Historic Toronto diner re-opens with revamped menu. Here's what's new

A new feature on The Lakeview's menu: Smoked salmon, scallion cream cheese, tomato, capers and pickled shallots (The Lakeview).

Toronto’s historic 24-hour-style diner reopened with a new Jewish delicatessen-style menu on Thursday night, just over six weeks after the institution nearly broke customers’ hearts.

“The menu is everything. There is a big shift,” Lakeview Restaurant co-owner Fadi Hakim told CTV News Toronto on Thursday.

He aired a last call on Instagram for customers to order their favourite dishes with an ambiguous post on Valentine’s Day, beginning with the cliché, “It’s not you, it’s us,” that led thousands of followers to believe the just over 90-year-old diner was done.

Since 1932, the comfort food haven has become a historic site and movie set for actors like Tom Cruise and John Travolta.

But it turns out the breakup only lasted about six weeks.

The primary difference on display, as Hakim said, is the food, which now takes on the flare of a Jewish delicatessen.

Though the culinary terrain is somewhat foreign to The Lakeview, it’s not to Hakim. He also co-owns Haifa Room, a Middle Eastern falafel counter and sit down that opened in 2021 just a few steps from the diner at the corner of Dundas Street and Ossington Avenue.

Now, smoked meat, brisket and white fish terrine have replaced cornflake chicken and bacon-stuffed French toast at The Lakeview.

“Everything has been switched around,” Hakim said, pointing to a classic dish like poached eggs for example, “It’s not as we served them before.”

The menu evokes a more elevated feel now with items like Miami ribs ($28) paired with white wine braised fennel and beef tartare finished with an egg yolk sauce ($25).

For brunch, bagel towers – strongly resembling the picturesque staple of bagels stacked on top of one another at Sadelle’s in SoHo – will lean into New York brunch norms, with an entire category of the menu dedicated to “Noshes” like a blooming onion and a roasted medley of roasted artichokes, grapefruit and labneh.

Hakim pins much of The Lakeview’s shift on his team – Adrian Montesdeoca, a new partner and owner of Milou along with Adam Zimmerman and Eli Kerbel who both worked in the kitchens of Bar Raval and Milou.

“A bit over a year ago I stepped into The Lakeview and as I waited for my friend to finish a meeting, I got to sit back and take the room in,” Montesdeoca wrote on Instagram on opening day.

"By the time their meeting had ended, I was in love with the space and so I thought it’d be a good idea to criticize the owner, now a good friend and partner on not giving the room the love and attention I thought it deserved, his response? He challenged me to take it on, Obviously I couldn’t say no.”

As for the physical revamp, the diner is aiming for a more intimate feel, Hakim said, with new hanging lighting fixtures that add a warmer glow to the space at night. Wallpaper that had previously framed the space has been replaced with a wall of framed mirrors.

While there are changes at the historic diner, there are constants too – the black and white hexagon tiled floor, boxy wooden booths, entryway bar and nearly 24-hour nature of the restaurant, open 8 a.m. to 4 a.m.