What’s on the menu at Lake Inez, a pan-Asian restaurant and craft beer bar with Robbie Hojilla in the kitchen
Name: Lake Inez
Neighbourhood: Little India
Contact: 1471 Gerrard St. E., 416-792-1590, lakeinezto.com, @lakeinez
Owners: Dennis Kimeda (The Wren), Patrick Ciappara, Zac Schwartz
Chef: Robbie Hojilla (Harbord Room, Hudson Kitchen)
The food
Filipino dishes like lumpia (spring rolls) and arroz caldo (rice porridge), inspired by recipes from Hojilla’s mom and aunt. Other pan-Asian plates on the menu, with slight French tweaks, include braised mussels in a smoked ham-hock and tamarind broth, a Szechuan chili oil–accented chicken liver mousse, and coconut sorbet served with freeze-dried durian.
The drinks
As it is at sister spot the Wren, the focus of Lake Inez’s drink menu is Ontario craft beer, with 18 rotating brews on tap and a selection of large-format bottles. There’s a short list of wine, all of which comes from 16 Mile Cellar, and signature cocktails like the Borocay Sunset made with calamansi lime–infused rum, sake, Campari and coconut syrup.
The space
The focus of the large room is an impressive stained-glass mosaic depicting both Kate Bush and Virginia Woolf as angels. It took Schwartz two months of 14-hour days to create, and he went through 120-square-feet of glass.