When chef Hemant Bhagwani unveiled his latest Little Italy restaurant concept in spring 2025, it left diners with plenty of question marks. Called Oro Luxury Dining, Bhagwani described the idea in television terms: the restaurant would shapeshift by “season,” with entirely new menus rotating in as “episodes.” It was an ambitious, unusual pitch — and, as of January, it’s already evolved into something new: Oro is out, and Naari Thai BBQ is in.
Naari isn’t the first Toronto restaurant to play the game of conceptual reinvention lately — MIMI Chinese, Amano Trattoria and Vinoteca Pompette have all done something similar — but it’s the first to have metamorphosis built into its very nature from day one. Toronto’s food scene is notorious for high turnover and a heavy reliance on social media buzz, which tends to favour new restaurants over tried-and-true ones. Building reinvention directly into the business model turns that instability into a built-in marketing engine, rather than a threat to fight against.
Curious what “season two” will look like? Naari Thai BBQ is open now in Little Italy — worth visiting before the concept shifts again.