Winterlicious 2027 runs January 29 to February 11, with three-course prix fixe menus from $20 to $55 at lunch and $25 to $75 at dinner. Summerlicious runs each July. A chauffeur to your reservation costs a fixed point-to-point fare or $130–150 per hour in a sedan (3-hour minimum), all-in plus HST, with no parking or drive home.
Winterlicious and Summerlicious car service: what it is
Winterlicious and Summerlicious are the City of Toronto's two prix fixe restaurant festivals, one in the depth of winter and one in the heat of July. Participating restaurants offer three-course menus at set price points, which makes them a favourite for date nights, birthdays, client lunches and families trying somewhere new. The catch, especially downtown, is getting there: parking in the Financial District or King West at 7 p.m., slush in February, a patio evening in July where nobody wants to be the driver.
Winterlicious and Summerlicious car service from TorontoAirportTransfer.services is simple. You book a car to the restaurant and back, or a chauffeur for the evening, in the reservation engine, see the fixed all-in fare before you confirm and let someone else handle the roads. The restaurant booking is yours to make through the City's listings; we have no connection to the festivals or the restaurants.
2027 Winterlicious dates and price tiers
The City's Winterlicious page and its restaurant participation information set Winterlicious 2027 for January 29 to February 11. Menus come in six tiers: $20, $27, $34, $41, $48 and $55 at lunch, and $25, $35, $45, $55, $65 and $75 at dinner, with taxes and gratuity added by the restaurant. Reservations open ahead of the festival and the most popular restaurants book out within days, so plan the table first and the car second.
Summerlicious 2026 ran from July 3 to 19 on the same six price tiers. The 2027 dates are not yet published; Summerlicious is usually held in July, so check the City's Summerlicious page in the spring.
Point-to-point or hourly for a prix fixe night
For most dinners, two point-to-point fares are the most economical choice: one to the restaurant, one back at a set time. The return pickup includes 15 minutes of waiting, then 15-minute blocks, which gives you room for a slow dessert. If you are not sure when dinner will end, book the return for 30 minutes after your expected finish and message the chauffeur if you are running over.
An hourly chauffeur makes sense when the evening has more than one stop: drinks before, dinner, a show at a Mirvish theatre or Roy Thomson Hall, and dessert elsewhere. With a three-hour minimum, the car stays close by all evening and you never wait on a curb. It is also the right choice for a lunch where you are hosting clients and need to be back at the office on time.
Planning fares for a dinner by chauffeur
Planning figures, one way to a downtown restaurant, all-in plus HST; the reservation engine quotes the exact addresses.
| Starting point | Business sedan (one way) | First-class sedan | Executive SUV |
|---|---|---|---|
| North York | $105–135 | about +50 % | about +25–30 % |
| Etobicoke | $90–120 | about +50 % | about +25–30 % |
| Mississauga | $90–120 | about +50 % | about +25–30 % |
| Vaughan | $115–145 | about +50 % | about +25–30 % |
| Richmond Hill | $135–165 | about +50 % | about +25–30 % |
| Hourly (3 h min) | $130–150/h | engine quotes | $160–190/h |
These suburban figures are our Pearson bands for those cities, a fair guide to the distance into the core; a downtown hotel to a downtown restaurant is a short city ride that the engine quotes. All bands are on the rates page.
Drop-off at the door, even on King Street
Many of the busiest Winterlicious and Summerlicious restaurants sit on streets with little curb space: King Street, where streetcars have priority and through traffic is restricted in the core, Queen West, Ossington, Yorkville's narrow side streets and the Financial District towers where the restaurant is up an elevator from a lobby. Our chauffeurs know where they can stop legally and briefly at each, and will set you down on the nearest cross street when stopping in front would block a streetcar.
For the return, the chauffeur messages when they are outside and waits at the same corner. On a busy Friday, a two-minute walk to a side street beats standing in the cold waiting for a car stuck behind the 504.
Winter nights: why the car earns its fare
Winterlicious falls in late January and early February, which is usually the coldest, snowiest fortnight of the Toronto year. Freezing rain, blowing snow and slushy crosswalks turn a ten-minute walk from a parking garage into an ordeal in dress shoes. Our chauffeurs run winter tires and allow extra time for the Gardiner, the DVP and the 401 when snow is falling; check Environment Canada the afternoon of your dinner.
The other practical point is alcohol. A prix fixe dinner often comes with a wine pairing, and nobody should be driving home afterwards. With a chauffeur, the whole table can enjoy the wine list.
Summer evenings and patios
Summerlicious evenings are long and warm. Patios fill, and the core is busy with festivals, Blue Jays games and concerts. A car saves you circling for parking near the Rogers Centre on a game night or queuing at a garage exit at 11 p.m. If your restaurant is near the waterfront or the Distillery District, pair dinner with a walk and have the chauffeur meet you at the end of it.
An executive SUV keeps six people together for a birthday dinner; a first-class sedan turns an ordinary Tuesday into an anniversary.
Date nights, anniversaries and proposals
A prix fixe menu keeps the bill predictable, which leaves room for a car. Couples book a first-class sedan to a restaurant, a stroll through Yorkville or along the harbour afterwards and the ride home. If a proposal is part of the plan, tell dispatch at booking and the chauffeur will follow your timing quietly; our date night and proposals page has more ideas.
Rolls-Royce and Maybach cars are available through vetted partner operators in the LimousineWorldwide.Directory network, from $525 per hour with a three-hour minimum, for the night you want to go all out.
Family dinners and visiting relatives
Winterlicious and Summerlicious are a gentle way to take visiting grandparents or out-of-town family to a Toronto restaurant they would not otherwise try. A car from their hotel or your home avoids the parking hunt and the icy walk. Child seats, infant, convertible or booster, are available on request; add them at booking and see our child car seat transfers page.
For a family reunion around a festival dinner, our family visits and reunions page covers airport pickups for arriving relatives and multi-car evenings.
Client lunches and team dinners
Lunch menus are the smart business move during the festivals: a good restaurant at a fixed price, a known end time and a car waiting to get everyone back for a 2 p.m. meeting. Corporate accounts through our corporate car service can bill the ride to a cost centre and keep passenger profiles on file.
For a team of eight to fourteen, a Sprinter moves everyone from the office to the restaurant and back as one group, and nobody leaves early to feed a parking meter.
Booking lead time
Make the restaurant reservation first, as soon as the City opens bookings; the car is easier to secure than the table. For weekday lunches and dinners, a few days' notice for the car is usually enough. For Friday and Saturday evenings, Valentine's week (Winterlicious 2027 ends on February 11, just before it) and any night with a big game or concert downtown, book at least a week ahead.
Cancellation follows our sitewide rule: more than 72 hours before pickup, no charge; 72 hours or less, 10 %; 48 hours or less, 50 %; 24 hours or less or no-show, 100 %, measured from the scheduled pickup. If the restaurant cancels, change the car booking as soon as you know.
Coming in from the airport for a festival weekend
Visitors sometimes plan a Toronto weekend around a Winterlicious or Summerlicious booking, especially couples from other provinces or from across the border. The weekend starts at Pearson: our chauffeur tracks the flight, meets you at the terminal's commercial pickup area and takes you to the hotel. Waiting is included, 60 minutes on international arrivals and 30 on Canadian and US, from the actual landing. A Pearson to downtown Toronto transfer runs $130–160 in a business sedan as a planning figure.
If your flight is due in late afternoon and the dinner reservation is at 7 pm, leave yourself a buffer. Winter arrivals can be delayed by de-icing, and the drive downtown on a Friday evening can take close to an hour.
Theatre, concerts and dinner in one evening
The festivals overlap with Toronto's theatre and concert seasons. A typical chauffeured evening is an early prix fixe dinner near King Street, a performance a few blocks away, then a nightcap and the ride home. Because the restaurant and theatre are close, the car only needs to drop you at the first and collect you from the last, which suits two point-to-point fares rather than hourly.
Tell the chauffeur the performance end time and the exit you will use. Theatre districts fill with people at curtain down, and a pickup on a side street one block away is usually faster than the front doors.
What the chauffeur does on the night
The chauffeur arrives a few minutes early, confirms the restaurant address, checks whether you want a side-street drop and confirms the return time. On arrival they set you down, note the pickup corner and message you when they are back. Umbrellas and ice scrapers stay in the car; you walk in dry.
On an hourly booking, the car parks nearby and the chauffeur stays reachable by text. When you step out after dessert, the car is already at the curb.
Planning a festival crawl across the city
Some diners try two or three restaurants across a festival: a lunch in the Financial District, a dinner on the Danforth, another in Yorkville. The City's listings cover every part of Toronto, including North York, Etobicoke and Scarborough, so a chauffeur can handle a lunch at one end of the city and a dinner at the other on separate bookings. Visitors can also use a festival dinner to anchor a Toronto city tour by day, with the same chauffeur.
Keep the bookings separate in the reservation engine so each leg has its own fixed fare and its own chauffeur timing, or ask for one multi-stop itinerary if lunch and dinner fall on the same day. Either way, the fare you see before you confirm is the fare you pay, with gratuity included and HST on its own line.
A last word from the dispatch desk: the festivals are popular with visitors who do not know the city, and the most common problem we see is a guest who booked a restaurant with a similar name in the wrong neighbourhood. Paste the exact street address from the restaurant's confirmation into the booking and the chauffeur will take it from there.
For more of the city's big weekends and dates, see our Toronto events guide.
