Dash to Comma

Comma Café offers a range of beverage offerings and brunch items through a takeout window and dine-in café on Barton Street. 

The Barton Village dining scene has a new addition attracting many positive reviews. The tastefully renovated space of Comma Café at 301 Barton St. E., steps away from the General Hospital, offers two experiences – a contemporary takeout window and a dine-in café. The takeout menu offers beverages to accompany breakfast offerings and hot sandos (think breakfast box or pork belly on a bun) as well as salad, soup and pastries. That menu overlaps a bit with the dine-in menu. Food items are termed as “brunch” and served until late afternoon.

The eclectic menu choices include a classic breakfast, a benny, a breakfast sandwich, shakshouka, French toast, steak and eggs, and avocado toast.

The Comma Classic is unique, combining a crispy potato cake and tossed greens with two eggs, double-smoked bacon, breakfast sausage and sourdough. The Open-faced Morning Sando serves up eggs, cheddar cheese, spicy mayo and mixed greens on a fresh croissant. Even the French toast has a twist, filling Hong Kong-style milk bread with black sesame paste.

Who’s behind all this? Stacey Chang, Phoebe Kuo and Alice Shih. All with Taiwanese backgrounds and graduates of hospitality studies, they met and became friends in Toronto. Kuo added culinary training with impressive internships at Toronto’s Ritz Carlton, Oakville’s 7 Enoteca and locally at RPM Bakehouse in Jordan and Burlington’s Pearle Hotel. 

Classic brunch-type beverages include pour-over coffee from Vancouver’s Nemesis Coffee (which you can order for home use as well). Prefer tea? The Ruby 18 Formosan black tea is a treasure and don’t take a pass on the herbal coffee cherry tea.

While “fusion” may be a passé term, it seems to perfectly describe the food and beverage wizardry of this creative trio. It must also be said that they have set the bar high when it comes to hospitality.