Top T.O. chef Marc Thuet will be launching a new dining concept this Friday—and it will be staffed by 13 former inmates. Cheekily named Conviction, the restaurant, at the Bite Me! space (609 King Street West), will have seven ex-cons in the kitchen and six running the front-of-house, all under the watchful eye of Thuet’s life and business partner, Biana Zorich. Thuet, who himself has gone through addictions, says in a press release that the restaurant will give the new staff a second chance at life, by providing them with job security and a steady paycheque.
Naturally, this is the stuff reality television is made of. For two weeks now, the Montreal-based production company Cineflix has been documenting the drama of opening a new restaurant with untrained staff (whittled down from 22 former inmates) and will be turning the footage into eight one-hour episodes for CityTV this fall (the show’s working title is Criminal Dinners).
The Mediterranean-inspired menu contains such dishes as spaghetti with yellowfin tuna and marinated roe, a house-cured antipasto platter, and pizza with roasted peppers, pork belly and goat cheese. Conviction will be open for dinner Tuesday to Saturday from 5:30 p.m. to midnight and for brunch on Sunday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Reservations can be made at 416-603-2777, ext. 1.
I think this is an amazing idea! Good for you Marc… I will dine here for sure.
May 5, 2009 at 3:50 pm | by Kate Young[...] Marc Thuet’s new place, Conviction, which Toronto Life gave a nod to in their online blog yesterday. I haven’t written much of consequence about Thuet since I started this blog, other than [...]
May 5, 2009 at 9:33 pm | by So This Is What It Must Be Like… | Foodie and the EverymanMr. Thuet, we need you at the shops in Don Mills; there isn’t one decent restaurant; why????
June 23, 2009 at 10:33 am | by shirley wilsonI think Marc`s idea of using ex-cons to run his restaurant is a FANTASTIC idea! We need him to come a little further East, to Montreal where I`m sure he would be PACKED! I have been in the same business for close to 30 years now, and just the IDEA of what he is doing, and WHO he is employing to staff the place will draw a crowd just for curiosity`s sake, even REGARDLESS of how good the food is. It is also nice to see that he is giving these people a second chance for those of them who really want to turn their lives around. We need more people like him. If he ever came to Montreal, I`d LOVE to work for him. He looks like a GREAT boss! Great job guys! Keep up the good work.
October 15, 2009 at 6:11 pm | by Laurie .