Carnival | Contemporary Indian Restaurant & Cocktail Bar | Fun Dining Experience | Toronto — Restaurant in Toronto

My husband and I celebrated our wedding anniversary at “Carnival Contemporary Indian Restaurant and Cocktail Bar”, and it was truly an unforgettable experience from start to finish!

Ambiance: The atmosphere is lively and fun, with a magical touch right from the start. We were welcomed with a unique flower planter infused with aromatic spices and liquid nitrogen, creating an immersive and unforgettable moment.

Complimentary Appetizer: The elevated Dahi Puri was the best we've ever tasted, with a burst of refreshing flavors that lingered on our palates.

Drinks: I had the Hanami Sangria, beautifully presented and absolutely divine—easily the best sangria I've ever had.

My husband ordered the Junction Manhattan, prepared live at our table. The staff explained the whiskey and ingredients in detail, making it a unique experience. It was hands down one of the best whiskey on the rocks we've ever tried.

Food: Every dish we tried was a masterpiece. I’m vegetarian and my husband is non-vegetarian, so we ordered both types of food.

We started with: Paneer Tikka Pinwheel (vegetarian): Juicy, flavorful, and perfectly spiced. Malai Chicken Meatballs (non-vegetarian): Tender, delicious, and beautifully presented.

For the main course: I ordered the Kofta Duet Curry, which had two distinct gravies and stood out with its balanced flavors—no sweetness, just perfection!

My husband ordered the 24K Gold Butter Chicken, and the presentation was stunning, with gold-coated chicken pieces. The flavor was rich, unique, and completely non-sweet, which he loved.

Both curries paired perfectly with Garlic Naan.

For dessert: We ordered the Carnival Black Forest Cake, which was prepared live at our table. The chef explained every component as they created an elevated, deconstructed version of the classic dessert. It had the perfect balance of sweetness, sourness, and tanginess.

To top it off, the staff surprised us with a complimentary Motichoor dessert to celebrate our anniversary. Presented with sparkles, it featured layers of Motichoor mousse, Rabadi, and Gulab Jamun—a sweet carnival in itself!

Special Touches: They also presented us with fortune cards to pick one for each. These cards with beautiful and empowering messages were the cherry on top, leaving us with smiles and a positive mood. What an incredible way to end the celebration!

Service: The service was impeccable. Special shoutout to Devvender Thakurr and the rest of the team who made us feel incredibly special. Devvender's infectious positivity and attentiveness elevated the entire experience.

Overall, this restaurant offers not just a meal but an extraordinary dining experience unlike any other—exceptional food, drinks, ambiance, and service. From the thoughtful details to the exceptional flavors and warm hospitality, it felt like a true carnival. If you’re looking for a place to celebrate or just enjoy an elevated dining experience, Carnival is the place to be!

Thank you, Carnival team, for making our anniversary celebration so memorable. We’ll definitely...

This restaurant feels like someone went to several high-end restaurants (one of them in Vegas maybe) and then tried to recreate and incorporate their favourite parts of each by memory. The decor is a good example of this (more on that below) - as are little things like the bathroom vanity has a little tray of hand ‘towels’ like you might see in a nice hotel… but instead of towels it’s a stack of napkins, which obviously disintegrate when you try to use them to dry your hands. The service feels like servers have been given a handbook on high-end tableside service but get pieces of it confused and don’t have extensive experience or training. As an example, a bottle of red wine came delivered in an iced champagne bucket, the pour was done with the thumb in the base of the bottle, but the server was so nervous / uncomfortable doing so that he dribbled the wine on the table. The host commented that the server was “our best sommelier” - something I highly doubt given this menu only has 5 bottles of wine on it. They love theatrics - with nearly everything (and I mean everything) coming out with fireworks and dry ice. It’s both fun and entertaining but also cause for some laughs because it’s a little overdone (our bottle of wine had two giant sparklers attached like a rocket) The decor is very eclectic, with one wall an Instagram-friendly plants like wall, another wall a colourful painting of the restaurant name, another wall a moody dark green with gold accents, the bathroom is like you’re walking into a jungle, and by the windows are a bunch of fake Japanese maples. Again- like someone had a bunch of favourite places and tried to incorporate them all by memory. The space itself is a little worn and low quality - something that surprised me given the restaurant opened relatively recently… like they focused on opening quickly rather than doing things properly. Also - it was freezing in the place, the chairs and table were cheap, etc. The food is very very good. And I appreciate the effort to deliver high-end Indian dining… something that I don’t feel is as common as it could be. There are little things that could bring it to the next level (examples: the chicken is cooked to temperature but could have been left on maybe a minute longer, more charring on some of the tandoor offerings, more interesting jasmine rice (maybe some saffron?), home-made naan (store bought naan for what they charge is not acceptable), some chutneys and more variation in spice levels). The food also comes out soooooo slowly. And while I appreciate the effort to make everything to order, there has to be a way to speed things up. The gulab jamun dessert was exceptional. I’ve never had gulab so incredible. All in all, I had fun and it was nice to try, but for what they charge, there are a lot of opportunities for...

Started our night here, ended up at A&W across the street.

I recently heard about this restaurant and considering my wife and i love Indian food and seeing all of the 5-star reviews it had on Google, we had really high hopes.

Despite it being a small restaurant with around 10 tables, from the moment we sat down it took about 15-20 minutes until a server came over to take our order (as we looked around, it seemed like other tables experienced the same thing). The server that approached us was the only one wearing a suit and was older than the other ones, which led us to believe he was the owner. You'd expect the owner to give his customers the best service possible but.. he seemed extremely apathetic taking our order, as if he as doing us a favour. When my wife mentioned she was looking for a particular dish, he recommended one of the most expensive items on the menu. When my wife said she wasn't interested in that particular dish, he stopped being helpful and didn't speak a word while my wife kept browsing the menu looking for a different option.

We ordered 1 app, 2 mains and 2 drinks.

I ordered a Whisky Sour, which took about 20 minutes to arrive. My wife got a mocktail, which you'd think takes 10 seconds to make, yet it arrived 10 minutes after my drink, and probably only because i complained.

The Whisky Sour was the worst one i've ever had, considering they charge $25 for it you'd expect to get a decent one, yet it tasted like they poured a Four Loco into a tumbler glass.

Our food took FOREVER to arrive. We waited for around 30 minutes and still didn't get anything, not even our app. When we asked the owner, he mentioned every dish takes 35-40 minutes to come out. Well, i wish we had known that..

As previous reviews mentioned, it seems like this place tries to be a high-end restaurant, serving everything (and i mean everything) with dry ice, to the point where you feel like you're being pranked and they're just looking for your shocked reaction.

My wife and i ended up leaving and having dinner at A&W across the street where the service was WAY better. And if A&W has such a better service than your restaurant, i think you have some thinking to do.

EDIT:

Following the restaurant's reply regarding covering our bill: We never got any of our food, and i only had one sip of my Whisky Sour before i told the owner that i'm not willing to pay $25 for a glass of what tasted like juice, so really what you covered was only my wife's $17 mocktail. While i definitely appreciate it, please don't make a big deal out of it. I've had greater compensations at restaurants that had much better...