Bistro Bohem has been planning to move into the space next door since its opening this spring, but the expansion has been delayed by permitting red tape. A requisite third bathroom has been built, and bar manager Mark Reyburn says the Shaw restaurant should debut its occupancy-doubling new room within the next two weeks and certainly by August.
The addition will function as a cafe by day—opening at 6 AM and offering coffee, tea, and espresso drinks from Viennese producer Julius Meinl. Staffers will serve pastries, cakes, and open-face sandwiches with ingredients that include cucumber, hard-boiled eggs, and tomato. In the evening, the room will become a formal dining room; Reyburn says the restaurant will create bistro-style specials invented around fresh ingredients along with the staple dishes on the current menu. The coffee bar will be converted into a pastry station in the evening where he and fellow Bohemers Jarek Mika and Rubin Jurek will make fancy Czech desserts, something they have been hitherto unable to do thanks to tight kitchen quarters.
Reyburn adds that there are some new summer cocktails on his list of “old-school drinks with an Eastern European twist.” Look out for a Becherovka sour that also features an oat-based unaged whiskey and a cocktail made with Slivovitz, a potent pear brandy.
