As you may guess from the title of Eugene Levy’s newest sequence — “The Reluctant Traveler” — he’s a man who’s glad to remain put.
The present, now in its second season on Apple TV, follows Mr. Levy, a 77-year-old comedy legend recognized for his roles in “Ready for Guffman,” “American Pie,” “Schitt’s Creek” and extra, as he defies his anxieties about airports, heights, temperatures, textures and huge swaths of the animal kingdom. With nice consternation, he leaves his consolation zone — Canada, as he usually reminds viewers — to shadow an professional moose caller in Sweden, herd 600 sheep by way of a German resort city and politely keep away from an octopus aboard a Greek trawler.
Raised in Hamilton, Ontario, about 40 miles southwest of Toronto, Mr. Levy bought his huge break in 1972 alongside Martin Brief, Gilda Radner, Victor Garber, Andrea Martin and Paul Shaffer in a celebrated manufacturing of “Godspell” at Toronto’s Royal Alexandra Theater. He has since referred to as the town — and one historic, leafy neighborhood — dwelling.
“Rosedale is a residential space that’s proper within the coronary heart of Toronto,” he informed me over espresso at Tavern on the Inexperienced, in New York, the place he’d joined the solid of the fourth season of “Solely Murders within the Constructing.” With new skyscrapers going up “a mile a minute” in Toronto, he stated, the scene from our desk in Central Park regarded just a little like his view from Rosedale. He and his spouse, Deborah Divine, are neighborhood loyalists — Avant Goût, an area bistro, has been their go-to for many years — however spots in different areas rank excessive, too.
Listed here are 5 of Mr. Levy’s favourite locations in Toronto.
1. Terroni Bar Centrale
“Deb and I might often do our every day constitutional within the morning and find yourself at Bar Centrale for a latte and a few of their high quality pastries,” he stated, including that the croissants are particularly good at this spot in Summerhill, a neighborhood that borders Rosedale. Occupying the bottom flooring of the multistory Terroni Value restaurant in a Nineteenth-century brick constructing, Bar Centrale forgoes the Wi-Fi you may count on together with your espresso in favor of a wall’s price of worldwide magazines and — in accordance with Mr. Levy — a employees full of excellent conversationalists.
2. Harry Rosen
The flagship of this family-run males’s put on emporium on Bloor Road is one-stop searching for Mr. Levy. “I hate touring round to totally different locations to get various things,” he stated, very a lot on model. This place “has each designer, if that’s what you’re into, and all the pieces from socks to tuxedos.” There’s additionally a luxurious grooming division, a tailoring service and an array of espresso desk books on matters like racecars, rockers and tattoo artwork.
3. CN Tower
Touristy? Certain, Mr. Levy acknowledged. Nonetheless, this roughly 1,815-foot communications and statement tower gives unequalled views of the town and Lake Ontario, even when — like him — you keep away from the acrophobia-inducing glass-floored sections. “We used to take the children there once they have been younger,” he stated. “I couldn’t even put my toe on the sting of the glass, however my youngsters would simply destroy me — they might lie down on it.” A much less aggravating view: Rogers Centre, the stadium subsequent door, the place you may see the Toronto Blue Jays play baseball. “I’ve been a Jays fan for, I assume since they began in ’77,” Mr. Levy informed me. He clarified his model of fandom throughout a Season 2 episode of “The Reluctant Traveler”: “I don’t go and paint my face,” he informed the Spanish footballer Héctor Bellerín, however “in a championship sport, I’ll rise up and provides them, you realize, a thumbs-up.”
4. The Royal Conservatory of Music
“The musicianship popping out of the Royal Conservatory is simply superior,” stated Mr. Levy, fast to notice that his spouse “would go there when she was a child taking piano classes.” (College students on the 138-year-old establishment have included the pianist Glenn Gould and the singer Sarah McLachlan.) Mr. Levy loves concert events on the connected Koerner Corridor — “the acoustics are impeccable” — the place you may see high college students or worldwide stars.
5. Windsor Arms Lodge
The 1972 “Godspell” position grew to become Mr. Levy’s first regular performing paycheck: “That was enormous,” he stated. And together with his windfall (“140 bucks each single week”) he began having fun with meals and late-night cocktails, or cake and low, on the Windsor Arms, a 10-minute drive from the theater. The lodge was standard, he stated, as a result of it was “quiet and extra residential” than others. (The suites really feel like genteel prewar flats, with musical devices and loads of plush seating.) One in every of Mr. Levy’s favourite outdated haunts there — the Courtyard Cafe — is now the Courtyard, an occasion area price a fast wander to see the place, amongst different issues, Elton John and David Furnish held an engagement celebration. Mr. Levy, now a connoisseur of 5:30 p.m. dinners, is now not the late-night cake-and-coffee man he as soon as was — however he nonetheless provides the place, you realize, a thumbs-up.
