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The comprehensive index of every blog post, magazine story and restaurant review that appears on Torontolife.com
Patrick Kriss at Splendido’s pass (Image: Renée Suen)
If you haven’t heard a lot about Patrick Kriss yet, you will soon. Owners Scott and Lindsay Selland have revealed to Torontolife.com that Kriss will be stepping into the role of chef de cuisine at Acadia when Matt Blondin departs for Momofuku Daisho at the end of the month.
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This meal is best enjoyed picnic-style (Image: Renée Suen)
Black Camel’s small menu might offer only five sammies and a couple sides; nonetheless, this Rosedale sandwich bar is practically a neighbourhood institution.
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Carl Heinrich at the wood-burning stove
Although we’ve been watching his progress as a contender on season two of Top Chef Canada, we haven’t heard much from Carl Heinrich since his February announcement that he was leaving his gig as head chef at Marben along with his culinary partner in crime Ryan Donovan. And while Donovan has teased followers with cryptic messages about the location of their new project, we recently got confirmation that something is indeed in the pipeline. Heinrich told us that he and Donovan will be opening up a restaurant in late July, where they’ll serve farm-to-table cuisine full of quality local ingredients and prepared with the classic technique the pair is known for. In the meantime, both Heinrich and Donovan have been busy working with West Side Beef and on various side projects. To get a taste of what diners will be in for, Heinrich invited us up to the Kolapore Springs fish hatchery near Collingwood, where he prepared a preview meal. Read the rest of this entry »
Kevin Gilmour (sous chef at The Drake Hotel) was assisted by his crew at this pork carving station. Hunks of roasted pork were served over a peanut-ginger slaw (Image: Renée Suen)
Last week, 500 members or so of Canada’s food and hospitality industry gathered for Terroir VI at the newly renovated Arcadian Court. The theme for this year’s symposium was “The New Radicals,” a new generation of chefs that have a collaborative and unconventional approach to cuisine despite their conventional training. Symposium chair Arlene Stein had arranged a line up of the industry’s finest from Canada and abroad, assembled on panels featuring restaurateurs, writers and chefs from the old and new vanguard—most attendees agreed this year’s crop was the best yet (before the event we spoke to Australian chef Ben Shewry, as well as sustainable aquaculture champion Barton Seaver and natural wine advocate Alice Feiring.).
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Steve Gonzalez and Daniel Hadida, on the ends, joined chefs Daniel Burns and Jason Carter in the kitchen (Image: Renée Suen)
This weekend, 90 diners gathered over three nights at Mitzi’s on College for one of this year’s most highly anticipated dinners: a collaboration between chefs Daniel Burns (Momofuku’s food lab, Noma, The Fat Duck and St. John) and Jason Carter (Centro, Lee), both currently between jobs. Those fortunate enough to snag a seat were treated to a $100 five-course menu with wine pairings, along with some snacks to start things off.
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(Image: Renée Suen)
The latest addition to the downtown grab-and-go market is housed in a new condo building built on what was once the rundown Bay Street Motel. Although dine-in options include four hot-pressed sandwiches, many instead head to the back refrigeration case for the freshly made and cardboard-packaged wedge sammies.
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Landscape chef Michael Stadtländer with landscape artist Jean Paul Ganem at The Circle installation (Image: Renée Suen)
While the city doesn’t want for food-meets-art parties, an upcoming collaborative effort at Eigensinn Farm scheduled for later this summer looks like it will eclipse them all: renowned French landscape artist Jean Paul Ganem and pioneering back-to-the-land chef Michael Stadtländer will be working together to stimulate both mind and palate with The Singhampton Project.
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Each year, some of the food industry’s most influential minds descend upon Toronto to speak at the Terroir symposium, which takes place today. We had the chance to speak with three of the event’s speakers. On Friday, we brought you a Q&A with chef Ben Shewry. Today, we present five things each that we learned from talking to sustainable seafood champion Barton Seaver and natural wine advocate Alice Feiring.
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Ben Shewry, executive chef of Melbourne’s Attica (one of Australia’s top restaurants and number 53 on the S. Pellegrino best restaurant’s list), will be in Toronto next week to speak at Terroir, the annual hospitality industry symposium. One of the world’s most innovative chefs, Shewry draws from his varied experiences and childhood memories of New Zealand to build a menu that uses distinctive, eclectic ingredients in a country that doesn’t have a strong culinary heritage. Sherwy is also no stranger to Canada—the chef has travelled throughout the country and has a grandmother from Peterborough. We recently spoke with The Age Good Food Guide’s Chef of the Year 2011 about the stories he tries to tell through his cuisine.
A fine spread (Image: Renée Suen)
In the pantheon of Toronto dim sum restaurants, Bay Street’s Crown Princess is decidedly among the more refined options. The cushy room hums with activity as groups dig into small plates chosen from a checklist of fanciful twists on conventional dishes.
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All aboard (Image: Renée Suen)
April 15 marks the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, and Titanic-mania has become pretty much unavoidable: there’s a memorial cruise retracing the luxury liner’s doomed voyage, a 3-D rerelease of James Cameron’s 194-minute epic and, inevitably, collectables from the Royal Canadian Mint. The culinary world is by no means immune to all this, of course. Food blogger Paula Costa (of Dragon’s Kitchen) has taken the event to her food-loving heart, challenging herself to recreate the 11-course first-class dinner from the eve of the vessel’s demise. Although the Kitchener/Waterloo–based food blogger has previously hosted similar Titanic-themed dinners with others (mainly of the second- and third-class menus), this was her first solo effort. The project, based on the recipes found in Last Dinner on the Titanic by Rick Archbold and Dana McCauley, was a year in making, with weeks devoted to testing recipes and sourcing ingredients used during the Edwardian period. In the end, eight guests were invited to partake in the dinner, which involved $400 worth of ingredients, three days of preparation and assistance from a few sous-chefs on the evening of service itself. See Costa’s entire Titanic feast—including a chunk of iceberg from off the coast of Newfoundland—in our slideshow »
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Owners Fritz Wahl, chef Ben Heaton and Richard Reyes (Image: Renée Suen)
Over the last few years, formerly low-rent areas like Ossington, Parkdale and Dundas West have become culinary destinations, with a spate of new restaurants serving up affordable and inventive cuisine in casual dining rooms. The latest in this line is The Grove, a 50-seat Dundas West restaurant from chef Ben Heaton (One, Colborne Lane, Globe Bistro), Richard Reyes (One) and Fritz Wahl (Senses) that’s aimed at introducing Toronto diners to modern English cuisine.
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(Image: Renée Suen)
Known to many as the Vietnamese place on Ossington that’s not Golden Turtle, Pho Tien Thanh is not without its own fiercely loyal following. At midday, the long dusty-rose and powder-blue room is packed with hungry diners hunched over steaming bowls (it’s not uncommon for couples to find themselves sharing a table with strangers).
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Carl Rousseau (St. Canut Farm) with Martin Picard and Marc Beaudin (Au Pied de Cochon, Cabane à sucre)
Acclaimed Montreal chef Martin Picard, best known for his haute-rustic gastronomic temple Au Pied de Cochon, was in town to celebrate the release of his new cookbook, Au Pied de Cochon Sugar Shack. The colour book is full of recipes from his temporary and seasonal restaurant that’s known for serving traditional sugar shack fare with a Picard twist (think equal parts gluttony and innovation, with plenty of foie gras and other gut-busting ingredients). As part of a three-city tour, Picard partnered with Oliver & Bonacini corporate executive chef Anthony Walsh for “Canoe Shack Up,” a $185 maple syrup–laden five-course menu which volleyed between recipes developed by the two chefs. Supported by the crews from Cabane à Sucre au Pied de Cochon and Canoe (led by John Horne), and fortified by some excellent VQA wines, the event saw a ton of big-name Toronto chefs and restaurant owners in the 110-guest audience, including the folks from Beast, Campagnolo, Enoteca Sociale, The Gabardine, Malena, Parts & Labour, Trevor and Hamilton’s Earth to Table Bread Bar feasting and imbibing as Picard held court and signed books. For a look at the crowd and the entire sugar shack-inspired menu (not to mention some behind-the-scenes silliness), check out our slideshow »
Pan-roasted sole fillet (Image: Renée Suen)
At Modus, one of our Best New Restaurants for 2012, executive chef Bruce Woods (Centro, Brassaii) services refined Italian classics in a restrained and modern room that caters to the Bay Street crowd (along with their padded expense accounts).
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