You practically need to apply to eat at this six-person restaurant

The sort-of secret: Spike’s Table, a six-seat private restaurant with no menu You may have heard of it if: You’re a diehard fan of Petite Thuet or a member of the “I am a Leslievillian!" Facebook page But you probably haven’t tried it because: It’s a hidden gem in the east end

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You wouldn’t necessarily expect to find a chef’s dinner series in the same building as a graffiti-covered cannabis shop—and cooked by the owner of the Instagram handle @spikey.licious, no less. But, as visitors head inside Spike’s Table, a clandestine six-seater run by chef Spike Nath, those skunky wafts of sativa out front quickly give way to the more delicious aromas of browned butter and simmering jus.

Nath—nicknamed Spike, after his hairdo at the time, by an East London cook who couldn’t pronounce his given name—was born in Kolkata to two restaurateur parents who moved around a lot. After a stint in Singapore, the family moved to Hong Kong, where Nath would accompany his father to the fish market at dawn to restock their restaurant supplies. It’s also where he got his first taste of the hospitality industry. “My father’s best friends were his restaurant guests,” says Nath. “My parents didn’t teach me to cook so much as they taught me the spirit of cooking.” At home and at the restaurant, the food was the same—the only difference was how it was presented.

In 2011, he moved from England to Canada, where he held jobs as a butcher, a pastry chef at Bonjour Brioche and a senior sous-chef at Yorkville’s Pangaea. “It was a freeing place to be a kid in gastronomy. There was no budget and so much room to play,” says Nath. At the onset of the pandemic, he worked for Petite Thuet, and he likes to joke that he supplied bread for the entire city during the sourdough era.

By 2022, he had baked for 687 consecutive days, and bread, for all intents and purposes, was dead to him. He’d been in talks with several investors about opening his own restaurant, but to Nath, all they seemed to care about was their return on investment. They missed the point: the art of cooking. “It was art first for me, so I walked away from three separate investors,” says Nath. Still, he needed to quit, so he did. “I ended up going to the beach for three months.”

With an itch to cook and host the only way he knew how, Nath took to Facebook. “I went on the ‘I am a Leslievillian!' page before bed one night and posted: ‘Hey, I have a little table and I cook a little food. If you’d like some, please come by.’” He added a few images of dishes and went to sleep. By morning, he had around 400 likes and messages from curious neighbours.

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Now, almost four years later, Spike’s Table seats exactly six guests every Friday and Saturday at 6:30 p.m. sharp. “When I started, I liked how not all of my guests knew each other—sometimes it would be three couples, who would end up being friends by the end of the meal—but it’s difficult to get everyone talking while I’m cooking at the same time,” says Nath. “Or there would be too much pressure on one guest to drive the small talk, which meant they couldn’t enjoy themselves fully.” Now the whole table must be booked by one party with a minimum of four guests.

Nath styles his service after experiences he’s had dining at homes in Brazil and Spain, and his offerings change nightly. His menus tend to be big on French pastry, seafood and whatever the season gives him. Past dishes have included pain au lait, fresh scallops topped with strawberry and basil from his garden, squid stuffed with rice in a herbaceous tomato sauce, blue crab thermidor, crisp-tender asparagus capped with Dungeness crab and a dilly poached egg, and whole dry-aged duck. For dessert, raspberry clafoutis in a sweet pastry shell—those years spent in Toronto’s best bakeries come in clutch. The six-course dinner (five savoury, one sweet) runs $208 per person.

Nath resists pigeonholing his food into one cuisine. “It’s hard to define the style. I go to Kensington, St. Lawrence Market or Chinatown every day and buy ingredients that inspire me. During the warmer months, I serve fish and seafood. During the winter, I serve meat and game. And I waste nothing,” he says. “The menu becomes a story of my life in Toronto, as told through food. I almost style it like a Shakespearean play—in dramatic acts that make you feel something.”

There is no beverage program, but guests are encouraged to bring their own drinks. “I think people like showing up with something in hand because it’s a contribution to the night,” says Nath.

Not just anyone can simply click reserve on OpenTable, though. Like a father protecting his teenager from suitors, Nath asks prospective diners to submit a short note explaining their intentions. “I require a little story of who you are, what you’re fond of, what motivates you to sit at my table,” says Nath. He says it’s less about exclusivity and more about curating a comfortable, intimate night where everyone at the table feels at ease.

So far, he hasn’t had to reject anyone. Still, there’s something compelling about proving oneself a good candidate for a feast—and it may be worth the paperwork. “When people come to my restaurant, they feel free,” Nash says.