A certain jet-setting businessman who divides his time between London, Miami, Toronto and Dubai was delighted to hear that he could order whatever he pleased in Colborne Lane’s new private room. A long-time fan of the restaurant’s owner-chef, Claudio Aprile, he wasn’t used to such latitude. “How about a menu based around Brazilian beef?” inquired the eager tycoon.

“Absolutely,” said Aprile. “Anything goes.”

It’s quite the change in attitude for Colborne Lane. When it first opened in February 2007, Aprile offered a mystery tasting menu in the first, rather cramped private dining room beside the downstairs kitchen. Customers were entirely in his hands for the 15 to 20 complex, molecular-inflected courses. The new room, called Park Lane, is much more relaxed. “This time, the customer is in control,” confirms Aprile. For example, Trevor O’Neill, a fire safety consultant who organized a surprise party for his wife’s 34th birthday, requested a menu featuring some of her favourite foods, like tuna and duck. “Tell us what you want to eat and drink—a high tea or classical Japanese or a fast food menu for a Super Bowl evening…” Or, in the case of the aforementioned well-heeled enthusiast, a Brazilian experience drawing on Aprile’s own Uruguayan roots with slow-barbecued beef and skewered anticuchos of tender kidney and heart.

Park Lane reflects Aprile’s long-held belief that fine dining doesn’t need to be formal. A co-project by two Toronto design firms, Mackay Wong and StroudFoot, the room is a visual conversation between Victorian industrial grunge and contemporary glamour that ends up finding its own kind of beauty. Walls are the original 120-year-old brick, complete with a rusted iron chimney plate, foundation posts and pipes; the table is an astonishingly elegant construction made of steel and mother- of-pearl. It cost $25,000 and seats 14, including a loveseat at either end that can fit two friends or one sprawling, portly CEO. The contemporary paintings and sculptures are for sale and there’s a well-stocked wine cabinet on one wall, perhaps as an homage to the traditional wine cellar. (Colborne Lane’s list, incidentally, is now much longer, more affordable and food friendly than it used to be.) As with almost all of Toronto’s private rooms, there is no fee for booking Park Lane. The system involves a minimum expenditure—in this case, $1,500 at a busy time of the year. Fourteen people should be able to spend that comfortably. “But we’re flexible,” says Aprile. “If we’re not booked some night and two people come in and want a really romantic evening on their own we would open the room for them.”