Drive through Toronto’s east end, and you’re almost guaranteed to do a double-take at the giant nose protruding from the front of an otherwise unassuming brick building. From the corner of Queen and Leslie, there’s little to indicate that one of the city’s most beloved Italian restaurants lies inside.
To locals, it’s become one of Leslieville’s most recognizable landmarks. To those in the know who have ventured inside, the spot is simply “The Nose.” Mention its official name — Gio Rana’s Really Really Nice Restaurant — and you might be met with a blank stare. For nearly four decades, this long-standing Leslieville fixture has dished out some of the city’s most beloved Italian comfort food, but the path to its current home of more than two decades is paved with eccentric choices, a multi-generational family legacy and a literal court battle.
Margio Rana, kitchen lead and co-owner at Gio Rana’s Really Really Nice Restaurant
“We try to see the funnier side of things in life … not take ourselves too seriously, and we want people to come in and have the same experience,” says kitchen lead and co-owner Margio Rana, who now runs the operation alongside her partner. The story began in 1989, when her parents launched the business following a dramatic career pivot. Her father worked as both a schoolteacher and, for a stint in New York City, a stockbroker at Merrill Lynch. Finding himself unsuited for the rigid corporate grind, he returned to Toronto, cutting his teeth at a friend’s restaurant and falling head over heels with hospitality.
“My dad wanted to try and do it himself,” Rana explains. “His whole concept was that he just wanted to make a restaurant that’s like eating in my mom’s basement. A lot of Italian immigrants have kitchens in our basements, which is where you have all your meals. He just wanted to do what they knew as Italian immigrants — making a small little hole-in-the-wall place.”
That lighthearted, deeply personal energy is exactly why the infamous nose sculpture exists. While sitting around during the restaurant’s early days, Rana’s mother began teasing her husband about his prominent profile, comparing it to Alfred Hitchcock’s famous silhouette. “My mom poked fun at his big nose and joked about using his profile,” Rana laughs. “He thought it was funny, so he commissioned an artist to do it.”
But not everyone shared their sense of humour. At their original location in
The Beaches, residents and a city councillor took offence to the sculpture, branding it an “offensive sign” and demanding its removal. Refusing to back down on the commissioned sculpture, Rana’s father dug his heels in.
Court of Ontario for the nose,” Rana recalls. “My parents were young with two little kids, and the city put them through the wringer for years. It was awful, real torture, but my dad refused to back down because he knew he wasn’t doing anything wrong.”
They won the case, but the gruelling legal drama took such an emotional toll that the family temporarily decamped to Italy to reset before returning to Toronto, opening uptown at Yonge and Davisville, before finally settling in the location that the east end now knows and loves.
Today, that hard-fought spirit of joyful non-conformity is alive and well. Rana takes the reins in the kitchen, her partner runs the front-of-house, and her younger sister handles a social media presence that feels more like a dramatic group chat than corporate marketing. Where else would a burrata special be paired with an unhinged breakdown about her So You Think You Can Dance? audition tape?
This collaborative spirit extends beyond the family. Over nearly four decades, a succession of chefs has helped shape a menu that’s as legendary as the nose outside. “One of the things I love very much about our menu and the iconic dishes is that it is somewhat of a love story with all the amazing people who have worked in our kitchen,” Rana reflects. “Everyone has left a very special thumbprint on it.”
The Giant Meatball
“The giant meatball has been on the menu for almost as long as we have been open. The recipe is based on how my mother and nonna made them. Many Italians brown their meatballs before tossing them into their ragu, but they always omitted that stage, rolling the meat and throwing the balls directly into the sauce. They preferred the texture that way, achieving a softer, more delicate meatball.
As for the giant part, that came from the amazing Andrea Mastrandrea, now owner of Forno Cultura. I’m not sure why exactly he and my father wanted to make it giant. Giant nose, giant meatballs? Fear of small things? Who knows?! Even if I want to take it off the menu sometimes, I can’t. People have come in consistently for decades for it, and they’d be so upset.”
The Osso Buco
“Our osso buco is far from traditional. Braised with leeks and portobello mushrooms, then finished in an asiago crema, it’s an interpretation of a very classic northern Italian dish. This was a collaboration with my father and chef Laura Prentice. We keep it rich, unconventional and deeply comforting — a direct window into the heritage we grew up savouring at my nana’s house decades ago.”
The Crespelle
“The influence behind the crespelle comes from the region where my mother was born. Scrippelle [the Abruzzese version of crespelle] are used in traditional dishes like timballo and scrippelle ‘mbusse.
While these Italian crepes are enjoyed throughout Italy, they’re something we grew up eating during visits to Abruzzo and wanted to highlight back home in Toronto. My father, along with then-chef Joanne Clayton,who later owned Relish on Danforth, worked together to create a dish starring crespelle that would really [suit] a Canadian fall. It’s a foundational pillar of the menu that has never been altered or removed.”
The Involtini
“Involtini means ‘little rolls,’ and rather than being centred around a specific region, it’s a cooking style consisting of a thin slice of meat or vegetable wrapped around a filling. This dish was initially created at another restaurant my parents once owned with their former partner, Vito Rizzuto, called Five Doors North on Yonge Street.
When they first opened, they had ribeye steak and Italian porchetta on the menu. They decided to combine the two, pulling and seasoning the pork shoulder before wrapping it in thin slices of ribeye steak. It was a delicious, cost-effective way to keep an expensive ingredient like ribeye on a menu for a new restaurant just starting up. Now, generations of families come in to eat it.”
The Tiramisu
“The inspiration is truly just that tiramisu is one of the most iconic desserts of Italy. We try to make it as authentic as possible, based on how we learned to do it from our grandmothers. The same guy has been making it for years, and he’s 76 years old now. He is the nicest man — sometimes I joke and call him ‘Tito Misu.’ It’s an absolute staple that we’ll never take off the menu, because his seasoned hands ensure that every batch achieves that perfect balance without any modern gimmicks.”
