The doors have only been open a few months, but Bar Butcher is already promising to be one of the most favoured restaurant openings of the year.
Dubbed a more affordable version of sister restaurant Butcher Chef, Bar Butcher is located downtown at 31 Bay Street where Miller Tavern previously stood. With its proximity to the financial district and Scotiabank Arena, the clientele at Bar Butcher has been varied from sport fans to working professionals — just as partner Michael Dabic intended.
“We called it Bar Butcher for two reasons. One was to associate with Butcher Chef, our premium fine dining restaurant,” he says. “But the other one was that I feel with the name ‘bar’ in front, people are not going to be intimidated about walking in, and that’s the whole idea. We don’t want people to think it’s something out of their price point or you have to be dressed up. When people see ‘bar,’ that’s generally an accessible term for everybody.”
As with Butcher Chef, and the now-closed Michael’s on Simcoe, Dabic has opened Bar Butcher alongside executive chef Derek Von Raesfeld to create something that takes a detour from the high-end pricing of the city’s other newer steakhouses. On the other hand, it doesn’t quite fit into the expectations of a pub — despite the live sports playing on television screens across the dining room. Instead, Dabic labels it a “very inexpensive, elevated luxury pub.”
Von Raesfeld is joined in the kitchen by head chef Micheal Pallister who also knows the downtown clientele well after spending ten years at Richmond Station. Together, they’ve curated a menu where, like at Butcher Chef, dry-aging happens in-house and is hand-selected using hormone and antibiotic-free beef and all fried items are cooked in tallow. You can find roasted pork chop for under $30 or a 12oz Alberta ribeye for under $80.
Other menu items include the homemade Bolognese, seafood plates, and the signature burger, made with meat that’s ground daily using a mix of dry-aged chuck and steak trimmings before being topped with housemade buns and condiments.
That can be paired with affordably priced drinks, including bottles starting as low as $40.
“If you want to have a burger and a $500 bottle of wine, be our guest,” says Dabic. “But everything on the wine list is priced to be super competitive.”
Making the latest project an extra special one for Dabic, his kids are also taking the reins as partners alongside him and Von Raesfeld.
“For me, it’s exciting because hospitality is not conducive to family life and in my 30s and 40s, I missed a lot of ballet and football practice and things like that, so now I get to spend time with my children. We get to work together, so we’re catching up a little bit and I get to teach them,” he says. “We teach each other. I learn from them as well.”
As for the quick success of Bar Butcher, Dabic says it was always the intention to surpass their customers’ expectations.
“We under promise, but we over deliver.”