Brandon Firla - October 2026
Canadian of the Month
Brandon Firla
Actor & Restaurateur
Bacchus Kitchen
You’re an actor and restaurateur, where and when did your love for food and performing begin?
First of all I want to thank you for selecting a native Albertan to be Canadian of the Month. Hopefully Alberta will still be part of Canada when this is published. To answer your food/performing question: it’s almost a chicken/egg scenario for me. I’ve had one foot in both worlds for so long now it’s hard to know what came first. As a kid I loved to be in the kitchen - I still have the first cookbook my Mom gave me when I was seven - which was also about the same time I caught the acting bug after being blessed with a very ambitious Music & Drama teacher at my elementary school in Calgary (shout out to Mrs Green!) Both passions grew and escalated from there and I got a lot more serious about both of them when I moved to Toronto in my 20s. I find that I get as much enjoyment out of telling the story behind a specific wine or dish as I do out of telling a story on stage or screen. The advantage of food & wine is that I don’t have to do a self-tape audition for potential customers. Oh wait - that’s not true. That’s what our Instagram posts are.
When did you move to LA?
After a few years of dropping in during pilot season (remember pilot season?) I officially moved to LA from Toronto in the fall of 2013. Upon arrival here, I immediately booked a recurring role on SUITS - which conveniently shot in Toronto.
Tell us about your place, Bacchus Kitchen & Wine Bar?
We opened in 2015 in Northeast Pasadena and quickly became a neighborhood institution, thanks largely in part to the following my biz partner Chef Claud Beltran had, having been a cook and business partner alongside Thomas Keller back in the day. We offer eclectic, seasonal menus and we change the wine list a lot - I even feature Canadian wines (don’t tell anyone that because I think they’re illegal now). But our live performances and wine events are our bread & butter. We host “dinner & show” jazz concerts, evocative of old-school supper clubs that frequently feature grammy-winning artists like bassist John Clayton & drummer Jeff Hamilton (who tour with Diana Krall and appear on most of her recordings #canadiancontent ). Our wine events include visits from wine industry folks from Santa Barbara, Paso and Napa, and we frequently bring in winemakers and aficionados from Italy and other old-world regions. We even have a monthly Wine Club! But it’s not as romantic as all that sounds. Operating a restaurant in LA is a challenge even in the best of times, and dining habits have changed so much in recent years. People are doing more takeaway and drinking less alcohol, the rise of GLP1s means people are ordering less when they do go out, inflation is making operating costs more expensive, and the downturn of local TV & Film production means local industry folks have less disposable income (if they haven’t moved out of state) and - oh yeah did I mention we lost ½ of our neighborhood in the Eaton Fire?
You are located near the Altadena fires, how did the fires affect your business?
Great segue. Let me put it this way: the immediate post-fire days made us long for the blissful days of COVID. It was (and continues to be) a struggle for us and all small businesses here. We’ve found a way to keep the lights on so far, but the scope and long-term scarring from this event is hard to comprehend, and unless you live in the vicinity and see the destruction and hear stories of people who are just moving back or rebuilding, it feels like it’s a blindspot for the rest of LA. This is a resilient community filled with great humans I’ve been lucky to get to know very well over the course of a decade and I have no doubt this neighborhood will rise again - just in time for AI to wipe us all out.
You have performances and dinner shows all the time, tell us about the Canadian Thanksgiving show coming up on Oct 12th?
I wanted to find a way to thank America for the tariffs and trade war we’re currently in, and the timing just felt right with Canadian Thanksgiving on the horizon. So I’ve assembled a stellar ensemble of expats (plus a couple of honourary Canadians) for a concert featuring songs by Canadian artists. It’s a good mix of tunes that have some cross-border appeal, and some lesser-known songs that are very specific to Canadians. I was also lucky to book a special appearance by the artist formerly known as Lake Ontario. We’ll be serving a Canadian Thanksgiving meal before the performance which will include Smoked Maple Turkey Breast, Kraft Dinner, and poutine. Canadians get a “dinner & show” discount: $55 instead of $65 with discount code ELBOWSUP. Show-only tickets are $30 with a 2-item minimum purchase. Click Here to book.
How else do you share your Canadian sensibilities to the locals during these fraught times?
To quote Bruce Cockburn (from a song we’ll be performing on Oct 12th): Nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight: Gotta kick at the darkness till it bleeds daylight. I just try to find light and levity, remaining cautiously optimistic that this chapter of history will soon be behind us. And I mostly look forward to the Canadian Heritage Minute that will be made about this time.