Toronto is being singled out as the hottest dining destination in Canada right now for the “flurry” of new lease signings, restaurant openings and brigade of young, inventive chefs, described as the “culinary equivalent of skinny jeans.”

Air Canada's award-winning in-flight magazine enRoute has released its top picks for "Canada’s Best New Restaurants 2012" which bestows preferential treatment to the country’s biggest city, with six of the 10 addresses hailing from Toronto.

Air Canada's in-flight magazine enRoute has released its picks for Canada's Best New Restaurants. ©enRoute/Facebook

Topping the list is Edulis, helmed by a couple who returned to the city and set up shop after cooking and living abroad in Spain, Italy and Panama. Steered by chef Michael Caballo, the eatery is described as a European-style bistro or auberge fermière, inspired by the forests and farms of southern Ontario.

Menus change seasonally. For fall, dishes include Braised Berkshire Belly with Smoked Onion Purée, Sunchokes and Frisée and Lightly Smoked Herring à l’Huile which comes highly recommended by enRoute writers.

The restaurant was also included in weekly news magazine Maclean’s recently, in its first-ever list of “Canada’s Best Restaurants.”

Domestic rankings like the one curated by enRoute – which has been releasing top-10 lists for years – and Maclean’s come in the absence of Canada’s presence on other major international restaurant rankings. While the Michelin restaurant guide, for instance, hands out coveted stars in 23 countries, Canada isn’t one of them.

Similarly, there has been no Canadian representation on Restaurant magazine’s World’s 50 Best Restaurants list, a fact that was widely reported and lamented within Canadian media this year.

Meanwhile, the fact that the list overwhelmingly favors Toronto may be a bitter pill for some in that country to swallow, as it's also known as the city that everyone -- i.e., Canadians outside Toronto -- love to hate, inspiring whole books and documentaries on the subject.

Other restaurants that cracked enRoute’s top-10 list include Calgary’s Model Milk, Ursa, Acadia both of Toronto, and Pastaga in Montreal.

For the full list, visit http://bit.ly/canadasbestnewrestaurants