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Luna Cafe
Category: Restaurants Breakfast & Brunch Breakfast & Brunch [Edit]
181 Dovercourt RdToronto, ON M6J 3C6
Neighbourhood: Beaconsfield Village
(416) 588-3374
- Hours:
Mon-Fri 8:30 am - 5 pm
Sat-Sun 9 am - 5 pm
- Accepts Credit Cards:
- Yes
- Price Range:
-
$$
- Attire:
- Casual
- Good for Groups:
- Yes
- Good for Kids:
- Yes
- Delivery:
- No
- Waiter Service:
- Yes
- Outdoor Seating:
- No
- Good For:
- Breakfast, Brunch
- Alcohol:
- No
- Noise Level:
- Average
13 reviews for Luna Cafe
13 reviews in English
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Review from Jessica B.
10/24/2011
I loved my Sunday breakfast wrap and chai latte here. Arrive early, as the place did get packed quickly. I also liked having a big ol' side of greens, such a good start to your day.
Cash only, and only one server on staff. -
Review from Melinda M.
Toronto, ON
11/18/2011 1 Check-in Here
Good food, sloppy service.
Very busy on weekends for brunch, so definitely expect waits - not just for a table, but for your coffee and your food.
When the food arrives, it is worth the wait. The bennies and wraps I have tried have been very good, served with a nice frisee side salad. I usually can't eat all of it, they do give you a lot.
Tiny space, with limited tables. In the warmer months, the few tables outside become coveted, which I don't understand as Dovercourt is pretty highly trafficked, and you're right on the street. -
Review from Missy K.
Toronto, ON
12/19/2011
Love it here, a little off the beaten path, cozy atmosphere, adorable staff & delicious food. Well done!
-
Review from Patrick A.
Toronto, ON
8/3/2011
Here's the thing . . . the food is great and the coffee is pretty good and usually that would be enough to bring me back again and again. I live across the street so I wish i felt like that was enough.
For some reason every single person who works here is so consistently rude and abrasive with me that I make a concerted effort to go elsewhere now. I have always tried to be as pleasant and good natured as possible when ordering and every time I have received rolled eyes and been practically barked at when trying to remember the name of their dill omelet sandwich.
Love the building and the location and the food. I just wished the people working there would take a vacation and lighten up a little bit. -
Review from Teena D.
4/17/2011 5 photos
Luna Cafe is a small restaurant in our 'hood at Dovercourt/Argyle.
I wandered in one Sunday morning when I first moved here ten years ago. I checked out the menu. I'm not a big breakfast person and everything looked fancy ... no basic bacon and eggs ... so I left without ordering.
Gord and I checked it out this morning. It's in the corner of a building ... it looks like it used to be a variety store.
Gord ordered poached eggs and peameal bacon on an English muffin with Hollandaise sauce. It came with potatoes and mixed greens. It was about $13.
I ordered buttermilk pancakes. It came with warm seasonal fruit (blueberries, pears and bananas) and organic yogurt. It was about $10. The yogurt is supposed to be on the pancakes ... I asked for it on the side instead. It was delicious and I ate everything but the yogurt.
It's a small place and holds about 30 people. We got there about 10am ... it was jammed by 11am. Service was so-so ... that's okay if you aren't in a rush.
I'd go back again, especially in the summer when the patio opens. -
Review from Gordon J.
Toronto, ON
6/5/2011
We have lived in our place for 10 years and never have visited Luna, a restaurant which resides in the space of an old variety store on Dovercourt. Today we decided to walk up and give it a try.
I love how the owners left the old signage of the variety store on it's windows. It is a small place and at first look at the menu, know that they are dedicated to free range and organic. originally I arrive just to have bacon and eggs, but could not find that on their limited brunch menu. Yes, the menu is small but everything we saw that went to other tables looked delicious!
I decided on Free range poached eggs, on an English muffin along with free range peameal bacon, with chipolte hollandaise. It also came with potatoes and a green salad. Teena chose buttermilk pancake with warm seasonal fruit and organic yogurt
Mine was fabulous! Also it was very filling. I loved the slight bite of the chipolte in the hollandaise. Not one for having salad with breakfast, I really enjoyed my green salad. Everything on my plate was done to perfection and all that went back was an empty well cleaned off plate.
Teena enjoyed her pancakes and had asked for the yogurt on the side. She was glad she did as didn't really enjoy it with the pancakes. She did clean up everything else.
Trying it for the first time after ten years, I can't wait to go back. Especially when the weather is much nicer to enjoy a great brunch outside on the patio. -
Review from Maria R.
East York, ON
6/16/2011
Myself and my boyfriend along with a couple of friends decided to check this café out one Sunday afternoon on a beautiful day in Toronto. The place has a real old rustic feel to it, almost like you're standing in your grandma's kitchen. This is achieved by the thick wooden rusty tables and the wooden cabinet littered with books and interesting knickknacks. The kitchen is an open one with a floral pattern dress wearing chef cooking frantically behind it. We were a bit put off that she wasn't wearing a hair net but let it slide. One thing I liked though was that this place had proper ventilation, so you don't leave smelling like the food as was the case at Mitzi's Café. We also loved that it was hidden in a nice, quiet residential area, always a favorite!
We noticed that there was only one server on duty, which made the service less than impressive, but god bless her she was doing her very best. You couldn't really blame the server for this but instead the management for allowing one server on duty on a busy Sunday afternoon (the place was packed). Once seated we were served water right away and asked about our beverage orders to which we all said we'd have coffee. The coffee was the best damn coffee I've ever had in my life! And I've tried various kinds in my day between living in Europe and here. I even went to the trouble of taking down the name of the brand. As the service was quite slow, we had to re-fill our own coffee cups from the coffee station as well as our own water, which actually made the whole brunch experience more interactive as you almost felt like you were in a friend's kitchen helping yourself.
I ordered the salmon/goat cheese breakfast wrap ($11), while the rest of the table ordered their own choices (all different). I have to comment on the freshly cut Paeonia arrangement in the middle of the table, my friend and I couldn't stop sticking our noses into them. The washroom was quite small but clean. Our meals came out 45 minutes after ordering but were delicious! The goat cheese complimented the salmon extraordinarily well; I was surprised at myself that I've never tried this type of pairing before. The rest of my table also expressed like for their meals. I was a bit disappointed though with the bland salad on the side. Although the leaves were all very rich in color, the dressing was nothing special.
The total bill for the two of us was $35. Even though the service wasn't the best, I would still give this place four stars, for the effort put in by the server in doing her gosh darn best, for the amazing food, for the ambiance and for the general feel of the place.
A definite place to return to, but perhaps a bit earlier next time. -
Review from ritchie c.
Toronto, ON
6/3/2010
Cute little place hidden away among houses and apartment buildings. Spacey waitresses that don't remember what you ordered and take forever bringing things to you, but that seemingly felt just right at a place like this. We didn't mind so much cuz it was such a beautiful day sitting on their patio watching the local residences do their Sunday thing was relaxing.
Food was pretty good. Ordered the poached eggs on smoked salmon and english muffin with chipotle hollandaise. Served with an arugula side salad. Nothing really special and I didn't "mmmmmm" my first bite, but I wasn't disappointed either.
Coffee could've been better, tasted pretty watered down. Pretty happy I discovered this place, it's incredibly serene and peaceful all tucked away and all. -
Review from Dardana M.
ON
1/30/2009
What a terrific little hidden gem this place is. Hidden from the view of the main streets, that is. Cuz the people seem to know about it, cuz I have heard them talking about it.
I happen to live right off of Dovercourt, and thus walk down this street all the time. I'm not sure how long these guys have been here, but I think I've been missing them for awhile. The service was very pleasant, and the coffee delicious. I'm not sure if I just picked a good time to go, but I had my choice of tables, by the window!, and a nice quiet (but not too quiet) moment in the day to enjoy my sandwich and free weekly Toronto-culture newspaper.
And the sandwich really was excellent. I loved it; grilled, free-range chicken breast, arugula, sun-dried tomatoes, roasted red peppers and goat's cheese. I feared that the combination might be a little too familiar, since I eat some combination of these ingredients on an almost daily basis. But they managed to make it somehow taste a bit more interesting than I was expecting. I think it was some kind of magical mayonnaise or something. Pretty basic oil and vinegar on the salad wasn't exactly a revelation, but everything I eat doesn't need to be. Sometimes it's just good. -
Review from Kat F.
2/11/2009 1 photo
This tiny cafe is tucked away in a residential neighbourhood just north of Queen Street - it's so remote that you'd almost think you were heading along on the wrong street because it's amongst apartment complexes and houses. It's small and seats only about 30 people so make sure you don't wait till the prime hour of 11:30-12:30 to get your weekend brunch or you'll be waiting a while to get a seat.
Everyone at my table ordered pretty much the same thing - a grilled breakfast wrap with eggs and beans for fillings and there wasn't a single crumb remaining on any of our plates! -
Review from Connie T.
Toronto, ON
1/25/2009
The one thing I love about the UK is having corner pubs/fish + chip shops interspersed in residential communities. It makes me feel all warm and cuddly.
In Toronto, my comfort blanket is Luna, a cafe on a quiet residential corner in Beaconsfield. It's one of my favourite backwater cafes in the city: dark, cozy, and attracts local freelancer types and older locals who just want a good lunch. Definitely a great place to go for a good bagel sandwich and early afternoon drink if I'm in the neighbourhood.
But just as much as their location makes them cool, it also makes it easy to forget about them, too. Guess I gotta move. -
Review from Jeremy P.
Toronto, ON
3/6/2010
This morning, my girlfriend and I tried out the Luna Cafe for the first time. We had walked by this unassuming outfit on a number of occasions and were always curious about what this place was all about.
We arrived at around 10am, and the place was already humming with activity. Luckily, we arrived just in advance of the Saturday morning breakfast rush and were able to secure a table by the door (lucky for me it was a warm day as I was not too bothered by the draft created by the constant flow of traffic through the door). Note: there are only ten tables in the restaurant, with enough capacity for around 30 people, so be prepared to wait if you arrive at a sub-optimal time.
For our meal I chose the buttermilk pancakes with caramelized fruit topped with plain yogurt for $9.75. It was garnished with sprinkled cinnamon and maple syrup. I also had a small fruit smoothie for $3.50.
My girlfriend went with the breakfast wrap with egg, avocado, brie, dill and sun-dried tomato pesto sauce. It came with a side salad with a vinaigrette dressing. It cost around $12.95.
Things we liked:
#1 - the food. Ever have one of those OMG moments when your taste buds first make contact with the food? This was one of them. I polished off my meal in 5 minutes flat.
#2 - the bottomless cup of coffee.
#3 - the friendly table service. Our waitress did a splendid job of explaining to us what was available for breakfast and apologized for the long wait for our food.
#4 - the decor. I quite enjoyed looking at the old fashioned Pepsi logos and some of the artwork hanging on the walls.
Things we didn't like:
#1 - don't wear your Sunday best. One of my pet peeves are the times where you go somewhere that has poor ventilation and you end up taking the smell of the restaurant with you. The Luna Cafe is a small space, and likely hasn't been renovated in many decades, thus upon leaving the cafe we noticed that our clothing had a distinct greasy smell.
#2 - on the morning of our visit, the cafe was short staffed (I counted 4 people on staff), thus it took quite some time for our food to arrive. Good thing we were not in a rush. One thing this place is not, is a short order cafe.
#3 - if you are hard of hearing, despite the fact that the cafe is rather small, it got quite noisy, thus it could be quite difficult for the hard of hearing to have an in depth table conversation. Also noteworthy was the fact that the smoke detector went off for a few seconds (this is something that one would rarely experience in a more professional setting).
#4 - they did not have any skim milk available for coffee.
#5 - another thing to note is that while we arrived on foot, for those arriving from a fair distance, the only parking option available is street parking. Note that Dovercourt is quite a busy street, so finding a spot on the street may not be that easy.
Given all of the above comments, I am giving the Luna Cafe a 4 star rating, and would recommend this to anyone visiting the Queen & Dovercourt area. -
Review from Erin B.
6/10/2010
Cute little place on a primarily residential section of dovercourt. Small patio out front that has lots of trees for company. I ate some of breakfast burrito that was quite yummy. Service was average, which means I had to ask twice for a few things and waited ages both to order and to get the bill, but the server was pleasant enough.
