Casa Rubia : a Galician table from the team behind Bar Raval

In Galicia, on Spain’s Atlantic coast, there is a breed of cattle called Rubia Gallega, the “blonde Galician.” It gave its name to Casa Rubia, the new restaurant tucked behind Bar Raval on Palmerston Avenue, and the name kept growing from there. As the team talked through the steaks and the seafood, the blonde cow turned into a blonde siren, a mermaid figure that suited a menu full of clams, cockles and whole fish. She now watches over the dining room from one of the walls. Hailey Burke, co-owner with Grant van Gameren, sums up the idea as a House of the Blondes.

Raval, with the tablecloths out

The project started when Zach Smith came on as a partner in the Raval group at the beginning of 2026. The chef had run the Raval kitchen as chef de cuisine before the pandemic, then went on to open Fat Rabbit and Bar Les Incompetents in St. Catharines. His return brought his butchery skills back into the conversation: house chorizo, Galician steaks, big bone-in chuletas. “Spanish food has been a huge part of my career, so Casa Rubia feels like a natural return to it, but with a different perspective,” he says.

The partners wanted a room that would feel like Raval, only more intentional, closer to fine dining, with white tablecloths and full table service. Raval has long been a place for pintxos at the bar and perching on a stool, while at Casa Rubia everyone gets a proper seat for the whole evening. The obvious home for it was right next door, in the space the group had been running as Martine’s wine bar.

Candlelight above the bar

The dining room sits on a mezzanine above the bar, with about 50 seats, plus a 20-seat patio out front on Palmerston. The co-owner describes it as old world, cozy and romantic: exposed brick, a lot of wood, leather, candlelight and warm tones that run from burgundy to ruby, which is only fitting given the name.

Much of the character comes from the antiques. The other co-owner is a devoted hobby antiquer, and the room is filled with vintage and antique pieces he gathered, including a collection of vintage light fixtures. The goal is a place for catching up with friends, a date or a long evening that simply feels good, the same convivial spirit that has made Raval a neighbourhood hangout.

Old dairy cows and a wood oven

The kitchen cooks northern Spanish and Galician food, with a wood oven doing much of the work. The beef is imported from Galicia and comes from old, grass-fed dairy cows, which gives the fat a rich, grassy depth. At Casa Rubia it is served as bone-in ribeyes.

The sea gets as much attention as the steaks. A whole roasted turbot comes out of the oven for the table, and the menu leans on langoustine, a smoked tuna carpaccio, fideo cooked with cockles, and bone marrow served with grilled scallops and sea urchin. The wood-fired suckling pig rounds out the big-format side of the menu.

Then there is the Casa Rubia chorizo, made specially for the restaurant by friends of the team. It is one of the co-owner’s personal favourites. Around these centrepieces, the kitchen builds on a pantry of carefully chosen products: imported Spanish lima beans, plenty of cockles, thin fideo noodles and very good olive oil.

Cocktails you smell first

The co-owner runs the bar program herself, and it is built on a deep respect for the classics, with the martini and the negroni leading the way. She keeps their structure intact and brings in coastal, northern Spanish accents through aromatics rather than piling ingredients into the glass.

The Sidecar uses a split base of Spanish brandy and cognac, a homemade Seville orange curaçao and a spray of bergamot. The house martini combines Tanqueray No. Ten, Manzanilla sherry for a touch of salinity and dry vermouth, in a glass rinsed with a peaty, briny spray made with scotch, kelp, dashi, tarragon and sea asparagus. The French 75 is misted with lavender, copal, rosemary and fir. The idea is for each drink to be experienced through its scent as much as its taste.

The wine list is the work of wine director Lexi Wolkowski, who has been with the company for about twelve years. It focuses on Iberian and Atlantic wines, pairing benchmark producers with smaller, newer estates, and includes a good number of bottles from Portugal, where the value is excellent. Vermouths, sherries, aperitivos and digestifs complete the offering.

A team back at the same table

What the owners are proudest of is the reunion itself. The chef, the wine director and the Raval partners have crossed paths in different kitchens and dining rooms for years, and Casa Rubia is the project that brings them together again under one roof. That shared history shows in the way the menu, the bar and the room speak to each other, and it makes Casa Rubia a natural next chapter for the Raval family.

Written by Fabie Lubin
Photography by Daniel Neuhaus

Updated on September 24, 2026

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