erfectly situated to capture the young and the ravenous Roncesvalles crowd, this fluorescently lit wood-burning joint supplements typical diner fare with novelties like grilled chicken with skin-on fries, all-day breakfasts and wood-roasted pizza adorned with hefty amounts of cheese.

Giving the wood-burning oven trend a diner tweak, the Freshwood Grill has a very Rosedale Diner meets the Rivoli meets Wolfgang Puck vibe about it, meaning that it’s rife with a lot of classic Tweener Roncesvalles neighbourhood signifiers that offer a kind of comfort, a kind of overstuffed-couch security blanket in the never-ending restaurant cycle. But, as is so often the case, all you might be doing when you eat there is denying the inevitable with an overdose of the temporarily fashionable: the super-average breakfasts, the menu brimming with “wrap” sandwiches, like the highly agreeable roasted vegetable wrap.

The Freshwood Grill is the kind of place you should run to immediately and try, because the fare is worth the trek and there’s some fine-looking Roncesvallians filling the patio. Ultimately, what you find in a place like this, Smoke-Lover, is not the kind of repast that transports you to the Land of Taxidermied Marlins. From where I stand, and that’s pretty much precisely level with Technicolor diners, sooner or later you’re going to realize that our Freshwood Grill is only a brief pit stop along the way to deeper meaning. That its lovely four cheese pizza on wood-roasted flatbread, or a grilled radicchio salad with toasted walnuts and Gorgonzola, smoked in the same wood burning oven are only going to blind you from the setting solar inevitability for so long. That, in the end, it’s a kind of foodie funhouse peopled by locals who really like eating wood-roasted vegetable wraps at bistros. And that, even if that’s OK with you, it should never be the End All Be All.

At that point, you’ll either enjoy it and return with a bunch of girls all wearing brand new Miss Sixty Jeans, or you won’t, secretly suspicious that maybe what I’m trying to explain is that there’s some kind of mystery at work on this sunny strip of Roncesvalles. That, in fact, for years there was a suffering greasy spoon in this location that’s all but been erased by a thoughtful menu, a surprisingly fun dining room, not to mention sexy outdoor seating. But – day in, day out – that’s as close to a welcome upgrade as any of us ever gets. Order big, eat happy, and lie only as much as you can get away with. - A.J.