First come the artists, then the restaurants, then Starbucks. So goes gentrification. We’ve seen it happen with Queen West, Leslieville and Ossington. And now Bloordale.

“Restaurants make a big difference to people deciding to move or invest,” says Adam Popper, an urban planner and City of Toronto policy developer.

He lives in Bloordale, Toronto’s latest neighbourhood on the cusp. Three restaurants of note — Karelia Kitchen , The Emerson and The Whippoorwill — have opened in the last four months, all in the grungy retail strip of Bloor St. W. between Lansdowne Ave. and Dufferin St.

Now, between the pawn shops and laundromats, you’ll find $10 craft cocktails and fresh-shucked oysters with champagne mignonette. The Coffee Time at Lansdowne may look grotty, but that doesn’t stop locals lining up next door for Whippoorwill’s Sunday brunch.

“Bloordale is rough around the edges in ways many other Toronto neighbourhoods aren’t. You’ll see soccer moms in their Lexus SUVs next to people who are jonesing,” says Greg J. Smith, a web designer who recorded the sounds of the area in 2010 and has observed it since.

What was a crime-plagued, working-class area — break-and-enter charges in the Dovercourt-Wallace-Emerson-Junction neighbourhood north of Bloor were among the highest in Toronto five years ago — has become a real-estate success story.

There’s access to transit, proximity to downtown and retail shopping. Semi-detached houses with good bones sell for $600,000. Fully detached Victorians houses fetch up to $1 million. And not just on desirable Margueretta St. or Wallace Ave. A customer at French-Filipino Janer’s Bakery (679 Lansdowne Ave.) boasts of buying her two-bedroom townhouse near Dupont St. and Lansdowne Ave. two years ago for $330,000 and listing it for $480,000 now.

So how did one of Toronto’s poorest neighbourhoods, with an average family income of $25,000 in the 2006 national census, get to 50-per-cent resale profits?

“Once the artists and galleries come, major investments follow,” says Popper, who last year led a Jane’s Walk tour of the neighbourhood.

In 2009, contemporary art gallery Mercer Union moved on to the Bloordale strip. The Toronto Free Gallery opened in 2008(will be closing soon)and Funktion Gallery (now closed) and Robert Kananaj Gallery .

The local business improvement association has also been working since 1976 to boost Bloor St. retailers after the Dufferin Mall and the subway sucked pedestrians away.

Association head Spiro Koumoudouros owns the House of Lancaster strip club. He’s also the landlord of two-year-old Ortolan (1211 Bloor St. W.).

Ortolan was the first hip restaurant to open in Bloordale, offering $11 glasses of ripe red Mencia and European farmhouse dishes with flair .

There were always restaurants in the area, beloved spots like the 22-year-old South Indian Dosa Mohal Restaurant (1262 Bloor St. W.) with its vegetarian curries and delicious coconut chutney.

Now, the second wave has arrived. The Whippoorwill (1285 Bloor St. W.) opened Nov. 11, serving updated comfort foods like a spot-on $9 caldo verde that must please local Portuguese residents.

“Bloordale is coming back to life. It went through a period where it lost its lustre but now people from the neighbourhood are opening restaurants that represent their communities,” says Whippoorwill chef and co-owner Tyler Cunningham. Co-owner Shawn Creamer lives around the corner.

The Emerson (1279 Bloor St. W.) also opened in November, trying a bit too hard, perhaps, by hanging bicycles on the wall for art and sending out a scattershot collection of side vegetables for $20.

Karelia Kitchen (1194 Bloor St. W.) is a friendly Scandinavian café with fetching open-faced sandwiches, ridiculously buttery cookies and some of the strongest French-press coffee in the city. (Sorry, nearby Haven Espresso Bar and Holy Oak Cafe .

“There’s a lot of stuff happening on our little stretch of Bloor,” laughs Donna Ashley, who with husband Leif Kravis opened Karelia Dec. 8.

They live just north of Bloor. “When we bought our house 15 years ago, our friends laughed at us and asked, ‘What are you doing?’ Even with the elements of sketch, it’s a good neighbourhood,” Ashley says.

Across from Karelia’s bright orange facade lies another harbinger: The Intergalactic Travel Authority (1165 Bloor St. W.), where since July each $3.75 latte helps fund communication workshops for local children in Grades 1 to 12.

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“Starbucks is coming,” predicts Popper.