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Electric Bill
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"Australians don't really take themselves too seriously," says Casey Ryan, "and that's reflected in the hospitality scene. Bartenders are friendly and will joke around with you or chat about things you want to chat about. I feel Toronto can be a very serious city at times, and I think it's good to remember that bars are fun and shouldn't be taken too seriously."
Ryan partnered with a Bloor Street giant - Nick Kennedy, the bartender extraordinaire behind hotspots like Civil Liberties and the Miracle! pop-up every Christmas - to give the area a bit of the sunny vibes from Down Under in the form of Electric Bill. It's got what fans have come to expect from Civil Liberties in the form of really good, thoughtful cocktails as well as unique touches, all in a convivial, chill space with bright wallpaper, bold colours, and good tunes. "We want people to feel at home when they come in," Ryan says. "Everyone who works here is a little quirky, and we try to have fun with people as much as possible. We want the space to be somewhere you can park up at the bar crack a couple of jokes with us and have some good drinks."
The mushroom scallops are among Ryan's favourite dishes, as he calls them "a bit of a head spin." "We brine and sous vide them to break down the texture of King oyster mushrooms and give them more ocean like flavours," he explains. "We then sear it like you would an actual scallop." They're then drizzled with an edamame puree and topped with a spiced gastronomique.
One of the more unique features of the menu is that many of the meat options also have a vegetarian counterpart. For example, the beef sausage roll, which is made with beef, veggies and tomato sauce, is complimented by a vegan version. The vegan roll is made with roasted chickpeas and vegetables, and the tomato sauce remains.
Crusted with panko and stuffed with mozzarella, these bite-sized chicken parm servings are finished with marinara sauce. "Before opening Electric Bill I'd worked at Civil Liberties for roughly 8 years," Ryan says. "Then, in 2019, I was back in Australia for a year working at a bar in Sydney. I hadn't really spent much time back home since leaving. I came back to Toronto in 2020 and found myself missing the bars from Australia more and more, so this was when I first decided on the idea on bringing the Australian style of hospitality over here. Then, from there, Covid hit and I spent the lockdown hashing out my idea." The result is a playful, laid-back food menu that's appealing and approachable.
The grilled Napa cabbage is also one of Ryan's favourite dishes. "Australian bars focus more on produce and seasonality," Ryan says. "It's obviously easier there than it is here, but we get some really great produce in Ontario and we're excited to show it off." The cabbage certainly fits that bill, as Ryan says it packs a flavourful punch.
"We didn't want to do a conventional menu," Ryan says. "The menu is all Australian slang with each drink being named after an Australian slang terms with a definition for each term." The Whiskey Apple is no different, made just as it sounds - with whiskey and Granny Smith apple.
As a cheeky ode to the slang in the menu, Kennedy came up with the idea of putting the menu inside dictionaries, where each drink -the Durry Muncher included - is listed in alphabetical order. This particular beverage is made with Scotch, Averna Amaro, coffee liqueur, salted absinthe cacao and coconut fat wash.
The Fair Shake of the Sauce Bottle mixes a ton of unique flavours to create one full-bodied flavour. Made with an Absolut vodka base, the cocktail gets dashes of Pisco, Fino sherry, tomato grenadine and lemon to create a fruity and floral profile.
Everyone knows a good egg is a good person but, in this case, it's also a really good cocktail. Ryan's Good Egg is made with Beefeater gin, fermented strawberry, passionfruit, egg white and Perrier. It serves as a frothy ode to pavlova, the classic Aussie dessert.
And, of course, it's all under a roof in an area Ryan knows well. "Bloor and Ossington feels like home to us," he says, as several of Kennedy's projects are around. "We'd looked at other areas but nothing was the right fit. Then 866 Bloor became available and it checked all the right boxes for us." Apparently, that address is now as close as you can get to Australia without footing the airfare bill.
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