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Posts with category ‘Hotel’

Put Out The Light

Posted on May 8, 2006

They say that being thrown out of a restaurant is a rite of passage for a critic; I’ve always hoped that someday it would happen to me. When the world-famous Rubino brothers bounced the National Post’s Jacob Richler from Luce soon after the restaurant opened (the feud reaching back to the early days of their other restaurant, Rain), I did feel a twinge of envy. Luce is off the lobby of the Hotel Le Germain and the Rubinos’ cast-iron contract meant they also provided room service to hotel guests, so Jacob cleverly booked a room, ordered various dishes and still wrote his piece. It was the talk of the town.

Seriously Though

Posted on June 5, 2006

Drought and deluge in a single week…Out there on the starting grid, the Toronto summer coughs and splutters and floods its engine. Just like the smokers who were unexpectedly given a heatwave-last-hurrah on Monday as sidewalk patios scurried to open, crowded with puffing punters flamboyant in shorts and Ts. A man was selling bottles of water on University Avenue. Hogtown goes from Aberdeen to Abu Dhabi in 60 seconds. Then Aberdeen again. The aliens at the controls had to be laughing as they turned the dial back to torrential rain this weekend. What the hell, we’re used to it. And it’s great for the rhubarb. I’ve had two crops out of the garden already this year, turning it all into syrup (2 cups chopped rhubarb, ½ cup sugar, 2 cups orange juice, ½ cup water, maybe some seeds from a vanilla pod, simmered to a pulp (15 minutes), strained, chilled, mixed with very cold gin in a ratio of 3 to 1 (favouring gin). Perfect last Tuesday, undrinkable in the rain).

In Pasta Veritas

Posted on July 10, 2006

To Studio Café on Thursday for an all-pasta dinner organized by Jim Savona of Brunello Imports in honour of Gianluigi Peduzzi, proprietor of the Rustichella d’Abruzzo pasta company. At the bus stop I realized the coins in my pocket were English not Canadian so I ended up walking, which gave me some time to reminisce. I’ve known Jim for 20 years —since I was a rookie food writer trying to think of story ideas that might interest editors and he was just starting his food and wine business, slogging around from restaurant to restaurant with sample products in the trunk of his car. We hit it off from the start. Around 1991, when the sudden recession meant very lean times for freelancers, my wife and I were forced to take drastic action, plucking our children out of school, renting out our house and setting off on a six-month road trip that carried us from London in a long meander through France, Germany, Austria, Italy and North Africa, researching and writing food and wine stories as we went. Jim furnished us with invaluable contacts in Italy, including an introduction to Gianluigi, whose gorgeous products, cleverly packaged in brown paper bags, were just arriving in Toronto.

Sail Away

Posted on August 8, 2006

A weekend I always look forward to is fast approaching—August 18,19 and 20— the annual tour of Niagara when David Lawrason and I squire our guests around some of the peninsula’s best restaurants and wineries, vineyards and farms. It’s very well organised and tremendous fun. We all meet at the Port Credit marina on the Friday morning, then spend an exhilarating four or five hours sailing across to Niagara-on-the-Lake in a flotilla of luxurious 46-foot Hunter yachts (an excellent opportunity for millionaire fantasies, pirate accents and semi-serious racing) courtesy of Angus Yachts. I always feel as if I’ve been on holiday for a week by the time we glide up the Niagara river to the private dock where a champagne reception helps us all get our land legs back. That night we host the winemakers’ dinner at the Prince of Wales hotel (everyone is staying there this year), where David introduces fascinating wines that are too rare and precious to make it onto LCBO shelves. The winemakers themselves are also there to discuss their offerings.

Tundra Lobsters

Posted on August 14, 2006

Attempting, perhaps, to ward off humanity’s cultural extinction, Sutter Home, the venerable Californian winery that gave the world Blush Zinfandel (Thank you. Thank you so very very much), has launched a new initiative that matches wines, recipes and books. To do so, they have partnered with publishers Harper Collins. I have the greatest respect for the team at Harper Collins Canada. They treated me royally when they launched A Matter of Taste (co-written with Lucy Waverman, out in paperback next month), and I have nothing but ground-kissing gratitude to offer to their marketing corps. But maybe Sutter Home isn’t quite the authoritative food-wine matchmaker one would wish for. The suggested pairing for the first book I checked—Bread Alone by Judith R. Hendricks (a novel about the emotional devastation of an abandoned trophy wife)—is Sutter Home Cabernet Sauvignon and “Oma’s Sugar Cakes." I would venture to suggest that Cabernet Sauvignon and sugar cakes might be an unorthodox match—perhaps even disastrous—but then again I haven’t read the novel. Maybe it provides a dazzling sensory bridge between dark, tannic austerity and saccharine gateaux. Harper Collins owns Tolkien’s works and I’m not sure that Elrond, Saruman and the other lads wouldn’t have favoured something a tad more sophisticated than sweet pink strawberry Zin. The company also publishes the dazzlingly brilliant, probably immortal novels of Patrick O’Brian. The protagonists, Aubrey and Maturin, have decidedly grown-up palates, favouring good quality Burgundy (the bottles with the yellow capsules) and such delicious Regency treats as shrub (rum infused with Sicilian lemons). Which reminds me that Hart Melvin, the genius behind the Gelato Fresco ice cream company, recently took time out from a family holiday in Italy to dash down to Palermo to ensure that his shipment of the suckably pungent fruit would arrive in Toronto in time for the end of the summer. Keep a weather eye out for G F’s fabulously aromatic Sicilian lemon sorbet, available in individual-sized squeeze-tubes.

Hello, Saylor

Posted on May 21, 2007

An unfulfilled ambition for the long weekend was to get out of the city, preferably to Bloomfield in Prince Edward County to check out a new café that opened there on May 19th. It’s called Saylor’s Café (274 Main St., 613-393-5387) and is rumoured to serve a particularly delicious soup of local asparagus, potato and roasted red onion. I have never met the two women who own and run the place—Marnie Woodrow and Eliza Clark —but I have been a longtime fan of Woodrow’s writing since I first read her book of short stories, In The Spice House. It sits on my small shelf of indispensible food writing and, like her online journal can be read and re-read for pleasure and inspiration.

The Mother of All Parties

Posted on January 14, 2008

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This blog post, dear reader, is essentially an invitation. An invitation to a three-day gastronomical extravaganza being held on February 7th, 8th and 9th right here in our own backyard. And since you have shown the impeccable taste and good sense to click on this blog, I am delighted to offer you a unique opportunity to take part in the culmination of this amazing weekend at a substantially discounted price.

Busy like bee

Posted on January 28, 2008

Quelle week, as they say in France—though of course one would always rather be busy and active at this age than morosely, motionlessly wealthy or monotonously toiling away for Matthew and Son. On Thursday, I played guinea pig for a series of new dishes chef Patrick Lin is introducing at the redesigned Senses—fascinating, innovative cuisine and exactly what we have patiently hoped to see from Lin since he came back from Hong Kong. The new menu kicks in once Winterlicious is over, so I’ll wait until then to share the experience in more detail.

Canadian Culinary Championships: The Grand Finale

Posted on February 11, 2008

Three intensely competitive nights, three very distinct occasions. On Thursday evening, the Canadian Culinary Championship began with the black box competition held in the teaching kitchens of George Brown College. We restricted numbers to 65 guests so that the seven chefs could work in relative ease with their sous-chefs, assisted by some of the talented students at the college. GBC maestro John Higgins and I had deliberately chosen challenging items for the black box: flank steak from the brilliant Ontario supplier Top Meadow Farms (who generously sponsored all the black box ingredients), two Georgian Bay whitefish, a celery root, a bag of Ontario peanuts, a honeycomb oozing honey and (the only ingredient from outside the province) a hand of green plantains. The chefs all obeyed the rules, creating two dishes that used every ingredient plus whatever they needed from a communal pantry, and delivered the plates to the judges within the allotted time.

Hail Susur. Hail and Farewell

Posted on April 1, 2008

Well, it’s finally happened. After, years of rumours, Susur Lee is going to New York. To Manhattan’s Lower East Side, to be precise, where he will be opening a new restaurant in a swish new boutique hotel from the renowned Thompson Group of swish new boutique hotel fame. “My kids are older now,” explains Susur. “They can fly down to see me on their own if they want.” Susur himself will be dividing his time between here and there, becoming something of a fixture with Porter, the ultra-comfy, super-convenient airline that flies out of the Toronto Island airport. He has not yet decided on a name for the new restaurant, which is scheduled to open for New York’s fashion week in September. And though he will be personally running the new place and cooking there, he intends to keep Lee going here in Toronto. Susur, next door, will close on May 31 and the great chef doesn’t yet know what he will do with the property. Meanwhile, we have an opportunity to bid farewell. From April 8 to 19, the menu will focus on white asparagus and “a wild seafood catch.” After that, the card will feature favourite and signature dishes from years gone by. It’s a good opportunity to stock up on Susur experiences, to be cherished and brought out for comparison the next time you’re in New York and find your way to the new restaurant. “A chef has to do new things, have new adventures,” says our Susur. He’s right. But I hope he comes back again some day.

Calling all chefs

Posted on May 6, 2008

Last year, the inaugural Luminato festival of “arts and creativity” was a tremendous success. In a few short weeks, the festival will again kindle the beacon of culture in Toronto, but with one major difference. This time, the art of gastronomy will be included. The event will be called One City, One Table. It takes place on Saturday, June 14, from noon to 9 p.m. in the Distillery District.

Chatto Bio Pic

James Chatto

James Chatto worked as a dishwasher, actor, waiter, bow tie salesman, choreen, bookseller, nanny, tennis coach, lounge singer, KFC truck driver (fired after 1 day), olive farmer and janitor before moving to Canada in 1987 and becoming a journalist. These days, he writes about food and restaurants for Toronto Life, about wine and spirits for Food & Drink and edits the menswear magazine, Harry. Two of his books are still in print: A Matter of Taste (co-written with Lucy Waverman) and The Greek For Love, a memoir of Corfu. James is married and has two delightful children.

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