Le Germain Hotel Maple Leaf Square

A Design Hotel Wedged Between the Arena and the Lake

Maple Leaf Square is the piece of Toronto that fills and empties twice a night, a plaza between Scotiabank Arena and Bremner Boulevard that belongs to whoever is playing. Le Germain took the building above it and did the opposite of what the setting suggests: quiet materials, low light, a lobby that feels like a private club rather than a lobby at all. The Germain family built its reputation in Quebec City and Montreal before crossing into Ontario, and the house style travels intact. Above the plaza sit 167 rooms and suites, and the lake is four blocks south.

Why It Works

We keep this one for the rare thing it does: it puts a design hotel inside the machinery of a downtown, without becoming a conference box. Union Station is walkable with a suitcase, which turns a stay here into a proper hub for anyone arriving by train or heading out to Niagara. The art programme is the other reason. More than eight in ten works on the walls come from local artists, which is a commitment rather than a gesture, and the building carries a Green Key rating of four out of five. The MICHELIN Guide lists it among its Toronto stays.

Why This Location

Nothing here needs a car. Scotiabank Arena is across the plaza, the Rogers Centre a block west, the CN Tower and the aquarium just beyond it, and Union Station connects the airport train, the regional network and the subway under one roof. South of Bremner the city runs out into the Harbourfront, where the ferries leave for the Toronto Islands and the boardwalk carries on for kilometres. The trade off is honest: this is the loud, busy, event driven corner of the city, and the building is built for people who came for exactly that.

Fast Facts

• Price: Premium

• Vibe: Design led, urban, easygoing, event ready

• Rooms: 167 rooms and suites, from the Classic room to an apartment suite that takes up to ten guests

• Best For: Sports and concert trips, rail travellers using Union Station, groups and families needing one large suite

• Our Favorite Thing About the Hotel: The Matthew Plexman photographs, part of an art collection that is more than eighty per cent local

• Dining: Bar Le Germain for Canadian cooking with international turns, and its patio over Maple Leaf Square

• Amenities: Fitness room open around the clock, valet parking, meeting rooms, Green Key four out of five, pets accepted

• Attractions: Scotiabank Arena across the plaza, the Rogers Centre and CN Tower a block or two west, Union Station on foot, the Harbourfront and the island ferries south

Rooms That Scale From One Night to Ten People

The Classic room is the one most guests take, and it earns its keep with daylight and a bathroom better than the category usually allows. From there the categories widen steadily, through the larger rooms and suites, up to the apartment suite that sleeps ten and turns the hotel into a workable base for a family reunion or a travelling group. The design language is consistent throughout, warm woods, dark tones and restraint, so the difference between categories is space rather than a change of register.

Bar Le Germain and the Patio on the Square

Dinner happens in Bar Le Germain, where the kitchen works a Canadian base and borrows freely, and where the room fills early on nights when something is on across the plaza. The patio is the summer version of the same idea, looking straight onto Maple Leaf Square, with cocktails and beer and a front row seat on the crowd. It is a sociable building rather than a hushed one, and that suits the corner it stands on.

Art on the Walls, Made Here

The collection is the detail that separates this hotel from the towers around it. Over eighty per cent of what hangs in the public rooms and corridors was made locally, and the large format photography by Matthew Plexman gives the circulation spaces a scale that hotel art almost never has. It is worth walking a floor or two on foot rather than taking the lift straight up, which is not advice one often gives about a downtown hotel.