Taverne Bernhardt’s : The Rotisserie Chicken Restaurant Toronto Didn’t Know It Needed

There’s a particular kind of restaurant that every great food city needs — a place where you can show up on a Monday with your kids, on a Friday with your friends, or on a Saturday for someone’s birthday, and it always feels right. In Toronto, Taverne Bernhardt’s, occupying the main level of a converted Edwardian house on Dovercourt Road, is that restaurant. The formula sounds simple: Montreal-style rotisserie chicken, beautiful seasonal vegetables, natural wines, and soft serve for dessert. But in the hands of the team behind Dreyfus, simple becomes extraordinary.

Born in the Pandemic, Built to Last

Bernhardt’s was supposed to open in June 2020. Then the world shut down. Construction halted. Plans stalled. When it finally opened later that year, COVID restrictions meant the restaurant couldn’t be what it was designed to be — so it became something else entirely.

The team — Zach Kolomeir, Carmelina Imola, and partner Tristan Eves — had already closed Dreyfus across town, because the intimate French bistro’s food simply didn’t translate to takeout. Rather than let the staff go, they moved everyone to Bernhardt’s and turned it into a seven-days-a-week takeout operation, serving lunch and dinner. The phone didn’t stop ringing. Regulars kept calling long after dine-in resumed, begging for takeout to come back.

When the space across the street became available, the answer was obvious: open Vilda’s to keep the lunch and takeout offering alive, and let Bernhardt’s finally become the dine-in restaurant it was always meant to be.

A Name with History

Like its sister restaurant Dreyfus — named after Alfred Dreyfus, the French Jewish officer wrongfully accused of treason — Bernhardt’s carries a name steeped in meaning. Sarah Bernhardt was one of the most celebrated stage actresses in French history, a towering figure of the Art Nouveau era, and a passionate Dreyfusard who publicly defended Alfred Dreyfus during the affair. The name ties the restaurant to the same cultural thread that runs through everything this team does: a celebration of French-Jewish heritage, told through food.

The Chicken

The rotisserie chicken at Bernhardt’s is sourced from White Rock Farms in Harriston, Ontario. The birds are brined, splayed, and roasted on a French Rotisol rotisserie — the gold standard — and they arrive at the table golden, juicy, and deeply flavourful. Each order comes with house-made dill pickles, a gravy boat of Quebecois-style sauce — chicken stock simmered with thyme and bay leaves — coleslaw, and Brodflour buns on the side.

But to come to Bernhardt’s only for the chicken would be to miss half the point. The vegetable dishes are where the kitchen really shines. The menu rotates with the seasons: crispy brown butter Brussels sprouts, braised collard greens, roasted local squash with tahini, pan-roasted mushrooms with parsley, crunchy fried eggplant with honey and stracciatella, or a braised parsnip tagine with raisins, olives, sour cream, and pine nuts.

“What’s missing in rotisserie restaurants is vegetables,” says Carmelina. “We wanted something fresh.”

And then there are the fries — triple-cooked, or roasted garlic potatoes that spend their time beneath the bird, soaking up the drippings. Either way, they’re impossible to stop eating.

The Wine

Carmelina manages the wine list across all of the group’s restaurants, and at Bernhardt’s, the approach is deliberately playful. The bottles here are more accessibly priced than at Dreyfus — fun, natural, low-intervention wines from smaller producers that are built to go with salty, savoury, rich rotisserie food.

Expect lighter, more refreshing pours with enough diversity to keep things interesting. And for those in the know, there are always a few hidden gems on the list: special bottles that wine professionals seek out precisely because they know this team’s taste is impeccable.

Soft Serve and Simplicity

Dessert is soft serve and cake. That’s it. And it’s perfect. The soft serve flavours rotate with the seasons — past iterations have included sunflower seed and pear, rhubarb and celery — and they’re made entirely in house. It’s the kind of dessert that makes kids ecstatic and adults quietly thrilled, and it fits the spirit of the place completely: no fuss, no pretension, just something genuinely delicious.

The Room

Bernhardt’s occupies a beautiful old Edwardian house with custom millwork, a pewter-topped bar built around a refurbished fireplace, and the kind of warm, lived-in energy that makes you want to stay all night. There’s an extended front patio with heat lamps for the warmer months.

The vibe is exactly what Carmelina describes: an everyday restaurant. Families come early. Parties come late. Groups take over the back room.

Taverne Bernhardt’s has earned its spot on Canada’s 100 Best Restaurants (ranked #29 in 2024) not by trying to be fancy, but by doing something deceptively simple with uncommon care. The chicken is excellent. The vegetables are extraordinary. The wine list is smart and soulful. And the room feels like it belongs to the neighbourhood as much as it belongs to the people who built it.

Written by Fabie Lubin
Photography by Daniel Neuhaus / Jon Cullen / Graydon & Herriott

Updated on May 11, 2026

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