Best Restaurants for unusual & unique features in Toronto
This week, I thought it would be fun to get away from the food for a moment (especially after this weekend) and focus on the décor of restaurants. But not the wallpaper and lights. Instead the quirky, unusual and unique items you’ll find in a few spots around Toronto. I hope you’ll be surprised by at least one of them.
Böehmer
93 Ossington Ave, Toronto, ON M6J 2Z2Chef Paul Boehmer has a big bad hog in the back of his restaurant. No, not a pig ready for roasting (though he probably has that too). A long, lean, low-riding motorcycle. It takes up a good portion of real estate outside the private dining room and off to the side of the kitchen. It gets featured in as many photos as the food, or the restaurant itself. It's almost famous, really.
The Kit Kat Bar
297 King St W, Main, Toronto, ON M5V 1J5If someone asked you if you've ever seen a tree in a restaurant before, you would surely say yes. But you would mean the small decorative type - perhaps a small palm tree, not something you would find outside.
TOCA Restaurant
181, Wellington St W, Toronto, ON M5V 3G7Every few years there's a plate trend in restaurants. Large-size platters become regular dinner plates. Round ones are in turned in for rectangular. Shallow bowls become large, sculptural vessels. But in only one restaurant have I seen individually hand-painted one-of-a-kind plates, ranging from celebrity portraits to street signs to whimsical animals. TOCA, located in the Ritz Carlton Hotel, wisely recognized the talents of their server Jacqueline Poirier, who painted plates for a living when she wasn’t working shifts at the restaurant. They decided to showcase her designs in the restaurant (she is “Resident Artist for the Ritz-Carlton, Toronto”).
Patois
794 Dundas St W, Toronto, ON M6J 1V1It is impossible to single out one fascinating aspect of Patois, as the whole restaurant is filled with intriguing fixtures and fittings. Take the bar for example – it's made out of reclaimed bowling alley lane. And the legs it stands on? They were used to carry the fake blood used on the set of “Carrie.” The lazy susan on the round table? It’s made with skateboard wheels and even includes a discharged bullet (pictured above).
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