By next year, close to 2,000 people will be living inside Yonge and Gerrard’s Aura, Canada’s tallest residential tower. And they’ll have no shortage of places to eat nearby thanks to SIR Corp, which is responsible for several new restaurants on the ground floor: Reds Midtown Tavern, the soon-to-open Scaddabush and, opened earlier this month, Duke’s Refresher + Bar.

This is the second location for Duke’s, which hails from Muskoka. The 158-capacity venue is all classic rock, Edison bulbs, reclaimed wood, deer antlers and kitschy antiques. An old trough has been converted into a beer-tap tower, and the upstairs lounge has an indoor shuffleboard table.

Duke’s has its sights firmly planted on the beer-swilling pub crowd, offering 40 brews on tap, including a selection of craft beers such as Beau’s The Tom Green Beer and Kensington’s Santa’s Stache. For $20, regulars can snag a personal 24-oz stein that will be kept behind the bar (a T-shirt and the stein’s first fill are included in the price).

Heading up the menu of pub classics is chef Tim Tutton, a George Brown graduate who previously worked at restaurants such as Il Fornello and Canoe. Duke’s signature item is the Woody burger ($12.95), featuring an all-brisket patty with caramelized onions, American cheese and a secret sauce on bacon focaccia bread from Petit Four Bakery. Seared tuna tacos ($9.25 for three) come on corn tortillas with a ginger-cabbage slaw, red salsa, crema and cilantro, and the sole dessert is a heaping pile of waffles ($9.45) covered with mixed berries, blueberry cream, blueberry syrup and icing sugar.

On weekends, Duke’s does breakfast, and there’s an added bonus for those who were partying there the night before: anyone still sporting a “breakfast club” stamp in the morning will receive a discount proportional to how embarrassing the stamp is (culminating with a 50 per cent discount for a stamp on the face).

Published on: Dec 19, 2013