The Lobby Bar

The Lobby Bar is a small Asian-inspired cocktail room on the bottom floor of the Dalby House flatiron building in downtown Elora, open since 2023. It is the rare room in the village that doesn't reach for the pub template — the food runs to seared tuna, wagyu and Thai curry, the drink list is built with the same care as the kitchen, and the whole thing is folded into a sharp wedge of a room that seats about thirty. The menu is the reason to come.

That menu is compact and deliberately Asian-leaning. Tuna Tataki is the cleanest first read — seared tuna with edamame, chive, black and white sesame and a yuzu soy dressing. The Garlic Soy Butter Saikoro brings seared cubes of beef tenderloin together with shiitake, garlic soy butter and crispy onion; the Thai Beef Curry runs wagyu tenderloin through coconut milk and red curry over rice. The Sushi Shrimp Bowl layers poached shrimp with mango, cucumber, pickled ginger, crispy nori and a teriyaki glaze, while the Lime Ginger Honey Beef Bowl and the Bang Bang Tiger Shrimp Skewer keep the bowls and skewers moving. Soy Ginger Baked Salmon and Spicy Thai Cashew Chicken round out the heavier plates, and vegetarians get a real path through the Tofu and Vegetable Udon Noodle, roasted edamame and vegetable gyoza. Dessert stays in the same lane: mochi ice cream and a Japanese cheesecake with lime berry sauce.

The drink list is part of the product rather than an afterthought. The cocktails run inventive — a Chili Plum Negroni with chili syrup and plum bitters, a Passion Fruit Margarita on tequila blanco and vanilla syrup — and the mocktail program gets the same attention, including an alcohol-free Amalfi Spritz. There are wine, beer and cider lists but no draught, which keeps the bar pointed at the cocktail-and-small-plates idea. The kitchen here and at the Laluis' sister room is overseen by executive chef Marc Gebran, who carries the same Asian-inspired direction across both.

The room itself does a lot of the talking. Becky and Ardin Lalui built The Lobby Bar into a Dalby House space they wanted to hand back to the community, taking design cues from the lobby bars of old grand hotels — Gucci wallpaper, Spanish ceramic tiles, chandeliers, ceramic sculptures and mirrors fill the narrow triangular footprint. The Laluis already run The Friendly Society a few doors away, which makes this their cocktail-led companion rather than a second pub: where the Society is a full neighbourhood room, the Lobby Bar is the smaller, dressed-up night out.

The Lobby Bar keeps night-out hours — evenings Monday and Thursday, late on Friday and Saturday, and an afternoon-through-evening Sunday — with reservations through OpenTable. Two recurring offers anchor the week: Industry Night every Monday, with twenty-five per cent off for people who work in the trade, and Ladies Night on Thursdays from four to eight. The room also books as a private event space for up to twenty-seven. Three years in, the Lobby Bar is the room the village turns to when the night calls for cocktails and a few sharp plates rather than a pint and a pub table.