Best Bars in… Toronto

Prohibition still hangs heavy over Canada’s largest city, but a raft of innovative mixologists are moving things forward, BarChick discovers in the first of a new series.

BarChick uncovers the best bars in Toronto

In most cities ‘Prohibition’ has become a fashionable byword to conjure a world of strong cocktails and speakeasy-style bars. But in Toronto the hangover from those days is still hitting hard. BarChick was shocked to discover you cannot buy a six-pack on a sunny day from the corner shop, or drink Bloody Caesars from sunrise to sundown.

Since 1927 the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) has arbitrated the sale of all alcohol in the state. You can buy booze from either an LCBO store – with prohibitive opening hours – or a licenced venue.

This recurs as a campaign issue every election and yet the Canadian conservative streak reigns supreme. Parts of west Toronto didn’t even permit liquor sales until 2000. But what does this archaic monopoly of alcohol distribution mean for the city’s bar culture? Apparently, a more urgent impetus towards innovation.

People are calling 2013 the year of the cocktail in Toronto with more serious bars in the city than ever before and a thriving army of bartenders competing internationally. A few years ago this was a different story. Cocktails were sweet, sticky things better suited to the palate of a child than a serious drinker.

But as the mixology trend swept the world, TO bartenders were soon learning from their New York neighbours, bringing back tales of tamarind bitters, 18th century recipes and dehydrated cocktail dust.

As Cold Tea bartender Sarah Parniak explains: “We’re an ambitious city with a large population of young people in the downtown core, and it’s natural for us to aspire to the thriving cocktail cultures we’ve witnessed in places like London, New York and San Fran.”

In response to this citywide thirst, so many bars opened up in the hipster headquarters of Ossington and Dundas that the city council imposed a year-long moratorium on licensing new venues in 2009. Now the up-and-coming Queen Street West village of Parkdale – home to the latest bar hotspot Pharmacy, as well as hipper-than-thou hotel The Drake – has suffered the same fate. The number of restaurants there tripled in 2012.

But it’s not just the city’s desire for cooler drinking quarters that has changed. Their tastes are growing up too. Whereas before the best you could hope for was a Cosmopolitan or a French Martini, there has now been a shift to real spirits since the opening of venues like BarChef and Black Hoof in 2008.

Take whisky for example. Once merely an adjunct to beer, people are now savouring the taste, experimenting with it in cocktails and talking about ‘small-batch’. Bourbon sales have nearly doubled in the past five years from $5.4m (£3.5m) to $9.4m. Until 2006, the LCBO only carried six Bourbons, limiting the creativity of bar managers across the state. In response to demand, they now carry 34 with lesser-known brands like Basil Hayden’s and Booker’s. It’s the hipster drink of choice.

Grand Electric, the hotspot of 2012 with the queues to prove it, has a simple sell: tacos and Bourbon. It has a list boasting more than 40, which, in a small junk shop-style taqueria with hip hop blasting, is something of an anomaly.

Catering to a curious drinking public, bartenders have room for experimentation. We couldn’t escape on-the-spot cedar infusing – making half the bars in TO smell like saunas. The most notable is the infamous $45 Vanilla Hickory Smoked Manhattan at BarChef, which comes atop an antique smoking bell jar. At Salt, bar manager Nick Kennedy has introduced the Charred Cedar Manhattan – they plane pinewood to smoke the glasses in front of you.

Having caught up with the Bourbon trend, Toronto is moving on to mezcal, despite Ontario’s stores only stocking three brands. With the issue of privatisation on the political agenda again this year, and change occurring at breakneck speed, perhaps Ontario is finally ready to put the days of temperance behind it.

Flick through the next few pages to discover the best bars in Toronto, and get the low-down in the city from one of its resident bartenders.

Barchef
472 Queen Street
barcheftoronto.com
It’s impossible to talk about cocktails in Toronto without talking about Barchef, which has turned drinking into haute cuisine. It’s famous for two things: the molecular cocktails and its price tags, namely the $45 Vanilla Hickory Smoked Manhattan. It’s as much about theatrics as fine drinking. The brainchild of Frankie Solarik, who pioneered the contemporary cocktail movement in Canada, Barchef was a total game-changer when it opened in 2008. Toronto had never seen hand-carved ice cubes, housemade bitters or blowtorches utilised in the arsenal of a bartender before. It’s stylish too, with a dark and seductive vibe.

Toronto Temperance Society
577A College Street
torontotemperancesociety.com
This is one of the most exclusive cocktail clubs in town. With tea-stained Chinese wallpaper, gentle jazz and leather booths, the vibe is understated and timeless. Mostly importantly, the drinks are immaculate with a mission statement to bring cocktail making back to the pre-Prohibition days before our tastebuds were soiled with Sunny D and McDonald’s. In fact one of the house rules stipulates that if you even ‘attempt’ to order a Cosmopolitan you will be asked, politely, to leave.

Cold Tea
60 Kensington Avenue
It feels like you’ve stumbled into a secret Tokyo dive bar; the door is hidden down a grimy, yellow passageway between the shops of Toronto’s Chinatown. There’s a gaudy collage of 1980s posters on the walls, wooden tables, red-hued lighting and the occasional piece of graffiti. They don’t have a cocktail list, but the award-winning bartenders will mix you up a treat to fix your life’s woes. And when you get peckish, just hit up Cindy in the corridor for some yummy dim sum for just $5 a pop.

OddSeoul
90 Ossington Avenue
There’s something very ‘90s B-movie about this place. We don’t know if it’s the boomboxes on the walls, the Korean Terminator movie posters, or the neon flashing signs, but it looks cool. Having opened in early 2013, Oddseoul hits several hot trends in Toronto right now: late-night snack bars, Korean inspiration and American junk food. The combination is winning and it’s packed out with foodie hipsters and bloggers.

Reposado
136 Ossington Avenue
reposadobar.com
Reposado may have a bigger selection of mezcal and Tequila than anywhere else in Toronto, but don’t expect kitsch Mexicana or cacti. With brick walls, contemporary photography and a jazz soundtrack, this is classic and classy. With Megan Jones, one of the city’s hottest bartenders at the helm, expect a lot more than salt and lime with your drink. The Blood Orange Margarita is a signature drink and the Jalisco Mermelada is competition-worthy.

Next page: Sarah Parniak of Cold Tea gives her recommendations for the best bartender bars in Toronto.

Sarah-Parniak, bartender at Cold Tea

BarChick meets… Sarah Parniak

This Cold Tea bartender has been causing a stir on the Toronto drinks scene for a while. A freelance drinks writer and general booze nerd, she teaches at the Toronto Institute of Bartending and represented Canada at the Beefeater 24 Global Bartending Competition.

What’s the most popular drink in your bar?
The Old Fashioned, hands down. Guests usually request Bourbon as a base and I’m always happy to accommodate one of my favourite cocktails made with one of my preferred spirits.

Who are the bartenders to watch in town?
We have so many fantastic bartenders in TO, from trailblazers like Dave Mitton at the Harbord Room, Sandy De Almeida at The Drake and Christina Kuypers of Gwai Lo, to the passionate newschoolers like Robin Goodfellow at URSA, Megan Jones and Jan Ollner at Reposado and Robin Kaufman at TTS… and that’s a short list.

What’s your after-work bar?
416 Snackbar. Drinks, snacks and hip hop – it doesn’t get much better than that.

What’s the next big thing on Toronto’s cocktail scene?
Agave spirits are big, with the mezcal wave about to break. We’re seeing a real spike in craft ingredients like homemade vermouths, aperitifs and eau de vie. I think micro-distilleries will be the next thing – we may have to wait a couple years, but mark my words!