irst of all, save yourself potential embarrassment: It's pronounced "pie-eeez," for those of us who didn't spend a semester abroad studying diaeresis. And come to think of it, this bar has a couple things in common with that cheeky foreign metaplasm: They both assert a certain exotic aesthetic, and they both can cause some confusion on your first read-through.

There's nothing particularly distinct about Päaeez on the outside, other than the clever brushed aluminum overhead logo. But on the inside, a dazzling nightspot with a sexy ambiance has risen from the carcass of the greeting card store that it once was. Päaeez, which means autumn in Turkish, is more streamlined than you’d imagine from the street.

Designed as an autumn retreat, Päaeez has a cosmopolitan look and feel. Distressed leather booths line one side of the room while white brushed leather ottoman-like seats and palm trees fill the back “drink lounge” area making it a great rainy-night bar.
"This lounge project was a year in the making," says owner Hamed Afshar. “We wanted to build not just another bar, but a room that we would want to hang out in again and again.”

And that they did; Precipice Studios - designers of Toronto’s SpaHa, the just-opened Lobby, and the New York Wallpaper* offices - are responsible for the Päaeez design, right down to the custom-made, stainless-steel light fixtures that hover over the front seating area.