New Eats: The Abbey

West Pender’s new tavern, The Abbey, is excellent.

The latest opening by the team behind the Sardine Can and La Buca, the eatery is a foray into pub-inspired dining—hearty meals still feel light and elegantly detail-oriented. A salad of heirloom tomatoes on special ($9) was savoury and bright, with fresh tomatoes set off by fennel compote and herbed mascarpone. Mushrooms on toast ($14)—one of the chef’s signature dishes—is a divine mix of chanterelles, oyster mushrooms, enoki and more on a hot, buttered slice slathered with lamb gravy. Lancashire Hotpot ($22.50) sees tender lamb ensconced in a topping of scalloped potatoes for an upscale take on shepherd’s pie.

For dessert: a sour cherry-topped peanut butter chocolate pie ($7) that tasted like a wedge of the universe’s classiest Reese’s Cup. Delicious food is matched by kind, attentive service (the sort that replaces your pineapple-cayenne-tequila ($10) with a Fat Tug IPA without treating you like the little baby you feel like you’re being).

All in all, we’d qualify it as a religious experience. —Adrienne Matei