Introducing: The Dock Ellis, an unusually hip sports bar on Dundas West from the owner of The Emmet Ray
Name: The Dock Ellis
Neighbourhood: Little Portugal
Contact Info: 1280 Dundas St. W., 416-531-2300, facebook.com
Owners: Alain Pitout, Callum Woods and Andrew Kaiser, the owner of the The Emmet Ray on College Street
Chef: Trish Gill, formerly the sous-chef at Beast on Tecumseth
The Food: Cheap, inventive bar snacks. A basket of nachos subs house-fried wontons and braised beef for typical chips and chili, and jumbo chicken wings are spiced with fruity scotch bonnets (or, for the truly intrepid, suicide-style ghost peppers). For $18 a head, Sunday’s tailgate brunch brings a Southern-style feast of hush puppies, pork ribs and blood sausage rolls.
The Drinks: Eight local beers on draught, including brews from Amsterdam, Beau’s, Stone Hammer and Wellington.
The Place: A no-nonsense sports bar for the skinny jean set. Customers can watch the game on nine flat-screen televisions, or go head-to-head at pool, shuffleboard or foosball. Like most sports bars, décor is memorability-based: pennant flags, framed gloves and news clippings about the bar’s namesake, a pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates who threw an epic, LSD-fuelled no-hitter in the summer of 1970.
The Numbers: • 1600 square feet • 28 days to renovate the space (formerly a Portuguese sports bar called Red Cherry) • $18 a head for Sunday Football Brunch • $10 for the priciest item on the menu • 9 flat-screen televisions • 8 beer taps • 1 mural by local graffiti artist Globe
Caroline Aksich, a National Magazine Award recipient, is an ex-Montrealer who writes about Toronto’s ever-evolving food scene, real estate and culture for Toronto Life, Fodor’s, Designlines, Canadian Business, Glory Media and Post City. Her work ranges from features on octopus-hunting in the Adriatic to celebrity profiles.
