The Painted Lady looks like it was uprooted right from pre-Katrina New Orleans. It's the brainchild of owners Nicky Potter and Sam Papatragiannis who came up with the idea for the bar when living there.

They wanted to open a place where all the hookers could mingle with regular folk (outside of the brothel I guess). 

It seemed the next best thing was a bar across from a former strip club on Ossington, and naming it after the infamous "painted ladies" of New Orleans.

Not to mention the practicality of it, as both Potter and Papatragiannis live above it and simply wanted a bar they would love to go to.

Inside the bar has dark-finished wood, a beautifully ornate bar stocked with nice scotch and tequila and a wall of around 50 or so paintings and photographs of various women. 

There's food here too. There's pulled-pork with original bbq sauce, the skewered Korean kabobs and white trash nachos (Fritos, homemade chilli and Cheez Whiz, which looks a lot better than it sounds).

The twelve taps offer a good assortment of Canadian craft beer as well as some staples and obscure euro imports. They even had a mixologist design an assortment of signature drinks, the most interesting being the Painted Pink Lady, with gin, brandy, lemon juice and frothed egg.