Bellis is the chic, sleek, in-house restaurant at Toronto's Nomas Hotel, but in the months since it opened, it's scored standalone status.

Chef Attila Baksa, who formerly worked in notable Toronto kitchens like 915 Dupont and Guu Izakaya, was tapped for the project by Nomas founders Jeffrey Chu (915 Dupont, Tebasaki Wing House) and Jerry Tsang to craft a cafe-by-day, resto-bar-by-night concept in the hotel's cozy ground-floor space.

With the restaurant almost immediately becoming an Annex staple for girls' nights, celebratory dinners and after-work cocktails, it's safe to say he filled the order.

Named after a flower that changes from day to night, Bellis the restaurant takes on the same approach. From 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., Bellis brews up a standard selection of coffee (and non-coffee, like matcha or houjicha lattes) beverages and pastries, but the real magic happens after 5 p.m.

For dinner service, Bellis transforms into a cocktail bar and Japanese-Italian restaurant, serving up unique dishes straight from Baksa's imagination and nearly a decade of experience working in Japanese cuisine.

The reason for nearly every dish's — every ingredient's — inclusion on the menu is simply because Baksa loves it, and he wants other people to love it, too.

The Bellis Bites Three Kinds ($12) is the perfect introductory bite to prime your palate for what's to come. The snack sampler plate comes with zippy ginger ponzu-marinated tomato, umami-loaded dashi olives and a generous scoop of miso-garlic potato salad.

The tuna tartare ($22), a perennial night-out staple, is as tasty as it is photo-worthy.

Dressed in a style more closely related to steak tartare than the typical tuna, it's served with cornichons, capers and shibazuke, with harissa mayo and a thick layer of tobiko. On the side, a golden pile of parmesan-crusted shokupan is there for scooping.

The wagyu carpaccio ($32) is a real point of pride for Baksa, and rightfully so. Here, A5 Miyazaki beef is dressed with sashimi-seasoned soy sauce and topped with a veritable Jackson Pollock of touches: shiso, basil, arugula, Grana Padano, and crispy shallot.

On its face, it sounds like a lot, but a single featherlight bite will prove to you why each element deserves a spot atop the wagyu.

The Bellis rigatoni ($26) has become the undisputed poster child of the restaurant since it opened in March 2026, and after one bite, I get it.

Using handmade pasta from the nearby Tiny Market Co., each al dente bite is as approachable as your standard rigatoni-red sauce situation, but the addition of hatcho miso deepens the flavour considerably, giving it an extra edge that's hard to place but would be easily missed without it.

Baksa's rationale behind the uni cream linguine ($28) is simple: "I love a creamy cheese sauce, and uni is delicious, but a lot of people are scared because it seems scary."

His approach? Mix uni — better known to pearl-clutching Westerners as sea urchin — into the most crowd-pleasing of Italian dishes, top it with a pretty dollop of tobiko, and convert the masses.

No hate to the rigatoni, and let the record show, I think you should order both, but if you could only choose one pasta on the menu, I'd recommend this one. Silky and creamy with that unmistakable uni punch, it's equally pleasing to those eating uni for the first time and die-hard fans alike.

The cocktails play just as keenly into the flavours of Japanese and Italian cuisine as the dishes do.

Coffee & Cigarettes ($22), Bellis' loose interpretation of an espresso martini, is rich with black sesame syrup, which plays nicely with orange curaçao and rum. A pair of faux cigarettes (made from Pocky sticks) comes as a garnish.

For those who prefer a lighter sip, the caprese fizz ($19) is a can't-miss. Pleasantly, though not sickly, sweet with an unmistakable hit of basil, I'm inclined to describe it as a garden party in a glass, but with how many I think I'd be able to crush in a single sitting, it might be better to associate it with something a touch less classy.

Ever since the demolition of Honest Ed's, the Annex — particularly in the area of Bloor and Bathurst — has been in a state of flux. While some old standards prevail, newcomers are also flocking to its smattering of vacant storefronts.

Welcome or not, the neighbourhood is on the brink of some serious change. Bellis is proof that at least some of that change can be a really, really good thing.

Bellis is located at 561 Bloor St. W.