Toronto's ACE Hotel Opens Doors to Inaugural Guests

Ace Hotel has opened its first location in Canada, Ace Hotel Toronto, located in the city’s historic Garment District. The 123-room hotel was designed by Shim-Sutcliffe Architects, led by Brigitte Shim and Howard Sutcliffe, who received the 2021 Royal Architectural Institute of Canada’s Gold Medal, the country’s highest honour for architecture. Anchoring the ground floor is Alder, a seasonal wood-fired restaurant from critically acclaimed chef Patrick Kriss, which will open for dinner service on August 9. Chef Patrick also helms the menus for The Lobby, as well as the hotel’s rooftop bar and lounge, Evangeline, opening later this year.

Ace Hotel Toronto’s red brick facade recalls the important role bricks pressed from Don Valley clay played in forming the city’s visual identity. The robust, solid architecture of the building was designed to convey timelessness and feels effortlessly at home among its surroundings. Guests entering the lobby catch a glimpse of Horizon Line, a three-story site-specific art installation abstractly representing Lake Ontario’s glittering waters, designed by A. Howard Sutcliffe. At its heart, Ace Toronto is a civic space built for gathering and trading in words, intimacies, and bright ideas.

The Lobby, clad in the red oak lining and inspired in form by a wooden tray, is suspended by slender steel rods from massive supports and offers guests a variety of viewpoints and scales within the impressive space. The hotel’s interiors, designed by Atelier Ace, take their cues from the city’s legacy of manufacturing and textiles as well as Ontario’s landscape of dense forests and looping riverways. Ace Toronto’s original art program features pieces by nearly 40 artists, the majority of whom share ties to the city.

Guest suites are conceived as restful urban cabins, with Douglas fir panelling, copper accents, custom Shim-Sutcliffe lighting and side tables, and deep-set window benches built into the structure offering connection to the city’s shifting seasons and light. A rhythmic series of soaring, poured-in-place, concrete structural arches rise from the semi-subterranean restaurant to a level above. Considered material, constructed time, tremendous shifts of scale, and sensitivity to place coalesce at Ace Hotel Toronto, bringing a future-facing structure and unprecedented creative center to the city.

Ace Hotel Toronto is located in a neighbourhood ignited by innovation and industry at the start of the 20th century, once a manufacturing centre that grew into an influential artistic hub. The hotel stands at a nexus of neighbourhoods including Queen West, Downtown, and Chinatown, and within walking distance of famed music venues, galleries, bars, and restaurants. The hotel joins an area long defined by many of the independently-minded and community-focused institutions that form the city’s cultural backbone. Brad Wilson, CEO, of Atelier Ace / Ace Hotel Group, said that Toronto is a city that embraces originality and is rooted in the same open-to-all philosophy that founded Ace.

Overall, Ace Hotel Toronto is a timeless and impressive structure that respects the neighbourhood’s storied past while nurturing its future. The hotel brings together exceptional architecture, design, art, and culinary experiences to create a hub for creativity and community. With its location in a neighbourhood known for its independently-minded and community-focused institutions, Ace Hotel Toronto is well-positioned to become a cultural and creative hub in the city.