Raca Cafe and Bar

«Welcome to my home, I am going to cook you my favourite dishes»: Chef Ivana Raca
How can a night with a welcome like that go badly? It cannot and it did not.
Suk and I were lucky enough to catch a table at Raca during a recent U-​Feast event.
Due to the U-​Feast concept, our menu was set, which is often a peeve of mine. It certainly was not this time around because most courses were exactly what we would have ordered anyway.
Oysters Rockafella: ⁵⁄₅ my favourite of the evening. Suks rating 4/​5, he thought is was too salty which is redic bc he loves salt and I don’t like overly salted things so maybe he had a bad plate bc mine were joy worthy
Piri Piri shrimp: solid ⁵⁄₅ from both Suk and I.
Spicy Beef Tartar 4.5÷5. The temp of my plate wasn’t ideal, which is likely due to pumping out 35 plates at the same time due to the event style of the dinner. Note for Raca, portions of this were maybe too large. The flavours were amazing but do to the richness, could have done with a third less. Just one persons opinion.
Tomato Nut Pesto Orrechiette: ⁵⁄₅ Who serves bread with pasta? This place. Who loves bread served with pasta? This lady. This was a fantastic dish. Pasta and bread was cooked perfectly and the sauce, the sauce was the real star. I would eat this dish every day.
Braised Shortribs with Scalloped potatoes: ²⁄₅ After such a stellar showing from every other course perhaps my expectations for this dish were too high. I didn’t enjoy this dish, nor did Suk. Perhaps we pissed off our server somehow or were seated in the wrong spot for a group dinner style of delivery, regardless of the reason, both Suk and my shortribs were mostly fat. This dish was a big fail for us both.
Net of it all, we respect and enjoyed Raca and I personally love the full female kitchen. Our overall experience is skewed due to attending an «event» style dinner and although our last main was disappointing, everything else was wonderful.
When someone welcomes you into their life and illustrates their love through food, it shows. Chef Ivana and her team do this and deserve each and every praise they receive.

Lovely intimate place. Great service and chef on point. Focaccia is out of this world so be careful not to fill up. Really enjoyed the confit tomatoes and risotto appetizers which are quite generous. Short ribs and gnocchi mains were delicious.

Cute brunch place. The food is decent, prices are too high for a place like this. But then to have food ingredients, you will have to pay.
The chef is talented and I would recommend to try this place. Smoothies are amazing

Amazing breakfast. Unique and great place for brunch. Croissant salmon egg was delicious.

My husband and I made a return visit to Raca with my daughter and son-​in-​law last night to share with them some of Chef Ivana’s superb food offerings. My only regret is that none of us took any photographs! My daughter commented «This is the kind of food everyone wants». Forget the chemistry and dollops of foam. Ivana’s food is satisfying on all levels and is created with the utmost care in the tiniest of kitchens. We ate gnocchi, beets, burrata and a kale salad followed by seafood spaghetti, scallops and trout all cooked to perfection and served in just the right sized portions. We shared the Brownie with caramelized banana and Pavlova. Smiling and fully satiated we thanked all for a wonderful evening. Next time I have to take that picture before immersing myself in the taste treat.

I will echo another reviewer here: great food but a little pricey. Had the Panko egg croissant with homemade hollandaise which was delicious. Could’ve been a bigger portion, but also glad the plate wasn’t glutted with greasy home fries. One sour note: coffee was extremely bitter.

Great service, nice décor, delicious well made pasta dishes and cocktails. The bread they give you to start was the best I’ve had. Still thinking about it! Prices on the higher side, could be reconsidered.

We went here for a special «Buddha’s Bounty» dinner, so my experience may be different than other diners.
The ambience was cozy and inviting, and it was enjoyable to see Chef Raca work her magic right in front of our table.
The 5-​courses that we had were inspired by her travels to the Far East, including Vegetable Pakora, Thai Seafood Green Curry, Beef Satay, Nasi Goreng and Forbidden Rice Pudding. I’m a huge fan of savoury food, but surprisingly, my favourite dish of the evening was the Pudding — it was simply delicious and I could easily have chowed down several more bowls. The Curry was also extremely flavourful. Even though it packed quite the heat punch (and I’m a self-​admitted Spice Wuss), we ordered additional bread loaves to soak up the remnants.
I’m curious to know how Chef Raca’s regular dishes stack up on normal evening. The menu seems a little «vanilla» compared to what we ate that night, so I may wait a few months until it changes.

Went to Raca the other night with friends and everything was delicious. We shared a few appetizers and I had the pasta with seafood. The waitress was very friendly and attentive. The prices are on the higher end but the quality is excellent. My only complaint would be that the washrooms could be nicer. I live in the area so I will be back with my husband.

Completely empty on Sunday at brunch time. I suspect this is because of the prices. Nice interior and good service. Food was decent but way to pricy and the options are not laid back enough for this relaxed hipster vibe neighbourhood.

I want to give this place a 4 on 5 because it actually kind of deserves it. Actually, I’m pretty sure that it will get tons of ratings higher than mine in the near future.
The thing about this spot is that it’s really cute. It has a pretty little patio in the back and the service is really attentive. Its brunch menu is original and interesting and appealing and all of that. I tried a few different things on it and it was pretty good. The coffee was yummy too.
But regrettably, I can’t give Raca a super duper rating because the truth is everything I tried (3 dishes in all) was just too damned salty. And I like salt, don’t get me wrong. But it was salty enough to kind of take away from how sophisticated the presentation and choice of ingredients was. I gave them honest feedback though so maybe they’ll be a little more careful about that going forward.
Also, and this is just my personal taste (note that I like rap music and obscure african pop and weird stuff like that) but I wasn’t really into the music they were playing at the time. But that’s just me.
I’ll probably give it a shot again in a few weeks because I have a feeling that they are just ironing out some little wrinkles (they just opened a few weeks ago) plus the space itself is really pretty and the girls who work there are awesome.