Scarlet Door Café

Matcha, croissants and a Fender on the wall

Two things carry this counter: matcha and buttery croissants, ordered together often enough to count as the house pairing. Scarlet Door is the coffee and pastry counter inside The Anndore House in Toronto, sitting between Constantine and the Crows Nest Barbershop and deliberately more casual than the hotel’s dining room next door. Specialty coffee drinks, baked goods and matcha are the whole of it. The branding leans Italian café bar rather than minimalist coffee lab, and the name nods to the neighbourhood’s checkered past.

A small room with more attitude than a lobby counter

The room is small, around thirty-three square metres, and holds about fifty people standing, which tells you what kind of visit it is built for: a quick bite, an informal meeting, a coffee on your own. It takes hotel guests and walk-ins from the street in equal measure, through the morning and the middle of the day. The look is where it separates itself, approachable but rebellious, with distressed type, a blindfolded courtesan wielding a Fender, and references to the punk and new wave scenes the area carried in the 1970s and 1980s.

Order matcha and a croissant

Start with the matcha and a croissant, the two items that come up again and again and the pairing the counter does best. Coffee is the alternative, and the matcha sits beside it as an equal rather than as a concession. Beyond those, the case is pastry-led, so the order stays simple: a drink, something baked, and a seat if one is going. It reads as a compact coffee, matcha and pastry counter with an Italian café bar influence, a mixed hotel and neighbourhood crowd, and a visual identity rooted in local music history.