As we drive towards the Regal Heights Bistro on St. Clair just east of Dufferin, our car is slapped by the pouring rain that has caused that this part of Corso Italia has turned into a churning sea of gravel and dirt. The St. Clair Avenue West is now in the middle of the streetcar track/road improvement project, reduced to one lane only. Fortunately the bad weather seems to have kept traffic light, and we’re able to park just across the street from the restaurant. First we have to cross the no-man’s-land of cracked pavement and orange cones, and then I can finally squint at the building where I think the Regal Heights Bistro is housed. “There’s no sign, there used to be a big sign,” I uneasily observe, ” and it looks like a pub inside. I hope this is still the same place.” “Yep – Regal Heights Bistro,” confirms my partner and points at the little hand-lettered sign at the front window. Just after that, we can see there is the trademark Jazz Brunch sign as well.
As soon as we cross the threshold, a hostess is already waiting to seat us and offering a selection of a table. It is quarter past eight and only approximately a third of the tables is full, most patrons seated near the bar. “This is your first time here? Our sign blew down, and when we write it on a chalkboard, the rain washes it away.” “You’re in for a treat tonight, there’s a birthday party and there’s going to be a jazz band, it’ll be lots of fun.” She confirms we are indeed in the right place, although the interior is more pub than upscale bistro and I can smell French fries cooking. We look at the menu and my partner is disappointed at the two-sided thing we’re presented with.
“They must’ve changed their menu,” he notes with a sad face. Maybe because he is an elitist jazz musician himself, he just doesn’t like the idea of a live band performing here tonight. I have to check the restaurant name printed at the top of the menu again and again, so that I am completely sure we really are where we want to be. I tried to look up the restaurant’s website but I couldn’t find any, and the only online information available was a few bare-bones positive reviews. But I found some posted menus with dishes like caprese salad, provencale escargots, chicken liver pate, smoked salmon crepes and black squid ink linguine. There is no menu necessary to tell me that the chance of a homemade black squid ink linguine coming out of this very place is zero. The current offerings consist of usual pub food, perhaps gussied up a bit by special flavours and toppings, but pub food still.
Our hostess comes back to take our order so that I can inquire – what happened? The current menu is very different from what we found on the internet. Did the owner change? “Oh no, the owner is still the same,” she reassures us. “We haven’t changed anything on the website in a long time. Our menu has been this way for the last couple of years, we’ve just gone through a lot of various chefs. But our strongest focus is always on the food to be fresh: we shop every day, the meat is cut here by us, the burgers are made here too, you won’t find any microwaves in the kitchen… we just wish the atmosphere to be more informal.” The pub is definitely very casual, even with the paper napkins… but I would still expect a bit more sophisticated gastronomy, regarding the wall signage from around the world.
“Well, we are shrinking from that term gastro-pub,” our hostess laughs and we are put at her ease with a charming, pleasant behaviour.
See the rest of the story at our original original Regal Heights review.
