What’s on the menu at Slice of Life, a kooky new cocktail bar with a laboratory in the basement

Name: Slice of Life Contact: 409 College St., sliceoflifebar.com, @sliceoflifebar
Neighbourhood: Kensington Market
Owners: Eric Pan and Nick Hao Chef: Andy Kim Accessible: Not accessible

Eric Pan and Nick Hao decided to collaborate on a cocktail bar after their respective stints overseas at two renowned establishments. “I ran the bar program for a time at London’s Kol, and Nick was a bartender at Sober in Shanghai. When he moved back to Toronto, he was hired at Mother,” says Pan. “We both felt we had something to offer the city, so we put our heads together and came up with the concept for Slice of Life.”

The 45-seat spot on the southwest corner of College and Lippincott is easy to miss, even for those who think they know where they’re headed. Look for the bar’s name, lightly etched into the tinted window pane. “The whole speakeasy thing was accidental,” Pan admits. “We were inexperienced with construction details. We purchased a window film that was too dark, and it got beat up even before we opened our doors. But now we’re branded as a secret, so we’re going with it.”

Though the secrecy was unintentional, it works well with their original concept: a space that removes people from their day-to-day lives. A psychedelic mirrored hallway lined with LED strip lighting funnels guests off the street and into the vibey little bar. For both Hao and Pan, creating a space for people to gather without self-consciousness was important. “We made the room dark enough so that everyone is out of focus. The tables are really close together, but no one can really see who they’re seated next to. In that way, it’s both a public and a private experience. Getting that balance was everything to us,” says Pan. Ultimately, though, they want to unify patrons from all walks of life with their inspired cocktails, many of which are an ambitious joining of rather disparate ingredients—like strawberry, chocolate, mezcal and…parmesan cheese.

The Drinks

To create each cocktail, Hao and Pan start with a single ingredient and build it out from there. “We’ve named our cocktail menu Human Nature,” says Pan. “The idea is that the natural element comes from one main seasonal ingredient, and the human part comes from how we decide to manipulate that ingredient to best showcase its flavour with our own ingenuity.”

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There are two cocktails for every featured ingredient (such as lapsang souchong or melon), and the inventiveness runs deep. Beneath the bar, there’s an entire basement lab where—overseen by Hao and Pan—the bartenders work with all sorts of different gadgets (distillers, centrifuges, dehydrators) to dream up their drinks. There are obscure-but-balanced carbonated highballs, like the 21, a sweet and herbal mix of gin, vanilla yogurt, cantaloupe and basil, and vodka martinis that incorporate cheese, ice wine and chocolate.

The Food

The snacks comprise fancy-but-fun bar bites like house-spiced Marcona almonds, citrus-cured olives, and parmesan truffle frites and teeny, umami-packed toasts. There’s the mini steak tartare, a blend of hand-cut hanger steak, triple-crunch mustard, Anaheim chilies, shallot and burnt scallion aïoli atop a rectangle of Petite Thuet brioche. The toast of this town, however, is the egg and Kaluga caviar, an umami-bomb canapé of impossibly creamy confit egg yolk, a big dollop of caviar and gold leaf for kicks. It wouldn’t be out of place in the window of a Parisian pâtisserie.

The Space

The moody room is lit only by tiny table lamps, glowing under-lighting and LED strip lights that bounce and refract off the many mirrors. Between the lighting, the shiny surfaces and the mini booths upholstered in plush red velvet, the space is equal parts Moulin Rouge, Blade Runner and carnival funhouse. The design elements are discordant, but—just like the cocktail ingredients—everything somehow works.