The Real Jerk’s new location will be a five-minute stroll from the old location (1 hour ago)

Restaurants › Continental

Oliver and Bonacini Café Grill ½ [?]

33 Yonge St. • View on map »
647-260-2070

The corporate restaurant (or restaurant corporation) has taken over the downtown dining scene. Chef-operated establishments have been crowded out of the core by Mark McEwan, SIR Corp. and O&B’s 11 restaurants (and all those cookie-cutter food courts). The latest O&B café is one of the best of the lot. If Canoe serves an executive clientele, then O&B’s newest downtown venture targets those young professionals eager to move on up to that deluxe office (and restaurant) in the sky. The food is casual: pizzas, pastas and sandwiches at lunch, with a handful of Asian and meat dishes at dinner. The grey and white decor is equally unassuming, punctuated only by bold light fixtures (bare bulbs dangling from orange extension cords in the bar area), tin plating, and a surprisingly discreet wall mural of a mushroom’s stem and gills in the main dining room. Uncomplicated dishes—tender grilled calamari taking a final swim in caper-dotted lemonbrown butter, and handmade strozzapreti pasta with shredded lamb shank that’s infused with cinnamon and coriander—dazzle. A goat cheese and chorizo pizza with wisps of micro-basil and pesto satisfies but hardly extends the pizzaiolo’s art. A frustratingly disorganized lunchtime server promises a revelatory butter tart for dessert and eventually delivers goods that live up to the hype. Remarkably affordable wine list with a New World bent includes a dozen bottles under than $40. Mains $12–$30.

33 Yonge St. | This location is wheelchair accessible

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