Hospitality heavyweight Oliver & Bonacini continues its domination of Financial District dining with the opening of upscale British gastropub The Rabbit Hole.
The restaurant is a longtime dream for O&B district executive chef John Horne who spent several years working in London, England, early in his career.
“It was always something I wanted to bring back and do in Toronto,” he says of the country’s elevated gastropub cuisine. The menu banishes stereotypes about bland British fare with its locally sourced ingredients, big flavours and playful spins on traditional pub cuisine.
The tikka masala (a British dish by way of India), for example, features marinated half cornish hen and Earl Grey steeped currants.
The menu also features light, flavourful dishes, such as a cucumber and pea salad with radish, bibb lettuce, and dill buttermilk dressing.
“I remember staying at people’s houses and their parents making fantastic salads that came straight from the garden. The cucumber pea salad is very much something that was inspired from that,” says Horne of his time in England.
Cocktails like the London Tiger with Dillon’s Selby gin (a gin made by Dillon’s distillery for the Rabbit Hole’s sister restaurant Maison Selby), green chartreuse, honey, ginger, turmeric, curry leaf and lime, and the Queen of Hearts with Dejado tequila, Pimm’s, mezcal, strawberry and lemon also put fresh twists on familiar British flavours.
Originally slated to open in 2020, the Rabbit Hole has now been a long time coming.
“Honestly, the pandemic, I think, gave us a little more time to think about the concept and dive into it,” says Horne. “It
really helped us design this menu and to come out of the gate firing on all cylinders.”
21 Adelaide St. W.
