Kusi

What is Kusi? Tucked away at 77 Grange Avenue where Chinatown meets Kensington Market, Kusi occupies a sleek adaptive-reuse space inside Squig Space, a redeveloped auto body shop shared with a ceramics studio and community hub. Founded by chef Keanu Francisco (an alumnus of Sara and Sunny's Chinese) alongside co-owner and creative director Rosa Wan, the dining room is the permanent evolution of their wildly popular roving supper club. The interior balances raw industrial architectural bones with warm Baltic birch millwork, porcelain tiling, and flexible seating built for intimate, communal dining.

Kusi Menu & What to Order The kitchen spotlights regional Filipino cooking that expands far beyond common metropolitan staples, delivering deeply layered, shared-plate dinners. The undeniable highlight is the hipon alavar—crisp shell-on prawns coated in a luxurious, umami-rich crab-fat curry—alongside piaparan na manok, a fragrant Mindanao coconut-braised chicken. Francisco's technique-driven approach also introduces creative vegetable sides and seasonal dishes inspired by regional archipelago recipes. Pair the meal with Filipino pantry-inspired cocktails highlighting ingredients like calamansi and pandan, or choose from a focused list of low-intervention wines and local craft beers.

Know Before You Go Given the massive following carried over from Kusi's supper club era, table reservations are strongly recommended as soon as bookings drop, though limited bar seats are held for prompt walk-ins. Dinner service runs Thursday through Sunday evenings, while the daytime space occasionally hosts creative programming and café pop-ups. Street parking on narrow Grange Avenue is sparse, making the 505 Dundas or 510 Spadina streetcars the easiest way to arrive.