When celebrities come to Toronto, people might imagine them settling into the private dining rooms at the Ritz-Carlton, surrounded by fine linens and expensive wines.
That certainly happens. But there’s another year-round celebrity hotspot at the heart of TIFF: a perpetually busy, windowless basement restaurant modelled after a bohemian town in northern Thailand.
There’s no dress code, tablecloths or wine pairings — just plates of pad Thai and bowls of khao soi where the golden coconut curry can splatter everywhere when you slurp the noodles.
Torontonians have long known PAI Northern Kitchen in the Entertainment District, where many have been eating chef Nuit Regular’s khao soi since she opened her first SukhoTHAI in Regent Park nearly 20 years ago. Increasingly, so have A-listers looking for an unfussy, comforting meal with more flavour than what an on-set caterer or sports nutritionist might typically offer.
Stars, they’re just like us.
”Guillermo Del Toro was brought here by M. Night Shyamalan, and then Guillermo brought Jacob Elordi and Mia Goth from ‘Frankenstein,’” said PAI co-owner and Nuit’s husband, Jeff Regular, as he scrolled through PAI’s celebrity-filled Instagram feed, trying to recall who had dined there.
During that same dinner with the “Frankenstein” cast, director David Cronenberg was also there, along with David Bradley from “Game of Thrones.” A month later, “Frankenstein” co-star Oscar Isaac was at Pai’s nearby sister restaurant, Kiin, having Nuit’s tasting menu, around the time the movie was filming in Toronto.
More recently, Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan were at Kiin, while in town for FAN EXPO Canada at the end of August.
PAI isn’t chasing famous diners. Its celebrity clientele has grown organically, through word of mouth.
Ahead of this year’s festival, PAI has already received requests to host private dinners. For everyone else, there’s a free bag of tom yum-spiced popcorn with a TIFF screening ticket for the same day.
Kiin is also offering a $99 prix fixe menu with a glass of Prosecco during the festival, a promo that’s more in line with the ”People’s Festival” than, say, Lai Wah Heen’s more headline-grabbing TIFF offering of an $8,888 five-course dinner (with the option to add a $3,888 bottle of wine).
At PAI, there’s no official procedure for a celebrity visit.
Sometimes they’ll just walk in, as Eric Roberts did months after PAI first opened in 2014. Other times, a representative makes a reservation on a client’s behalf. The restaurant’s only request, Jeff said, is to give them more than a five-minute warning.
Some celebrities are perfectly happy sitting in the main dining room with everyone else. Others request a quiet corner or a private room.
“The restaurant is busy and it’s huge,” Regular said. “Any given time we have more than 20 front of house staff that ranges from 17 to 50 (in age) and everyone has their own eras (of pop culture knowledge) and recognizes different people, so we have a wide array of eyes for athletes, comedians, actors, singers,” he said.
A manager will usually stop by the table to make sure the meal is going well.
“If they seem up for it, we might extend the conversation, and if they seem happy to take a photo, then we ask for one,” he said. “If there’s any doubt, we leave them alone and give them the same service like any diner. There are a few where it’s clear they want to be left alone, so we do that.”
That low-key approach is one part of the appeal, but of course there’s also the food. Thai cooking hits all the right notes of sweet, salty, spicy and sour, and Nuit believes explaining her relationship with the dishes gives people in the storytelling business another way into the food.
“It’s the story of the khao soi and the northern food that I grew up eating,” she said. “It just makes the dishes connect to them, instead of just dropping off the food and not knowing where it comes from.” Though the food is good enough on its own for Jason Momoa to order delivery for pad gra pow while dining rooms were shut down in 2021.
Nuit also remembers a long conversation about Thai food with Francis Ford Coppola. “I was surprised listening to him talk about green curry,” she said. “He travelled a lot and the way that he talked, he was kind of a foodie and liked spicy food. I was worried he was going to choke on my food, but no. He ordered the green curry and we talked about tom kha gai, and it’s like, wow he knows his food.”
The only time PAI actively tried to coax celebrities in the door was when it first opened. Jeff, a diehard Raptors fan, named cocktails after players. Jonas Valanciunas was the first to come in, leading to PAI doing catering for the rest of the team (as well as visiting NBA teams).
Years later, the restaurant has accumulated enough famous diners to fill an entire wall.
As Jeff heads to the main doors to welcome a line of about 50 diners waiting for a 4 p.m. dinner on a rainy Monday, he points to the collage near the entrance: more than 100 framed photos of actors, directors, athletes, singers and influencers smiling for the camera.
But none of the diners waiting in line stop to look at it.
They walk straight past the wall and into the dining room.
After all, for the people who come to PAI, the real draw is the food.
