What’s on the menu at Rosa’s, a new Latin American restaurant and cocktail bar on St. Clair West

Name: Rosa’s Contact: 1067 St. Clair Ave. W., 416-653-5151, rosastoronto.com, @rosastoronto
Neighbourhood: Regal Heights Owners: Anna Canzona and Victor Reinoso (Atomic 10) Chef: Victor Reinoso Accessibility: Fully accessible

With their newest restaurant, Anna Canzona and Victor Reinoso—partners in business and life and owners of St. Clair West taco joint Atomic 10—plan to go back to their roots. “My parents emigrated from Ecuador 40 years ago,” says Reinoso. “My mother was a great cook, and that landed her a job at a Sbarro in a mall. Eventually she opened her own hot counter, naming it after me and my brother. We were always hanging around there.”

From a young age, Reinoso became enthralled by the bustle of the restaurant biz, and he started experimenting in that world with Canzona, his high school sweetheart, as soon as they graduated. “Anna and I had a baby together when we were still teenagers, so we needed to work to raise our family,” says Reinoso. “Thankfully I loved cooking and I knew a little bit about running a restaurant. Coming from a traditional Italian family, Anna was also in love with food—so we were also natural business partners.”

Related: Toronto’s best tacos right now

The two have hustled in the industry ever since—first with Latin-inspired pop-ups, then with food trucks. And then, in the summer of 2020, they opened Atomic 10. “We were supposed to open in March, but that obviously didn’t go as planned,” says Canzona. “The pandemic meant that we had plenty of time to perfect our tacos, though! It’s more complicated to make a taco that properly withstands a takeout scenario. But that’s what we had to do—and it paid off once we could finally open for service.”

While Rosa’s is considered the sister restaurant to Atomic 10, it’s not an extension of the popular taqueria. And though the new St. Clair outpost does feature a number of tacos on its menu, it also lists other Latin American dishes like ceviche, empanadas and Argentinian grilled skirt steak. “The aim is to be both authentic and accessible,” says Reinoso.

The food

Bright, bold, spicy flavours that traverse Latin America, from Peru to Mexico to Argentina to Ecuador (with a whisper of Italy, but we’ll get to that later). Traditional small plates like patacones— fried plantains with cilantro aioli—tacos, empanadas and ceviche hold their weight against larger platters of grilled meat. And while cassava fries show up as a suitable accompaniment, Reinoso doesn’t shy away from sides that are decidedly not Latin, like grilled broccolini and honey-glazed Brussels sprouts. “They may not be traditional, but they complement the flavours, and it’s what my mother cooked, so why not?”

The drinks

There’s a short wine list and a longer beer one, but the focus here is on tequila and mezcal as well as Canzona’s signature cocktails. “I don’t actually drink,” she says. “But I understand flavours, and I have plenty of people around me who are happy to be my taste testers.”

The space

In a kind of cohesive cacophony, basic restaurant supply chairs are set against a backdrop of art deco panelled walls, velvet banquettes, rounded archways, custom tiling, moody strip-lit arches, neon signage and a hand-painted mural (done by one of Reinoso’s high school friends) that screams telenovela.