The neighbourhood east of High Park is in the grip of an explosion of fecundity. It’s a classic century-old Toronto area that sprawls on either side of Roncesvalles and encompasses the northern part of Parkdale as well as the more genteel streets that radiate out from the park’s urban forest.

New families have moved into this area in increasing numbers, and changed the demographics completely in a decade. It’s the sort of neighbourhood where you dodge strollers on the sidewalks, and no Volvo lacks at least one infant car seat.

Mathew Sutherland lives here, and on the way home from his Eglinton West bistro, he’d stop in at Idoru, a wine bar. Like so many locals, he was grateful when Idoru opened, but watched from his stool at the bar as the place slowly foundered. It would be a shame if the Roncesvalles strip lost one of the few restaurants that wasn’t a pub or bar, so late last summer he started talking to Amanda Ford, one of his former regulars who’d been working with him in his new catering business.

Ford spent 17 years as an investment banker before deciding it was time for a career change. She wanted to work in the food business, and was working in the Sutherland’s catering kitchen, just north of the High Park neighbourhood, when Sutherland started talking to her about taking over Idoru’s very prime location.

Fat Cat Wine Bar — named after Sutherland’s uptown bistro — opened last September, and initially Ford and Sutherland copied the former tenant’s lead. “We kind of went along with the wine bar idea,” Sutherland tells me, “but we were just sitting around and talking about it today, and we came to the conclusion that people were treating us more as a restaurant than just as a bar. We’re thinking of going more in that direction.

 

The wine bar-ification of the cozy Roncesvalles neighbourhood has entered its next evolutionary phase with the debut of the Fat Cat Wine Bar. Owned by Amanda Ford and chef Mathew Sutherland, who also has a bar of the same name at Avenue and Eglinton, it replaces the now-defunct Idoru Wine Bar.

"I live in the neighbourhood and I used to come here a lot," says Mr. Sutherland, who took over mid-September to turn his criticisms of Idoru into a new strategy -- a heartier approach to the spot's small-plates menu. During a two-week makeover, Ms. Ford added a shock of avocado green, took away bulky bar shelving, and hung black and white Roncy street photographs on the walls

Mr. Sutherland loves to mix local Eastern European-style ingredients and far-flung farm finds with a revolving list of Canadian, European, Australian and American vino (three-ounce glass, $4 to $6; six ounces, $7 to $11).

There are currently three categories in the ever-changing menu, priced at $7, $9 and $11. The first holds a brandade and a duck confit salad. The second includes a fennel-and-portobello salad with lemon and beef carpaccio. Heavier fall fare like braised rabbit and roasted Macedonian sausage runs to $11.

At the nearby catering kitchen, Mr. Sutherland is simmering ham hocks for a ragout, and marinating roosters in pinot noir for authentic coq au vin. "We drove 2½ hours yesterday to buy 30 roosters," he says.

He'll serve up the luscious French stew in wee cocotte cast-iron pots, along with three pinot noirs, including the one it's cooked with. News is already circulating among newfound Fat Cat friends. "There's a waiting list," Mr. Sutherland says. "I'll call you when it's ready."