Things to do in Toronto this week: June 21–27

This week is split clean: wet start, clear middle, soft finish. Monday brings real rain—the kind that sends you indoors—but Tuesday clears just enough for the year's biggest civic event, and the rest of the week hovers between drizzle and overcast. Plan your outdoor time tight, and lean into the venues on the soggy days.

The FIFA World Cup 2026 is here, and Toronto is hosting. Panama faces Croatia on Tuesday, June 23 at 7:00 PM ET at the city's stadium, with Senegal taking on the playoff winner on Friday, June 26 at 3:00 PM ET. Forty-five thousand fans will flood Liberty Village on match days—the city spent half a billion to host this, and whether the money trickles down to local business is another argument, but the spectacle is unmissable. The full schedule lives at /toronto/fifa-world-cup.

Enter Shikari, the English rock band that formed in St Albans in 1999, hits the Phoenix Concert Theatre on Tuesday, June 23 at 7:00 PM. They bring the kind of guitar-driven energy that rewards a live room, and the timing works: clear skies, a match-day buzz in the air, and a proper rock show to follow if the mood takes you. The next night, Wednesday, Wolfmother—the Australian hard rock band centred on Andrew Stockdale's vocals and guitar—plays History at 7:00 PM. Two nights of live rock back-to-back, in the middle of the week when the city feels most alive.

On Sunday, The Hotelier—the Worcester, Massachusetts indie rock band whose second album, Home, Like Noplace Is There, landed on Spin's "The 101 Best Albums of the 2010s" list—take the Mod Club at 7:00 PM. It's the kind of essential emo record that rewards a room-temperature, fully-present crowd. That same Sunday morning, if you're up early and the overcast doesn't bother you, the National Ballet of Canada opens MADDADDAM at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts at 2:00 PM.

For the wet days, lean into new openings. Bar32, the cottage-country ice cream sisters' operation, is back for a summer pop-up at The Lobby by Heaps Estrin in Rosedale, now with espresso to cut the sweetness—perfect for a rainy afternoon. If pasta calls, Pasta Basta just opened at Mirvish Village under retired Italian diplomat Gianni Bardini and Chef Dario Tomaselli, serving classic dishes at prices that won't sting. For dinner proper on a drizzly night, estiatorio Milos Toronto delivers fine-dining polish without the pretense, or Fox on John—the gastropub on John Street—offers solid food and a bar that hums on quiet midweek evenings.

New Era Burgers just opened at Queen and Pape in Leslieville, jumping into one of the city's most saturated burger corners. And if you want a gimmick with your pizza, Pizza Pizza's limited-edition "Pitch Party" box doubles as a tabletop soccer game—silly, but timed perfectly for a FIFA week.

If one night stands out, it's Enter Shikari on Tuesday—rock that matters, on a night when the World Cup is live in your backyard and the weather finally breaks clear. Go to that show.