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The Pair Up: Toronto’s Cry Baby Gallery & Zia’s Place

Jul. 05 2025

A sleek sipper and a soulful Italian supper in Brockton Village make for a great night out.

In food and drink pairing the common wisdom is that what grows together goes together. The same could be said of great neighbourhood haunts. In our new series, we’re showcasing Canadian bars and restaurants that sit just steps apart—ideal for a two-stop hop in one night.

While Toronto’s Ossington strip is a well-known food crawl, its quieter cousin to the west—Brockton Village—is becoming the next wave of destination dining. No other team captures Brockton’s budding charm like Rob Granicolo, Stephen Gouzopoulos, and Mike Gouzopoulos’ Cry Baby Gallery and the recently opened Zia’s Place from Madeleine Hayles, Edward Anderson, and Jess Maiorano.

“At both spots you get the full Dundas West experience with your neighbours behind the bar and in the kitchen,” says Granicolo. “And those neighbours love a lively atmosphere, fun music, and martinis.”

Start the night at Cry Baby Gallery, where a bright white-walled gallery entrance gives way to a dark, NYC-style lounge hidden in the back. The bar’s menu is just as intriguing as its discreet facade, with drinks that swing from tiki-adjacent cocktails to new spins on the classics, like their take on a dirty martini made with olive vodka, szechuan vermouth, black pepper tincture, and a splash of brine. “A gin martini with big juicy olives is the perfect appetizer before Zia’s,” says Hayles. For the peckish, Cry Baby offers a short list of tarali, pepperoncini, and cured sausage, too.

Photography: Rick O’Brien

Photography: Rick O’Brien

Later, shift tones with dinner at Zia’s Place, trading Cry Baby’s industrial cool for southern Italian warmth. The team personally rebuilt the space after a 2024 fire claimed the former Stop Restaurant, and the dining room is outfitted in Anderson’s curved woodwork and a vintage sensibility. Zia’s’ hand-rolled pastas, made by Pasta Forever, are the star of the menu, with dishes like a Calabrian pork shoulder ragu over fusilli al ferretto and Sardinian speciality “culurgiones,” a potato and pecorino stuffed pasta topped with peas swimming in golden butter.