Eton House
710 Danforth
416-466-6161
Gentrification may account for Toronto’s urban boom, but for some, it’s also kind of a bitch.
Along the Danforth east of Pape, though, some relics of Toronto Past remain untouched. Eton House, neatly preserved, like a capsule from the linoleum-tiled '30s, is one of these spots, and for a beer and a night stripped bare of all pretensions, there’s really nothing better.
Eton House is atmospheric in its dated appearance; the crowd seemingly just as dated, as if the bar and its patrons have organically aged together. The tavern has been untouched by the undiscerning hand of modernization, the upstairs hotel still intact, the kitchen closed on emptier nights. To boot, a slowly revolving disco ball that casts fuzzy spots of light on the walls makes it very difficult to resist partaking in karaoke night.
Surely Sinead O’Connor’s “Nothing Compares 2 U” has been done before, but I can’t imagine the response at any other spot to be as odd and confusing as the hug I received from the inebriated woman who told me how beautiful that was, and thanking me profusely for doing her favourite song.
The whole disco-ball induced experience was surprisingly refreshing, and for a moment, it upset me to think of this place, like so many other early Toronto locales, rendered enjoyable only by default, and in a merely ironic manner.
In fact, good old-fashioned dive bars seem to be petering out all together, along with this wave of increasingly modern and trend-ified Toronto strips, but the ratio of character-to-square-foot places like Eton House really makes one wonder why.
After a few more musical numbers, accompanied by a few more beers, the wondering stops, as you realize you are actually enjoying yourself here, and so what? It offers something many new and trendy bars cannot: a slice of simple, judgment-free fun, totally devoid of any self-importance, and a strangely welcome form of quiet, innocent existence.