Victor restaurant - Toronto, Canada

When Canadian hoteliers, the Germain family, opened their boutique property on Mercer Street in 2003, it swiftly became Toronto’s heavyweight. After refreshing hotel rooms last year, attention turned this year to in-house restaurant-café-bar, Victor.

The remodelling was undertaken by the city’s own DesignAgency, which was tasked with giving Victor a hotel feel, without quashing its appeal to the 40,000 new residents expected to move into the neighbourhood in the coming years.

By extending remodelling to the lobby, a seamless link has been created with the restaurant, which reads as a contemporary brasserie – think leather banquettes, velvet couches, bronze accents, intricate tiling, locavore menu and eye-catching sculptural ceiling lighting – where the open-plan interior is carved subtly into zones through different lighting schemes. The rich palette of greys, teals and rich woods adds a distinct, understated deco elegance that is warm and intimate by night, but light and airy by day.