Cluny Bistro & Boulangerie

A croissant pulled from the bakery counter and a long French dinner in the dining room belong to the same address, and Cluny Bistro & Boulangerie runs the full distance between them. It is a modern French bistro with a working boulangerie built into it, plus a separate Bar Cluny, a weekend brunch, a daily drinks window, and a garden patio — a place that shifts character by the hour rather than holding a single pose. Cluny opened in 2014 on Tank House Lane, in the heritage core of Toronto's Distillery District.

Dinner is where the kitchen reaches hardest. The Foie and Duck Candle — a torchon of foie gras and confit duck with Butter Baby aigre-doux, marigold, and lavash — shows the bistro leaning theatrical without losing its French frame, and the Salt Cod Donuts, dusted in spruce sugar over black garlic aioli, do the same in a snackable register. The seafood carries the celebratory weight: Cod and Lobster pairs brioche-crusted cod with butter-poached lobster and beurre blanc, while Skate St. Jacques arrives with melted leeks, Gruyère, and duchess potatoes. The raw and small-plate end is just as considered — oysters with rhubarb mignonette and house hot sauce, a Fogo Island crab and shrimp dip with trout roe, and a vegan Butter Baby squash with lobster mushroom and shiitake dashi that reads as a real dish rather than a box checked. Around all of it sit the staples a French bistro is expected to keep — French onion soup under bubbling Gruyère, mussels in Dijon cream, steak frites, a slow-braised Bison Chasseur, and a chuck-and-brisket Cluny Burger — plus the beef tartare carved tableside for anyone who wants the show.