Bar Koyoi Restaurant North York

I passed by here while looking for a bar to watch the raptors game. While peering through the window, I saw how nice and modern this place looked so we decided to give it a try. It is SOOOO nice. I can’t begin to explain how clean and spotless the washroom looked, which really says a lot about a restaurant. There is a upstairs as well which is usually for bigger groups, but the owner let us stay there to play darts.
We ordered a pitcher of beer, and the owner came upstairs personally to tell us about their Monday pint special, saving us some money. Pints monday-​Wednesday is only $ 4.95. That was really kind of him, thanks! We have three TVs, one in front of the bar which is really good for watching the game. Only thing is that the chairs not at the bar is quite hard so it may be difficult to sit there for a long time. Bar chairs are super soft though. I am definitely coming back for the next game!

The place is clean compared to your average bar/​izakaya.
There isn’t anything spectacular about this place, their service is mediocre, although the owner is quite polite when he served us. He introduced himself personally to me, but other than that, there weren’t anything that stood out. We went on a thursday night around 630pm, and the place was quite empty.
We booked a table upstairs on the second floor, they have 2 dart machines up there so we took advantage of that. Throughout the 4 hours we were there, I would say 25% capacity was filled? The dart games are $ 1/​game per player. So if 4 people wanna play, that will be $ 4.
They only have Sapporo on draft, so we ordered a few pitchers of that. They were $ 18 per pitcher.
We only tried a few dishes of food, most of which were pretty good.
Mackerel was fresh and tasty.
Spicy fries tasted like Costco fries, bit too spicy for me but goes well w/​the beer.
If you ask, they might give you a bowl of chips or trail mix to snack on as well.
Unfortunately, they don’t have any specials, or at least I didn’t hear about any… that’s a bummer for me.

Sorry, but this is not my type of izakaya. One with a limited menu and a quiet atmosphere. I never even heard of this place until my bf suggested it.
We were the first customers to arrive at around 630ish, and the owner told us to seat ourselves. So we sat at the back, and the owner gave us the menus. I was surprised how little the menu had, I was expecting a bit more. They don’t have any yakitori or fried food like karaage so I had a hard time deciding what to get. In the end, we ordered three dishes — okonomiyaki, beef tataki (recommend) and the Japanese style poutine covered in Japanese curry and cheese with one piece of beef. We also drank sake, I forgot which brand but sake is not for me unfortunately. Food took a long time to come, not sure if they had maybe one or two kitchen staff on hand. The food is good but not the best.
Overall, if you like quiet and low-​key maybe you’ll like this place. Or perhaps a nice first date place? But I like izakayas that are full of people, have all the staff greeting you when you enter the restaurant and loud music playing. I just like that kind of vibe. Will I be back? Hmmm… I’ll pass.

I have mixed feelings about Bar Koyoi (now called Sake Bunker, which is strange because they are not in the basement and don’t have a downstairs section either).
The good: dark and chic atmosphere. Friendly and caring waitresses and bartender/​manager with one waitress ended up sitting to break bread and drink with her (by then former) customers! Motsunabe and oden are traditional Japanese fare and on the menu. They are well done too. Second floor has a dart game so they have tried something a little different.
The bad: too many fake or Western food items like pizza, French Fries and whathaveyou with a Japanese twist to give it that oh-​it-​is-​Japanese feeling. They also have the Toronto-​standard Korean items because naturally we found out the owner is Korean (but has a Japanese girlfriend). Also, do not sit in front of the door, which means half the first floor is uncomfortable to sit in, but again the waitresses and bartender are very attentive, caring and polite and try to accommodate or get the door closed as soon as possible (before you get pneumonia).
Oh, and do not expect a boisterous or exciting atmosphere like Guu or any Yakitori skewers there because they completely skip over the yakitoria portion of things.
This address is the second location of Koyoi if indeed they could be considered sisters since the marquee as mentioned is now Sake Bunker.

One of the best izakaya in North York. Food is very good and the service is nice. I like that this place is quite (music is not so loud and people are not screaming) compering to other japanese bars. Good for romantic date. Recommended.

One of my favorite places in Toronto. The curry is delicious, the atmosphere and service are great, and the darts game on the second floor is addictive. Dangerously so. ¹⁰⁄₁₀ Highly recommend.

What the hell happened to this place, the new menu sucks, the size of servings shrunk, and the quality of the food is über mediocre. Will not come anymore

Very nice eating environment and the food are quite nice. Very native Japanese style.

Good simple izakaya fare. The portions are small but the quality is there. Waitresses are attentive and is quiet here… which maybe is bad for them but it’s a good place that’s not too loud.

I love Koyoi at downtown area. But i m sorry that i have to gvie this location only a 2/2.5 stars.
We went on Tuesday nite and restaurant was very empty. We were the only group for th entire night.
The main reason i gave ²⁄₅ stars is becasue of the disappointed food.
1. food selection is really limited. You are not able to see any popular izakaya dishes on the menu. While Koyoi downtown has varialty type of deep fried chicken, here has none.
2. Most of food items are very western style instead of tranditional japanese izakaya flavour. Lots of cheese and honey muster sauce
3. Their onigiri is not as good as other izakaya as well.
Of course they do have some food that represents Japanese style such as scallops and the hotpot with veges and chicken.
I hope they can really improve their menu and food.

We love the downtown location (we visit it every once in a while) and were very excited to see the Koyoi name in North York when we drove past it the other day. We had to go give it a try!
It was a very early dinner on a Friday night, we arrived at the place just 15 minutes after 6pm. The place was pretty empty which made sense with the time and that I felt that it probably just opened in the last few weeks (or days?) or so.
The service was like what we would experience from the downtown store — got our water pretty quickly and they’d always refill without us even have to ask. (But then it wasn’t that busy at the time of course.) In fact, I think I recognized one of the waitresses to be from the downtown location.
Very much to our joy the menu was very similar (if not almost exactly the same) as the one downtown — they’ve got the koyoi salad, the beef tataki, spicy fries… and then we realized there wasn’t a «fried» section. This was a bit of a let down because we absolutely LOVE their karaage (japanese fried chicken), with lemon/​salt or with nanban-​style with tartar sauce. The waitress said they don’t have the fryers installed yet — so we really hope that’ll happen some time soon.
Other than that, the food tastes great, the same as what you’d get from the downtown store. There was only two of us so we didn’t eat a whole lot, just our regulars that I’ve mentioned above. We also had their okonomiyaki for the first time since we kind of lacked hot food without the fried stuff (and we didn’t feel like any rice or udon dishes). It was decent and had some seafood in it. I can’t really comment because I’ve only had this from the Okonomiyaki House downtown before.
They have a pretty good drinks menu with beer on tap, bottled beer, cocktails, sake, umeshu, chuhai, etc. Their 650ml Kirin price is the same as downtown and we love that.
All in all, although there wasn’t as many food options as the downtown store, I guess I could understand since they called this one «Bar Koyoi» instead of downtown’s «Restaurant & Bar». A pretty decent place for having some drinks. Would definitely visit again unless we happen to be downtown. Really hope they get those fryers!

Having heard great reviews about the downtown location, we decided to try the uptown location.
The place only had a handful of patrons on a Saturday evening with two waitresses, so service was quite good. Friendly too.
The food was moderate to delicious, but like any izakaya the portions are meant for snacking and group sharing so don’t go hungry. Prices are a tad high, not my kind of dining.
There didn’t seem to be any bbq’d skewers like traditional izakayas, so I was a bit disappointed. Seems to be a more urban and trendy version if what it should be. Should be bustling, happening place with affordable and tasty snacks to go with beer.
Won’t be going back.