Bar Pompette

Toronto

The Canadian hot spot rewriting the rulebook

It can be easy to walk right past the understated Bar Pompette unless you glance in and notice this brightly lit room is full of people who are clearly happy to be exactly where they are, basking in the warmth that can only come from knowing you’re truly welcome. Since opening its doors in 2021, the bar has quickly earned a reputation as one of Toronto's hottest cocktail destinations, thanks to a stellar beverage programme and its rule-breaking style of service that has earned the bar the Michter's Art of Hospitality Award 2025.

Although known for its attention to detail and friendly team, there’s no house guide to hospitality lurking under the host stand at Bar Pompette. Even the often invoked ‘golden rule’ – treat guests as you’d like to be treated – holds no currency here. Instead, the team shares a deeply held conviction that it’s far more important to treat guests as they’d like to be treated. 

The bar's mangement, led by Hugo Togni and Simon Taggart, have made conscious efforts to educate its team on the differences between rules of service and hospitality. Robotic and formulaic touches, such as staff being required to smile at guests if they come within ten feet of a guest, have no place at Pompette. Instead, the bar excels on creating a holistic hospitality experience built from the ground up to individually service each guest that walks into the bar. 

Beyond attentive and trademark friendly Canadian service, Pompette's desire to ultimately give the people exactly what they best evidenced through its menu, which is designed with the guest experience in mind. The first two pages present an easy-to-understand overview of Bar Pompette’s five signature cocktails, which makes snap decisions easy for first-timers. Super-fans can go deeper into the list to try new things and everyone’s more than welcome to go off-book.

The cocktails themselves encourage repeat visitation, with an almost chef-level of simplicity and minimalism and food-first ingredients – think beetroot-infused mezcal and a martini made with dill-infused distillate and topped with an orb of dill oil instead of the classic green olive.

Now, in addition to locals, this destination bar gets the full gamut of libation-seeking guests, from first dates who are more interested in each other than the drinks menu to industry folks and the peak of the cocktail pinnacle: the super keen cocktail enthusiasts on a mission to learn more about the bar’s in-house ice programme.

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