Maria’s Sports Bar Is Now Open on College Street
A good dive bar is hard to replace, and the new owners of Maria’s knew it. They took over a long time local watering hole and worked to keep its scrappy and unpretentious spirit intact, then backed it with a kitchen and ownership team drawn from some of the coolest restaurants in town.
Maria’s Sports Bar has landed on College Street. It soft launched over the weekend with a cheeky series of announcements on Instagram and was bustling with overflow from Du West Fest, and it is now fully open. The names behind it explain the buzz. The kitchen is led by chef Graham Pratt with chef de cuisine Mikel Neidra, and the project comes from Adrian Montesdeoca and Mikey Kim, the team behind Milou, Bambu, and Bar Bowie.
In the kitchen, Graham Pratt brings a long Toronto summary. He ran the much-loved Bay Street comfort-food spot The Gabardine (and his famous mac and cheese is back on the menu), he cheffed at Brockton Village’s Woodhouse Brew Pub, and helmed the kitchens at Anthony Rose’s Rose & Sons and The Big Crow, and at Snowy. Put that resume together and you can expect elevated comfort cooking that is unfussy, generous, and made to be eaten over a few beers and a game.
What makes the concept land is the contrast. Sports bars usually ask you to lower your expectations on the food and drink, but Maria’s seems set on doing the opposite while keeping the room as easygoing as it has always been. The Milou, Bambu, and Bar Bowie connection a crew signals that cares as much about what ends up in your glass as on your plate, so it is worth seeing what the bar list holds once you settle in. Expect the TVs to stay on, the pizza to keep coming, and the whole place to feel like a neighborhood hang that happens to be cooking at a higher level than the genre usually asks for.
What to know
Address: 1135 College St, Toronto Status: Open now Kitchen: Chef Graham Pratt, CDC Mikel Neidra Food: Pizza and comfort fare Type: Sports bar Full review: Coming in the next few weeks
We will be back with a full review soon. For now, consider this your heads up that College Street has a new sports bar worth keeping an eye on.
Written by Daniel Neuhaus
Photography by Maria's Sports Bar
