What’s on the menu at Dopamina, a new downtown restaurant with a Michelin connection

Name: Dopamina Contact: 832 Bay St., unit 3, dopaminarestaurant.com, @dopamina.to
Neighbourhood: Bay-Cloverhill Owner: Gary Tsang Chefs: So Sakata (Frilu) Accessibility: Fully accessible

First-generation Chinese-Canadian Gary Tsang has always been a fan of the restaurant industry. “My parents emigrated from China in 1986, and they worked hard so I could have access to the culinary gems of the city. I didn’t care where I ate. I just wanted everything—Thai, French, Italian, Spanish, African. I grew up immersing myself in food culture and loving every aspect of the hospitality industry,” says Tsang. But, as a child of immigrants, he didn’t feel like he could follow a passion that might make for an impractical career. “I went to U of T to study business,” he says.

After Tsang graduated, he began working in real estate construction and design. But his fixation was still on the restaurant industry. “When I was still in school, I remember going into the space that is now Dopamina. There was a bubble tea shop there at the time, and I remember thinking how it should be a real restaurant. I couldn’t get it out of my mind.” In 2012, that space was still occupied, so Tsang looked to Markham, where he opened Tapagria, a Spanish tapas restaurant. By 2019, Tsang’s dream space became available, and he put in an offer. “The landlord rejected me in favour of a pizza chain that he felt would be more stable,” he says. So Tsang opened another Markham restaurant, this time an Italian one called Osteria Mattarello. It managed to survive Covid while that pizza chain lasted all of two months. “When the Bay Street space became available again after the pandemic, I put in another offer. This time I won.”

Tsang didn’t have a chef in mind, but he had a plan. Dopamina—named for the pleasure one experiences when a bite of food seriously satisfies the palate—was going to be a fine-dining restaurant that was also approachable. “Though we would have high-quality ingredients, like caviar and sea urchin, a lot of the value would come from the chef’s manipulation of less-expensive ingredients—that way we wouldn’t be forced into a price point,” says Tsang. The style of food would be Spanish tapas with Asian influence. “Stuffy, coursed-out dining is a thing of the past. Everyone wants to share now.”

To find a chef, Tsang put out an ad. And as luck would have it, So Sakata of Thornhill’s now-closed Michelin-starred Frilu applied. “A Japanese expat with an award-winning flair for European fine dining? It was a no-brainer to hire him,” says Tsang. The other obvious move was to give Sakata free rein to work his magic. “As a business owner, I know where it’s imperative to take a step back,” says Tsang. As a result, Sakata runs his light-filled open kitchen with one goal in mind: to tantalize with the presentation and expand the palate with every bite. “There’s only one way to do that,” Sakata says. “Umami everywhere.”

The Food

While the artfully composed plates may seem precious, the concentrated flavours are homey and familiar. “To get the Dopamina effect, every bite has to feel like an amuse bouche—even if it’s dessert,” Sakata says. This is achieved through an intentionally playful yet subtle melding of disparate cuisines. Jamón ibérico ham meets squid ink within fried dough; thinly sliced Japanese amberjack is laced with prosciutto-infused oil; and flaky kueh pie tee (tiny pastry tartlets) are stuffed with leek mousse and soy-marinated salmon roe.

The Drinks

Rather than focus exclusively on traditional heavy hitters, the wine list leans in to the food—so if a Portuguese wine pairs better with a dish than a budget-blowing Burgundy, so be it. The cocktail menu also borrows from the kitchen. Standouts include the Always Spring in Amalfi, a rum-based beverage that uses strawberry balsamic reduction and pink peppercorn syrup to create an earthy, sour and sweet sipper, and the Don’t be a Prune, a blend of sweet plum wine, Amaro Montenegro, prune nectar, liquid smoke and orange essence.

The Space

Light streams into the 65-seat dining room thanks to 35-foot-high floor-to-ceiling windows that take up three of its four walls. The rather atypical space is graced with colourful banquette seating, marble tables, a stunning exposed kitchen, modern millwork, a massive abstract expressionist fresco artwork and hanging glass installations by Italian artist Sandro Martini. Dangerously close to being over-the-top, there’s also a 300-foot-long coiled glass chandelier spanning the length of the room.