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In this case, W — not X — marks the spot.
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As in the W Toronto, the two-year-old, 252-room modern business hotel that is not only close to upscale shopping in nearby Yorkville but also to the north-south Yonge and west-east Bloor subway lines to explore the city’s other neighbourhoods.
Or, if you prefer to just relax and stay in after a busy day of running around Canada’s largest metropolis, the hotel boasts both an upscale bar and a Mediterranean-influenced restaurant on the ninth floor called Skylight, where you can eat some beautifully seasoned chicken, learn to mix a daiquiri, or even dance to a nearby DJ.
Also on hand on the sixth floor, near the hotel’s reception, is a sound suite — essentially a recording studio — for the musically minded, available at $150 an hour.
CHECKING IN: You’ll see there’s a now-shuttered, two-level coffee shop that was called Public School behind the W sign on the ground floor on Bloor Street. What is coming in its place remains to seen. May I suggest a spa given the vast empty space to the west of what was a Hudson’s Bay Department Store? However, once you walk up a flight of stairs past a winding hallway to the elevators, you find yourself at the sixth-floor check-in where another inviting bar called Living Room — with a firepit hangout next to it, along with a Moet and Chandon champagne vending machine — awaits.
ROOMS: Our seventh-floor room with two queen beds — I had a visiting Vancouver friend joining me — overlooks the back of the 11-floor hotel where you can see the colours dominating the Rosedale Ravine. Three things you’ll notice right away about the room — the bar, the washroom, and the lighting/drapes control panel. The bar is where bottles of Casamigos tequila, Empress 1908 gin and Hennessey are in stock along with an old-time cocktail shaker plus a coffee maker.
Then there’s the open concept washroom with the wash basin and lit-up mirror opposite the bar and only the washroom and shower behind closed doors. The nearby quote on the wall “Not Everything Has To Mean Something, Some Things Just Are” comes to mind. And the white panels at both the room’s entranceway and on the bedside table allow you to program the lights, and electronically open and close the sheers and drapes, which I never quite got the hang of but still appreciated.
In order to try as much as we can from the seasonal menu, we decide to split everything. First up is our two appetizers — Limoncello-cured salmon (pickled cucumber, house dried tomatoes, charred grapes, limoncello dressing), and Fattooush with grilled shrimp (grilled artichokes and shishito, cucumber, radish, heirloom tomatoes, pickled onions, sumac dressing, spring greens, crispy chickpeas). Those are followed by mains – pistachio crusted kebabs (ground wagyu beef and lamb) and ½ Harissa Giguere chicken (toum, grilled lemon) with a side of charred broccolini. The portions were so generous that we could have ordered just one entree and been totally satiated.
BREAKFAST: After a good night’s sleep and checking out the eighth-floor 24-hour gym where you can enjoy a yoga class on Saturdays (11 a.m.-noon) or just try one of the cardio and strength machines or free weights, we find ourselves back at Skylight for breakfast. We both chow down on Skylight’s miracle breakfast with choice of eggs your way, smoked bacon/peameal/chicken apple sausage/beet and kale patty, breakfast potatoes (which we substitute out for fruit), choice of toast and preserves with fresh orange juice and lattes/cappuccinos.
COCKTAIL-MAKING: On my final night at Skylight, veteran bartender Horacio Aguilara takes me and about a half dozen other guests through a fun mixology class at the bar. We make daiquiris, a classic cocktail created by American mining engineer Jennings Cox in Cuba in the late 19th century and were later popularized by Ernest Hemingway in the 1940s and ‘50s (white rum, lime juice and demerara syrup), and Jungle Birds, a tiki culture-popularized tropical cocktail which originated at the Aviary Bar at the Kuala Lumpur Hilton in the 1970’s (dark rum, Campari, pineapple juice, lime juice, demerara syrup). It’s a fun experience, especially getting to talk with other guests, as we drink and chat.
