[Restaurant Opening] Quality meats and tasty eats at Bareburger

Website: http://www.bareburger.com , Toronto site
Twitter/Instagram Handle: @bareburger
Address: 111 Dundas St. W., Toronto ON
When I attended: April 22nd, 2015, Media dinner
Rating: $$, 5

The New York burger chain has made its way across the border, with Toronto as their first Canadian expansion, and hopefully, it won’t be the last.

Bareburger has a lot going on for them from the location, their story, to the delicious food. The Bay St. and Dundas St. location is prime, right by the Toronto Eaton Centre and other tourist hot spots. Their spacious restaurant with large windows, wooden tables, a fully stocked bar and high ceilings makes the atmosphere bright and welcoming.

At the media event, the CEO Euripides and Executive Chef Andrew came to the event from NYC to discuss the menu offerings as well as the story behind the restaurant. All meats are locally sourced, even the sauces and cookies for the ice- cream sandwiches are sourced locally. All their meats are free-range, pasture raised, humanely raised, antibiotic, gluten and hormone-free. Also, all items are cooked in 100% Non-GMO Canola oil. How appropriate was it they had the event on Earth Day?

On top of having quality ingredients, their menu offerings is extensive, with sandwiches, sides, salads and vegetarian burgers (check out the Toronto Bareburger menu).

At the tasting, we started with the Cali Fresh Salad. Salad lovers will love the healthy variety of ingredients such as baby kale, red quinoa, watermelon radish, alfalfa sprouts, cauliflower hummus and a lemon tahini dressing.

Who would have thought that my favourite dish at a burger restaurant would be the Guapo Chop with Buttermilk Fried Chicken?! The chicken blew me away. The crispy seasoned skin made way to super juicy meat. The fried chicken addition to this salad was a great way to balance a meal. The salad with little gem lettuce includes blue corn tortilla chips, cheese curds, pico de gallo and pickled jalapenos.

The dipping sauces made from a local company was the standout to the crispy onions rings and sweet potato fries. The sauces included ketchup, aguave BBQ, paprika mayo, habanero sauce, buttermilk ranch, horseradish sauce and a special smokey sauce with pickles.

The Poutine is only available at the Toronto restaurant with house-made beef gravy and Montreal cheese curds. The beef brisket is must-have add-on to the dish.

Next, we tried some Bareburger sliders. The Farmstead Collard Slider is a great vegetarian option as the sweet potato and wild rice patty with cauliflower hummus made the veggie slider taste more substantial and filling.

As a meat lover, I couldn’t wait to taste the meaty burgers. The Blue Elk Burger had a sweet tomato-fig, balanced with Amish bleu cheese and stout griddled onions. All burgers are cooked medium well unless specified by the customer.

The Beef Standard was juicy with Bareburger’s special sauce, stout griddled onions, pickles and colby cheese.

My favourite burger was the El Matador with bison, cheese curds, guacamole, pico de gallo, pickled jalapenos and a green leaf. It was juicy and appetizing! I loved it so much, I ordered an extra burger for my husband to try after the event.

We finished off our meal with a vanilla milkshake with chocolate syrup, and ice cream sandwiches.Overall:

It felt great to eat at a restaurant where local businesses are supported and the quality of meats are outstanding. With the variety of delicious offerings on their menus from salads to burgers, a stocked bar, an open atmosphere and a wicked location, I think Bareburger will do well in Toronto. I will happily return!