Lamb Shoulder
For the table, slow-cooked, pulled apart with a spoon. The dish to build the meal around.
Middle Eastern · Entertainment District
Byblos
Eastern Mediterranean sharing plates in a room built for a good night
Middle EasternEntertainment District, Toronto$$$Details being confirmed
The review
Byblos has been the default nice-dinner-downtown for long enough that its reliability gets overlooked. The cooking is Eastern Mediterranean in the broad sense — Turkish, Lebanese, Israeli — and the kitchen has the confidence not to explain itself.
Build the table around the lamb shoulder. Add the Turkish fried chicken, which is sweet, hot and improbably crisp, and get a za'atar flatbread out of the oven early so there is something to eat while you decide. The vegetarian half of the menu is not an afterthought, which is worth saying.
Honest notes: sharing plates here add up quickly and the portions are smaller than the prices imply. It gets loud once the bar fills. Come pre-theatre and you get the room at its best.
What to order
Turkish Fried Chicken
Sweet-hot and improbably crisp. Nobody leaves any.
Za’atar Flatbread
Straight from the oven. Order it first so it arrives before anything else.
What works
- Room and lighting do half the work
- Genuinely good vegetarian spread
- Strong pre-theatre location and timing
What doesn’t
- Sharing plates add up fast
- Loud once the bar fills
- Portions are smaller than the prices suggest
Verdict
Lamb shoulder, fried chicken, flatbread early. Go before the show, not after.