Ask anyone in the GTA what they order at an Indian restaurant, and there’s a good chance the answer is butter chicken. It’s on almost every menu, from a Scarborough counter to a Yorkville dining room. That makes it a fair way to compare prices.

So we checked. On October 20, 2026, we looked up the price of a regular butter chicken entree at 34 Indian restaurants across Toronto, Brampton, Mississauga, Markham and Scarborough.

The cheapest order was $8.99. The most expensive was $34. Same dish, up to 3.8 times the price.

The full ranking

Regular entree, CAD, before tax. The table further down has every source.

The $34 plate and the $8.99 plate

At the top is Adrak Yorkville, where the Murgh Makhani costs $34. Two more Toronto restaurants, Khazana on Yonge Street and Pukka on St. Clair West, charge $28. All three are full-service, sit-down dining rooms.

At the bottom is Samosa King (Embassy) on Finch Avenue East in Scarborough, where a large butter chicken is $8.99 from the counter. Amaya at Yorkdale charges $9.99, but that’s a small curry-only portion, so it isn’t a like-for-like deal.

Most of the GTA sits in the middle. Eighteen of the 34 restaurants charge between $18 and $23.

City by city

Toronto: widest range

Toronto had the highest median ($22) and the biggest spread, from $9.99 at Amaya in Yorkdale to $34 at Adrak in Yorkville. All three of the GTA’s priciest plates are here.

Mississauga: steady middle

Mississauga’s prices clustered close together, from $12.99 at Matheson Sweets to $22 at Avani and Tamarind. The median was $20.50.

Brampton: the tightest range

No Brampton restaurant in our sample charged less than $16.99 (Firangi) or more than $23.39 (Anjappar Chettinad). The median was $19.50.

Markham and Scarborough: best value

This area had the lowest median, $18.75. Prices ran from $8.99 at Samosa King to $23 at Ambiyan in Unionville.

Where you eat matters more than where you live

The bigger gap isn’t between cities. It’s between types of restaurants. The median butter chicken was $22.00 at high-end restaurants, $21.24 at neighbourhood spots and $15.00 at takeout counters.

“The sauce doesn’t change much from a Scarborough counter to Yorkville. The rent, the room and the service do. Neither price is wrong. You’re paying for a different night out.”Kumar Tanwar, Founder, Indians in Toronto

Does paying more get you a better restaurant?

Not by Google’s numbers. We matched each restaurant to its Google rating, more than 186,000 reviews in all. Price and rating had almost no link at all.

Restaurants charging under $18 for butter chicken had a median rating of 4.4. Those charging $22 or more had 4.2.

Google ratings cover the whole restaurant, not just the butter chicken. Checked October 21, 2026.

Every price we found

Regular entree price in CAD, before tax and tip, sorted from highest to lowest. Click a source to see where each price came from. Google ratings were checked on October 21, 2026, and cover the whole restaurant, not just the butter chicken. Click a rating to read the reviews.

How to get better value

Compare portion sizes, not just prices. A $10 small and a $19 large aren’t the same deal. Check the restaurant’s own website or call before ordering through a delivery app. When we checked three GTA Indian sweet shops, the same 1 lb box of kaju katli cost 23% to 38% more on Uber Eats than on the shop’s own ordering page. With Diwali coming, see our list of the best Indian sweet shops in the GTA.

How we did it

On October 20, 2026, we looked up the price of butter chicken (sometimes called murgh makhani) at 34 strictly Indian restaurants across the GTA. (We checked one more, but Google lists it as permanently closed, so we left it out.) We used, in order of preference: the restaurant’s own menu, its own online ordering page, a delivery app (Uber Eats or SkipTheDishes), or the in-store menu board. Where a restaurant offers sizes, we used its regular or standard entree. Prices are in Canadian dollars, before tax, tip and delivery fees. Delivery-app prices can run higher than in-store prices. Restaurants change prices often, so check before you go.

On October 21, 2026, we also recorded each restaurant’s Google rating and review count. We grouped restaurants as high-end, neighbourhood, sweet house (sweet shops with a hot food counter) and takeout or counter. We’ll repeat the index every few months to track how prices change.

Questions

Own an Indian restaurant in the GTA and think we missed your price? Send us your menu