New Traditionalists: Lakeview Restaurant Reborn With A Handshake

It all starts with a handshake.

The image – solely emblazoned above “Est. 1932” on The Lakeview Restaurant‘s sign – signals the opening of a new chapter in the history of Toronto dinerdom.

“Welcome to your past and future,” it all but whispers.

It was roughly six months previous that paper first covered the windows at Queen West’s iconic greasy spoon Stem Open Kitchen.

The loss (there’s still no sign of life at the venerable lunch counter) begged an examination of the state of diner culture in a city once rife with it – and led to some sobering conclusions about certain spots along with promising glimpses of others.

It was around the same time that the windows first went dark at Ossington and Dundas institution The Lakeview Lunch – a landmark badly worn and neglected by the years.

This time, however, the lights would come back on to reveal a new name, sign, menu, philosophy and new proprietors who seem committed to both preserving and pushing forth a little bit of old school Toronto.

“People have three places in their lives,” Alex SenGupta, one in a quartet of owners, says on a Wednesday afternoon while lunching quietly on grilled cheese in one of his refurbished, understated booths.

“There’s home, work and that place. We want to be that place.” Steps have been taken.

And though there are surely more Edward Hopper-esque diner clichés in Toronto, The Lakeview Restaurant’s most recent incarnation is honest in its desire to please.

“I don’t want to be popular, I want to be good,” SenGupta adds.

Open 24/7/365 under the new bosses since December, the reborn eatery features a staff of 60, a menu-packed with comfort food and cocktail hospitality bent on forcing a smirk from any Mad Men lover.

And while that alone might also force an eye rolling in light of the recent Ossington explosion of trendiness, there’s a sense of tradition, a commitment to history and community that may ultimately set this edition of The Lakeview apart.

Serving turkey dinner on Christmas Eve/Day in what SenGupta promises, “to be an annual tradition,” is one example of how. A growing relationship between the diner and the local arts community is another.

The new owners have already opened their doors for multiple photo shoots as well as the filming of an eponymous horror flick and the location will serve as a display site for the annual CONTACT Toronto Photography Festival in May.

It’s part of an attempt to cultivate and facilitate local history. That it goes so nicely with delicious food and drink, well, all the better.

“It was as much a restoration project as it was a restaurant opening,” admits co-owner Fadi Hakim while recounting a few of the changes he and his partners are still working to implement.

With a smirk he points to the Debbie Travis wallpaper and new mirrors next to the kitchen doors as things customers have thanked him for leaving – rather than putting – in place.

“When people come in and ask, ‘What did you add?'” Hakim says, “I think, ‘We did our job.'”

And yet there was a process of reclamation that led to this diner phoenix rising from its greasy ashes. And yet there’s work to be done.

Hakim and SenGupta both chuckle heartily when recalling their trying December 4th opening, an event that went on despite power being cut to the building hours before and featured contractors in the kitchen until 8:30pm.

The full menu is just now hitting the vintage tabletops (most of the original surfaces remain) and there a few more subtle but significant touches that regulars can eagerly look forward to, including a juke box for the gin and draft types.

“Everything from the Rolling Stones to LCD Soundsystem,” SenGupta responds when asked what it’ll play.

His answer speaks to the careful balance of contemporary and historic that’s at play inside the restaurant. But part of carrying the diner torch – one so often doused – is remembering what keeps people coming above all else, a lesson The Lakeview is just now relearning.

“I’m always thinking about the guy sitting here who just wants some mac and cheese,” SenGupta says, insisting he’s trying not to get too cute with any aspect of the place.

It’s a solid anchor, because the fact that the neigbourhood has changed so drastically of late is only proof it will someday change again.

“I want to be here when it turns 100,” SenGupta adds, looking a brief 23 years down the road.

“This place was what it was a long time ago, then it was what it was after that and it was what it was after that and it’ll be what it is after this.”

Which hints at what sets a great diner apart from a great restaurant. The conversations that hang above booths, the worn counters that wear the scratches of forgotten generations. The idea that you can serve the present and honour the past simultaneously and with humility.

The Lakeview’s dessert menu – with items like “Stem apple pie” that carry the names of some of the city’s great and now-defunct diners – is one brilliant instance of how that’s done.

Another is by restoring 15 years of the location’s history. The old Lakeview Lunch sign read “est. 1947,” but SenGupta, Hakim and company found an extra decade and a half of dust by returning to the original name and have every intention of making use of it.

“In a way, we wanted really it to be like walking into 1932,” Hakim says of the décor as it now stands.

And in small way maybe it is (you’d need to have been there to know), though the menu prices – wholly for 2009 and beyond – don’t exactly reflect Depression-era pricing save one notable exception.

Near the desserts in homage you’ll once again see that overarching Lakeview symbol and be reminded of something very important: when it comes to shakes, those of the hand variety are always, always free.

Above: Lakeview, September 2008.  Below: Lakeview, January 2009.

aaron.miller@citynews.rogers.com

Afternoons And Greasy Spoons: Are Toronto’s Diner Days Fried?

Best T.O. Diners