Bar Mason

Bar Mason builds its whole premise around Guelph. The kitchen sources within one hundred kilometres, pours Ontario beer and wine, and writes the town straight into the menu — a forno pizza called The Gryphon, after the university whose campus sits nearby, and another named For Gord, with maple where you would not expect it. It is the kind of declaration a restaurant can only make if it means it, and Bar Mason backs the claim across a full day, open from seven in the morning to ten at night out on Stone Road West. The result is a single address a Guelph table can use for a weekday breakfast, a casual dinner, or a night out that runs late, without ever feeling like three different restaurants wearing one name.

The forno pizzas are where the kitchen shows its hand. The Gryphon layers roasted garlic cream, potato, caramelized onion, and fior di latte under a finish of hot honey; the Funghi runs exotic mushrooms, arugula, pistachio, and a thread of vincotto; For Gord stacks roasted mushrooms, bacon, and Ezzo pepperoni with black pepper and maple; and a hot Hawaiian answers the pineapple question with spicy capicola and pickled banana peppers. Alongside them sits a comfort lane with real construction: a Double Stack Smash of chuck and brisket on a potato bun, a house-made yam and bean burger for the table's vegetarian, a loaded grilled cheese packed with pulled short rib and caramelized onions, the Mason Club on toasted sourdough, and wings turned out in sauces that range from whiskey BBQ to Mason honey garlic to chili lime.