Introducing: Cafe Bar Pasta, a new coffee shop, trattoria and snack bar on Dundas West
Name: Cafe Bar Pasta Neighbourhood: Dundas West Contact info: 1588 Dundas St. W., cafe-bar-pasta.com, 416-534-4794, @CAFEBARPASTA Owners: Husband-and-wife team Tom Bielecki and Christine Vieira Executive Chef: Edward Furlani, who trained at Front Street trattoria Paganelli’s
The Place: Cafe Bar Pasta is exactly as advertised: the place serves espresso during the day, pasta for dinner and drinks at night. The small space is furnished for all three functions with fresh white brick walls, magazines for coffee reading and a chandelier made out of dangling silver cutlery. A private dining room in the wine cellar doubles as a classroom for pasta-making, preserving and wine tasting workshops.
The Food: Simple Italian starters, salads and hand-cranked pastas for dinner, like a roasted fennel salad with oranges and olives, and pappardelle with pork ragù. The short bar menu includes Spanish tapas like empanadas and cod fritters. Coffee, croissants and muffins during the day.
The Drinks: Wine on tap, plus cocktails like the El Terrible, a citrusy tequila-calvados blend that’s served hot, and the Necktie, a cognac-based drink that tastes a bit like a butter tart.
The Numbers: • 16 seats at the chef’s table, which has a built-in ice trough for chilling bottles • $5 for all bar snacks • 1 master sommelier, John Szabo, who developed the restaurant’s wine-on-tap (there are only 188 master sommeliers in the world)
