Montreal's Toque! ranked best restaurant in Canada in list of top 100

Montreal restaurant Toque!, with executive chef-owner Normand Laprise at the helm, is No. 1 on a list compiled by Canada's 100 Best Restaurants Magazine. (TILT.ca / Dominique Malaterre / The Canadian Press)

TORONTO -- Montreal restaurant Toque! has topped a list of the country's 100 best restaurants.

Hawksworth Restaurant at the Rosewood Hotel Georgia is No. 2 on the list, which was compiled by the new magazine Canada's 100 Best Restaurants.

Toronto's Buca, Raymonds in St. John's, N.L., and Splendido in Toronto round out the top five.

Seventy of the nation's chefs, gourmets and industry leaders were asked to submit a list, in order of preference, of what each believed to be the best restaurants. No judge could vote for a restaurant they owned, worked for, have a financial interest in, or consult for.

"Next year's results in the 2016 issue will show which of them is getting better, who is slipping -- and what new talent is giving the old guard a run," says Jacob Richler, Editor-in-Chief of the magazine.

Some of the top picks in the magazine include recipes so home cooks can try replicating the signature dishes.

The inaugural issue of the magazine also names Canada's best emerging young chef as Paul Moran of the CMH-K2 Lodge in Nakusp, B.C., who will be competing at S. Pellegrino's Young Chef of the World contest in Milan, Italy, at the end of June.

Laprise, who also owns Brasserie T! in Montreal, was recently chosen as one of 12 chefs in the world -- and the only Canadian -- to sit on the newly created International Chefs Advisory Board created by Institut Paul Bocuse, based in Lyon, France.

For the complete list visit http://www.canadas100best.com. The magazine hits newsstands on March 20.