Dreyfus : One of Toronto’s Most Beloved Tables

There are restaurants you go to because they’re impressive, and there are restaurants you go to because they make you feel something. Dreyfus, tucked into a narrow row house on Harbord Street, is firmly in the second category. With just 25 seats, a tiny kitchen, and a menu that never sits still, this French-Jewish bistro has quietly become one of the most cherished dining rooms in the city: the kind of place you’d go to every week if you could just walk in, but where booking a table is part of the ritual.

A Love Story That Started at Liverpool House

The story of Dreyfus begins in Montreal, in the kitchens and dining rooms of the Joe Beef empire. Zach Kolomeir was a line cook at Liverpool House. Carmelina Imola was working front of house. They met, they fell in love, and over late nights and long shifts, they started dreaming about a place of their own.

Zach had graduated from the Culinary Institute of America and worked his way up from busboy to chef de cuisine at Joe Beef, one of the most coveted kitchen positions in the country. Carmelina had honed her hospitality instincts at Liverpool House and at Loïc, the celebrated Montreal wine bar. But Toronto was calling. When Carmelina was accepted into a graduate program at the University of Toronto in the fall of 2018, they took it as their cue. Zach finished his tenure at Joe Beef and followed in November.

By January 2019, they had signed a lease. Three months of construction later, Dreyfus was open.

“It was totally cowboy,” Carmelina says with a laugh. “We had no idea what we were doing.”

What’s in a Name

The restaurant is named after Alfred Dreyfus, the French Jewish army officer who was wrongfully accused of treason in the late nineteenth century, one of the most infamous miscarriages of justice in modern history. It’s a loaded name, and it’s chosen with intention.

“We were thinking about the erasure of Jewish impact on culinary history,” Carmelina explains. “How so many Jewish cultural traditions get absorbed into the larger cultural identity of a place. It becomes super French or exclusively Italian, but it’s really contributions by different cultural influences.”

Alfred Dreyfus became a kind of mascot, not a literal reference point for the menu, but an icon of French Jewry, a quiet nod to the histories that run beneath the surface of the food we love.

The Room

Dreyfus occupies a long, narrow space in a Victorian row house, with just one window and very little natural light. It shouldn’t work, but it does, beautifully. The room is cozy and warm, with bevelled mirrors, a marble bar, and the kind of curlicue signage that makes you feel like you’ve stepped into a neighbourhood bistro somewhere between the Marais and Mile End.

The design was done in collaboration with Zébulon Perron, and it captures something essential about what Dreyfus is: intimate, unpretentious, and full of character. There’s no attempt to be grand. The focus is entirely on the table in front of you and the people around it.

The Food

The menu at Dreyfus changes constantly, sometimes weekly, sometimes more, driven by what’s seasonal, what’s inspiring, and whatever Zach feels like cooking on any given day. It’s French at its core, with Jewish influences woven through, but it resists easy categorization. One night, there might be a beautiful piece of fish with a delicate sauce; the next, something heartier, richer, more soulful. The kitchen is tiny, the team is small, and every dish feels personal.

“Still being Frenchy, still changing it all the time,” says Carmelina. “Just keeping it fun.”

This is a restaurant people return to over and over. Yes, anniversaries and birthdays happen here, and the room has the kind of warm, lively energy that suits a special evening. But it never takes itself too seriously, and that’s the point: Dreyfus is approachable, cozy, and made for repeat visits. The only thing that makes it feel like an event is that you have to plan ahead, because by the time you think of dropping in, the room is already full. By the end of the night, you feel like you’ve been to a really great dinner party.

The Wine

Carmelina curates the wine list with a philosophy that’s refreshingly personal: she buys wines she wants to drink, not wines she thinks she’ll sell.

“We’ve never bought for the market,” she says. “We buy for the food. The wines are dictated by the menu and the vibe of the room.”

The list leans natural and low-intervention, with a focus on smaller producers. There’s a deeper selection of Burgundy and some beautiful Piemontese bottles, Barolos and other notable picks that match the restaurant’s warmth. But there’s always diversity, always balance, and always something unexpected tucked into the list for those who know to look.

Since opening in 2019, Dreyfus has earned a spot on Canada’s 100 Best Restaurants (ranked #42 in 2025), a recommendation in the Michelin Guide, and the kind of devoted following that no amount of marketing can manufacture. It’s also the restaurant that launched a small empire: Zach, Carmelina, and their partner Tristan Eves have since opened Taverne Bernhardt’s, Vilda’s, and most recently N.L. Ginzburg on College Street.

But Dreyfus remains the heart of it all, the tiny, experimental space where everything started. It’s where the team took risks, figured out who they were, and built something that feels irreplaceable.

In a city of increasingly polished dining rooms, Dreyfus is a reminder that the best restaurants don’t need to be big. They just need to be true.

Written by Fabie Lubin
Photography by Jaz Ludwick

Updated on May 11, 2026

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