The story behind Eloise is as interesting as the restaurant itself. Graham and Dan Hnatiw — the brothers who grew up in the shadow of the Old Spaghetti Factory, the family business their parents built into a Canadian institution — have opened something at once deeply personal and completely unexpected. Located on the Esplanade, Eloise trades the comfortable kitsch of their family legacy for polished sophistication, and the result is one of the most talked-about new dining rooms in the city.
Walk into Eloise and you immediately understand that this is a room with intention. Curves dominate the design: soft arches, silk accents, intimate curved nooks that make a large dining room feel like a series of private conversations. The palette is warm and restrained, the lighting calibrated to flatter. It’s elegant and airy simultaneously, a combination that’s harder to achieve than it sounds.
The cooking matches the room’s ambition. The menu is contemporary and ingredient-forward, built around seasonal Canadian produce and premium proteins treated with care and technique. Early dishes generating conversation include the beef tartare with confit potatoes and black caviar — a confident statement for an opening menu — and a rotating roster of fish preparations that reflect whatever the kitchen is most excited about that week.
But the secret Eloise is keeping — and it’s an open one, already attracting destination diners — is Bar Cart, a moody railcar-inspired speakeasy hidden behind a door at the back of the dining room. It’s the kind of detail that transforms a good dinner into a proper evening, the sort of thing you discover on a first visit and immediately want to bring someone back to experience.
The Hnatiw brothers have done something genuinely difficult: made a restaurant that carries personal meaning while having zero obligation to it. Reserve a table at Eloise, then linger for a nightcap at Bar Cart — you’ll want the full experience.