BLOORDALE PANTRY (1285 Bloor West, at Lansdowne, 416-530-2999, thebloordalepantry.com) Complete meals for $25 per person, including all taxes, tip and a domestic beer. Average main $13. Open Tuesday 8:30 am to Friday 8:30 am to 10 pm, Saturday and Sunday 10 am to 10 pm, brunch till 3 pm. Closed Monday, holidays. No reservations. Licensed. Access: one step at door, washrooms in basement. Rating: NNN
Downtown diners are a dying breed. A few retro luncheonettes have managed to survive the wrecker’s ball – the Senator on Victoria, the Patrician Grill on King East, the “out of this world” Mars on College – but their numbers are rapidly dwindling, all too often the first casualties in the inevitable march of gentrification.
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Out at Bloor and Lansdowne, Rose Guarnieri and Anthony Menna are holding back the tide in their Bloordale Pantry, a six-month-old lunch and brunch spot that sprang up in the old Dale diner. Despite the chi-chi-sounding name, little of the resto’s time-warp decor has changed.
“We grew up in this neighbourhood and knew the restaurant’s history,” says Guarnieri, who fronts the house. “The owner wanted to retire and was looking for the right people to take over, so he gave it to us.”
It couldn’t have fallen into more sympathetic hands. Okay, they’ve hung a de rigueur chandelier in the front window and some arty paintings on the walls, but they’ve left everything else pretty much as is, from the white-formica-topped lunch counter and swivelling stools to the black-‘n’-white checkerboard floor and row of booths reupholstered in red naugahyde.
To reinforce the nostalgic vibe, a CD player shuffles from the Beach Boys’ Help Me Rhonda to Martha and the Muffins’ Echo Beach.
Former Bodega and the Fifth sous-chef Menna’s short all-day card sticks to the classics as well. His Banquet Burger ($10.99) finds 6 filler-free ounces of lean Butcher Shoppe chuck on a grilled whole wheat bun dressed with bacon, cheddar, lettuce and tomato, pickles, a heap of local hand-cut Yukon Gold fries and red pepper slaw on the side.
A skilfully grilled chicken breast brushed with mild piri-piri-style tomato sauce joins sweetly roasted peppers, sautéed onions, wilted spinach and a slab of mild mozzarella on pressed Italian ciabatta from a Portuguese bakery called Paris ($10.49 with salad or fries).
Only in multi-culti Toronto, folks! And a lunch special of slow-roasted brisket on a bun spiffed up with whisky-fried onion barbecue sauce and sided with super potato onion hash ($10.99) proved so popular, it’s now on the just-introduced dinner menu.
The Pantry’s spin on huevos rancheros ($13.99) with hash and salad starts with fresh flour tortillas, gently scrambled free-range eggs and a scoop of beer-braised pulled pork and finishes with ramekins of roasted corn salsa, creamy guacamole and clotted sour cream.
Served over house-made scones, eggs Benny comes in triplicate, the tastiest version layers of perfectly poached eggs, paprika-sprinkled hollandaise and tissue-thin sheets of Norwegian smoked salmon ($12.99 with salad and hash).
Even Bloordale’s drink list is a step above, whether it’s a strong Faema Americano ($2.25), a bottled kumquat soda ($3) or a glass of house-pressed cranberry apple cider ($4).
At these price points, chef’s extravagant presentation is unprecedented. Who else would plate pie-spiced pumpkin pancakes ($8.99) with artful dollops of maple whipped cream and a row of sliced bananas topped with plump blackberries?
What gives?
“We love what we do,” laughs Guarnieri. “So we might as well have fun with it.”
stevend@nowtoronto.com
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