Toronto's Arcadian Court Restaurant
Famous Restaurant in Toronto Celebrates 80th Birthday
Mar 10, 2009
The Arcadian Court restaurant doesn’t flirt with passing food fads. Relying on tradition, it stands firm under the conviction that diners will always come home to a place that offers shiny marble floors and soft piano music - and it still serves the best chicken pot pie in Toronto.
Toronto Rivalry
The Arcadian Court was a product of the fierce but friendly rivalry between department stores Eaton’s and Simpson’s as they duked it out from opposing sides of Queen Street at Yonge. Eighty years later, the Arcadian Court survives, outliving both Eaton’s and Simpson's.
The 1920s were exciting years for Toronto’s 500,000 citizens: automobiles had claimed the streets, jazz clubs were proliferating, and city leaders, oblivious to the impending Depression, were brimming with optimism. The two stores were constantly wooing Toronto shoppers; when Eaton’s pledged “Goods Satisfactory or Money Refunded,” Simpson’s came back with “Satisfaction Guaranteed”; when Eaton’s announced plans for a new store at College and Yonge Streets, (complete with the much-hyped Round Room restaurant), it playfully offered its competitor property across the street. Simpson’s graciously declined but couldn’t ignore the threat of the lunch trade heading north of Queen Street.
On March 11, 1929, the Arcadian Court, with its 40-foot ceilings and dazzling pendant chandeliers, opened its doors – a year ahead of the Round Room. The Toronto Daily Star declared it a “a veritable fairyland of fantasy,” simultaneously describing it as Grecian (the architecture), Byzantine (the three domed skylights) and Florentine (the wrought-iron balustrades). Occupying Simpsons’ eighth and ninth floors, it set a record as the world’s largest restaurant in a department store and quickly became the hub of the social scene.
Toronto's Upper Class
People came at breakfast for prayer meetings, in the afternoon for tea dances and in the evening for high-society balls. They bought tickets for speaking engagements and book signings, headlined by such notables as Winston Churchill in 1932 and Eva Bouchard (the real Maria Chapdelaine) in 1941. While gentlemen enjoyed the clubby environs of The Men’s Grill on the mezzanine, unescorted ladies stayed below, in plumed hats and elbow-length gloves, filling row upon row of white-linened tables.
‘Eaton’s for the masses, Simpson’s for the classes’ went the saying. And legend has it that even Lady Eaton employed Arcadian Court’s catering for her swanky parties at the King estate (the story supposedly got out after a well-marked catering truck broke down in her driveway for all her guests to see).
Arcadian Court Today
Over the years, the room has seen many changes. The tables are fewer, the mezzanine is closed and the chandeliers have been replaced. But the aging patrons are no less genteel and the aura of old money lingers. Here, leisure is high art and is contagious; diners sinking back into cozy clamshell booths, sipping chardonnay and nibbling on the the venerable pot pie. Because, while the bow-tied gent at the piano plays “We’ll Meet Again”, it’s reassuring to believe that just maybe you will.
The Arcadian Court Restaurant , located at the Hudson Bay Company Flagship Store, is on the eighth floor of the Simpson's Tower at the corner of Queen and Bay Streets, just west of the Toronto Eaton Centre.
 |
 |
 |
