toronto that list it. Of the ones listed above, 20 are more than a dollar below that and 13 are more than a dollar above, so the typical price is a middle rather than a floor.

Is it cheaper nearby? The nearest area we track it in is Brampton, about 12 km away, where the best price is $4.00. That is $1.50 less than the best here, though whether that is worth the journey is your call.

Why do the prices differ so much? We compare what each menu calls the same dish, and menus are not identical: portion, cut, sides and the kind of room you are sitting in all ride on the price, and none of that shows up in a number. Part portions and half sizes are kept out of this comparison, and a chain charging the same at several addresses is counted once, so the spread above is between genuinely different kitchens rather than the same one repeated.