What’s on the menu at Bar Prima, an old-school Italian restaurant on Queen West from the team behind La Palma
Including a beet caprese, swordfish piccata and savoury zeppole
More New Restaurants
Name: Bar Prima
Contact: 1136 Queen Street West, barprima.ca, @barprima.to
Neighbourhood: Queen West
Owners: Craig Harding and Julian D’Ippolito (La Palma)
Chefs: Craig Harding, Julian D’Ippolito, Nicholas Iaboni
Accessibility: The main-floor dining area is fully accessible, but there are stairs to a lower-level dining area
The food may be Italian, but that’s where the similarities between Bar Prima and its sister restaurant, La Palma, begin and end. For their new Queen West kitchen, chefs Craig Harding and Julian D’Ippolito have taken a more traditional turn, creating a classic Italian restaurant that contrasts with the bright and breezy vibes of their popular Dundas West joint. “I’m half Italian, and that’s the cuisine and the culture that I feel connected to, so I always come back to it,” says Harding. “Every restaurant we’ve done has had a little element of it, but I think this is the most Italian thing we’ve ever done.”
For the chefs, this translates to a timeless white-tablecloth fine-dining experience, with certain dishes finished tableside. “We wanted to go back to a service and restaurant style that was a little bit more classic,” says Harding. With a soundtrack of Italian disco and a menu that’s nostalgic but also a little unexpected, Bar Prima is throwback dining with a modern edge. “There’s familiarity, there’s innovation, there are rustic qualities, there are elevated moments. I think it really brings a varied experience,” says Harding. “We don’t want it to be too serious or stuffy—we still want it to be fun.”
The food
Italian and Italian-American favourites are given offbeat, seasonally driven makeovers while maintaining their tried-and-true flavours. “Classics are classics for a reason—everybody loves them—but we want to modernize them so they’re exciting and cool,” says chef de cuisine Nicholas Iaboni. “We want to make food that people will remember. We want people to leave here with an experience that they’re going to talk about for weeks or months, and they can’t wait to come back.”
The drinks
The cocktails are pretty classic, updated with Italian spirits or low-ABV remixes—but wine is the highlight of Bar Prima’s drink program, with the list emphasizing bottles from Italy and France complemented by a few local options. “We want some heavy-hitter Italian classics accompanied by wineries that have a younger, more modern approach,” says Harding.
There’s a selection of red, white and sparkling wines available by the glass, but Harding wants to take advantage of the restaurant’s Coravin wine-preservation system to open up virtually any bottle that sparks diners’ interest. “If you want to have just two glasses of a bottle, we want to make you feel comfortable and say, ‘Go for it,’” he says.
The space
Designed by Future Studio, Bar Prima’s dining room—decked out in blue leather, mahogany and gold—is moody, lavish and a little bit retro. An intimate lower-level dining area adds an extra 25 seats. “The design is really special here,” says Harding. “We had a small space to work with, so we wanted to invest more in it and really push it to make it elevated and sophisticated.”
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Jessica Huras is a freelance writer and editor with over a decade of experience creating food, travel and lifestyle content. She’s a content editor for the LCBO’s Food & Drink magazine, and her work has appeared in the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, Chatelaine, Toronto Life and Elle Canada, among other publications.
