Unique nightlife destinations are bringing back live entertainment in Toronto
Published October 23, 2026 at 2:52 pm
It’s tempting to say nightlife is teetering in Toronto, especially as a city that survived some of the longest pandemic lockdowns in the world.
However, many still believe nightlife has a shiny new future in Toronto, and that future rests in live entertainment that’s outside the box when it comes to clubbing.
Some of the people who share this sentiment are the founders of live piano bar Jean Darlene, who had the idea before lockdowns hit Toronto.
“I grew up singing jazz in high school musicals and always loved piano lounges, especially the ones that let you sing. I threw a few such singalong parties in the Piano Lounge of Toronto’s Casa Mendoza, a now long-gone hotel that was on Lakeshore Boulevard back when I owned a club called The Chelsea Room on Dundas between 2012 to 2018,” Fadi Hakim of Jean Darlene tells yourcitywithIN.
“I subsequently owned the Great Hall and currently am a partner at The Lakeview and The Haifa Room. I always kept the idea of a piano lounge in the back of my mind and the plan for The Jean Darlene Piano Room was finally hatched in 2018.”
Jean Darlene didn’t end up opening until 2022.
“Jean was a hit, bringing in audiences of all ages and genres,” says Hakim. “The need for something visceral after the lonely void of the epidemic was definitely a reason, and its popularity maintains as the audience for live music in Toronto grows exponentially. Literally music to my ears.”
“As operating partner at Jean, I was always amazed at how eclectic the crowd was. Young, old, of all walks of life, it didn’t matter. Strangers come together and sing at the top of their lungs with our unbelievable band and leave as friends, there literally is nothing like it,” Arie Dimant tells yourcitywithIN.
“Two of our favourite regulars, Ryan Kimel and Josh Marlowe, let us know that they’d be into anything we wanted to do next and that’s when I started looking for a space. I found a spot that was pretty much Toronto royalty.”
That spot was Pravda, a shuttered restaurant-club that operated in Toronto for almost 20 years.
“Pravda was a legend in Old Toronto. I was at the opening decades ago and I remember reading that it closed when Russia invaded Ukraine,” says Hakim. “It had great bones and we even joked about calling it ‘The Old Pravda’ because literally everyone we told about it knew where it was.”
The Jean Darlene team even decided to keep the same Pravda exterior and refurbish its stained glass Stolichnaya door for the team’s new club in the space: nightlife experience Darling Girl. It also comes equipped with a cheeky entryway, library space and bathrooms Hakim calls “Lynchian.”
One of his favourite things about Darling Girl is how much bigger it is than Jean Darlene, giving the team so much more room to play.
“I wondered what it would be like to sing on a stage with a full band, back-up singers, dancers, aerialists, bonkers lighting, the full monty,” says Hakim.
“It’s Jean Darlene on steroids. Two main stages, two side stages, three bars and even complimentary passed hors d’oeuvres for that perpetual cocktail party vibe. You are simply bombarded with the city’s best entertainment and if you’re into more than being a spectator, you can become a part of it.”
Dimant says it can be tough to be a place that does things differently from a traditional watering hole.
“One of the biggest challenges is that these aren’t conventional bars. We’re essentially operating a hospitality business and a live entertainment production simultaneously. On any given night, bartenders, servers, hosts, security and kitchen staff are working alongside musicians, singers, dancers, DJs, sound technicians and lighting technicians. All of those people need to operate as one team. In fact, a good deal of our staff get up to sing or dance at one point in the night,” says Dimant.
“We’re not particularly interested in just opening bars, rather creating places where nightlife, live music, performance, design food and beverage all intersect. It’s definitely the only way we like to go out anymore.”
Darling Girl is now open at 44 Wellington St. E., and you can find Jean Darlene near Dundas and Ossington.