Sunny’s Chinese : Mimi Chinese’s Fun Little Cousin

At the end of a quiet hallway off Kensington Avenue, behind a stretch of market stalls, a door opens onto one of the most energetic dining rooms in Toronto. Sunny’s Chinese was never supposed to be a restaurant. It started as a pandemic-era pop-up out of the back kitchen of Mimi Chinese, kept its low profile for a few months, and quietly became the address that defines what David Schwartz and his team can do when nothing is fixed.

Born in the Back of Mimi

The original plan was simple. Mimi Chinese was ready to open in spring 2020, but the city had other ideas, and David and his executive chef, Braden Chong — who also deserves the credit for naming Sunny’s — needed work. They started running a pop-up out of the Mimi back kitchen. To protect the Mimi brand from any operational hiccups during a fragile launch, they gave the pop-up a separate name. It was, in David’s words, supposed to be a stopgap.

A few months in, David’s business partner, Brandon Marek, called him with a suggestion. Sunny’s, Brandon argued, should not stay folded into Mimi. It should become its own restaurant, with its own identity, in its own room. David’s first reaction was no. After a few days of thinking, he realized Brandon was right: every idea that did not quite fit at Mimi could thrive at Sunny’s. Without Sunny’s, Mimi would have been a more confused restaurant. With it, both spaces became what they were always meant to be.

Named After a Manager from Chinatown

The name has no grand origin story, and David is the first to say so. Before opening their own places, David and Brayden often ended their service in Chinatown, eating at a restaurant where a manager named Sonny took care of them. They liked him. When the pop-up needed a name, they named it after him. The real Sonny, David notes with a shrug, has no idea that an entire restaurant carries a version of his name.

The Hallway That Hides the Energy

The route to the dining room is part of the experience. You walk through a hallway that is so quiet that first-timers wonder whether they are in the right place. Then the door opens, and the room hits you. The design draws on Hong Kong cha chaan tengs and the dai pai dong stalls of mainland China. The kitchen is open and never stops. A charcoal grill turns in full view of the room. The lighting is intentionally bright, the music is funky, and the mood lives somewhere between celebration and weeknight ritual.

The signature of the bar is the Gunpowder Slap, and it tells you exactly what kind of room you are in. The drink is three shots taken in sequence: a beer, a baijiu (a Chinese grain spirit), and a cocktail, in that order. When one table orders the round, you can guess they are celebrating something. When several tables order it at the same time, the volume in the room starts to make sense. The cocktail program shifts seasonally, and the wine list, built by Jeffrey Fleming for the group, is more thought-through than most rooms of this energy bother with.

The Rest of the Hits

The menu is built around a handful of essentials. The husband-and-wife beef, the silver needle noodle and a rotating cut off the charcoal grill carry the rotation. A seasonal vegetable dish follows whatever the farms are sending; the kitchen leans into local produce. Almost every table closes with the Hong Kong toast (amazing !) and the seasonal soft serve. Sunny’s also runs its own Chef’s Choice menu at around $75 per person, designed less as a guided tour and more as a creative outlet for the kitchen.

The Verdict

Sunny’s is proof that a restaurant born sideways can outlast the plan it was supposed to grow up in. The room has the precision of people who now know exactly what they are doing. Come for a bowl of noodles and a beer at the chef’s bar, or for a long table and a row of Gunpowder Slaps. Either way, you leave thinking about when you can come back.

Written by Fabie Lubin
Photography by Daniel Neuhaus / Gabriel Li / Ryan Nangreaves / Scott Usheroff

Updated on May 13, 2026

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