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The latest buzz on restaurants, chefs, bars, food shops and food events. Sign up for the Dish newsletter for weekly updates. Send tips to thedish@torontolife.com
(Photo by Sally Mahoney)
December 31st is rapidly approaching, and the pressure’s on: what to do on New Year’s Eve? For those who hate crowds, messy house parties and shivering in Nathan Phillips Square but still don’t want to feel curmudgeonly come the stroke of midnight, Toronto’s best restaurants are offering multi-course meals at bargain prices. Here, our list of nine of the best prix fixe menus throughout the city. (Looking for the guide to Toronto’s high profile NYE parties? Click here »)
The Mount Pleasant strip isn’t exactly the next hot ’hood or the new Queen West or the developer district du jour. No, the Mount Pleasant strip is as it always has been: a charming stretch between Eglinton and Davisville that is lined with European bakeries, amazing Gallic restaurants (where the servers still speak French), whimsical shops and one-screen movie houses that take us back to the Toronto of yore. Unlike other shopping and dining districts, customers aren’t paying for the view, the rent or the trend—they’re paying for a slice of authenticity in an ever-gentrifying city. Here, we visit our 26 favourite spots along Mount Pleasant, finding quirky antiques, fanciful items for kids, refined meals and stunning baguettes.
Restaurant takeover: Lynn Crawford moves into The Citizen (Photo courtesy of Google)
After weeks of tongues wagging over the future of The Citizen, the Star has confirmed rumours that Restaurant Makeover stars Lynn Crawford and Cherie Stinson are taking over and revamping the Riverdale bistro. “Lynn had been hounding me for a full year to sell,” said former Citizen chef and proprietor Rod Bowers, who also owns Queen West’s Rosebud restaurant. Crawford hasn’t released her spot’s new name, or confirmed whether her former Truffles protégé Lora Kirk will be coming on board. “The food will be about sharing the table, supporting local,” she says. “It’s about me working with the growers, the farmers, the fishermen.” Cherie Stinson, who works for the international interior design firm Yabu Pushelberg (they did Canoe and the Hazelton Hotel), plans to complement Crawford’s socially conscious food by creating “a relaxed neighbourhood restaurant with communal tables and eclectic design.” The restaurant is scheduled to open in March 2010, managed by Stinson’s husband, Joey Skeir, who is also a partner.
(Photo by Jon Sufrin)
When it comes to flouting moderation at the dinner table, Toronto may not be Texas, but it definitely has its share of big food. Vegetarians have a few outsize items to choose from—Urban Herbivore’s mega-muffins, the three-inch falafel balls at Tov-Li—but it is meat eaters who have most of the opportunities to attack large portions with primal zeal. We hit the street to find the establishments able to satisfy that deep-seated lust. From upmarket foie gras to a diner’s mile-high burgers, here are eight of Toronto’s biggest restaurant dishes, each begging to be conquered.
After winning over Annex residents and fighting a protracted battle with various bureaucracies, chef J.P. Challet and his partners are being granted a liquor licence for their latest restaurant, Ici Bistro. The news came down late yesterday and can be taken as a victory for cooler minds. The licence itself has a few provisos—15, to be precise—that include a ban on video arcades and loud music. But perhaps the key condition of the licence is that it cannot be handed down to any new business on that property without another hearing with the Alcohol and Gaming Commission. This should be good news to deputy mayor Joe Pantalone, who opposed boozing at the bistro out of fear that a yet-unheard-of sleaze spot might one day move in, peddle hooch to local teens and tear the community asunder.
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(Courtesy of enRoute)
Anyone who has spent hours sitting on a delayed Air Canada jet (an astronomical number of people, to be sure) is familiar with the airline’s boredom-thwarting magazine enRoute and its annual countrywide search for the best new restaurants. The 2009 choices were announced this morning, and the Toronto entries, while not surprising, reflect the kind of eating we’ve come to appreciate in a year riddled with closings, cutbacks and comfort food.
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The elk at Amuse Bouche (Photo by Renée Suen)
In this year of scrimping, more and more Toronto restaurants are offering once-a-week meals that allow diners a cheap feast on a slow night. From Monday to Sunday, we list the best places to hit each evening.
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The latest—and likely last—development in the Ruby Restaurant brouhaha was announced in the Toronto Star this morning: the usually jam-packed Scarborough eatery is closing for good. After a roach infestation, 22 salmonella cases and two inspection failures in one week, Ruby’s owners held an emergency meeting over the weekend at which they decided to declare bankruptcy. The DineSafe page for Ruby reads like a nasty report card, with a series of S and C marks (meaning “significant” and “crucial,” respectively) in such categories as “Operator fail to ensure food is not contaminated/adulterated” and “Operator fail to prevent an insect infestation”—nausea-inducing terms that prompted us to start searching out the DineSafe pages for some local eating spots.
Without getting into specifics, we will sign off with this: the words “conditional pass” become more terrifying when read over and over, and the city’s searchable DineSafe database is a great way to kill a few hours (if not a few cockroaches).
Dentist's dream: the Toronto Chocolate Festival kicks off next week (Photo by avlxyz)
Adults wanting to satisfy their sweet tooths (but who are unwilling to pass themselves off as a kid on Halloween) can find their sugar rushes at the week-long Toronto Chocolate Festival, happening all over the city and featuring sweet deals from chocolatiers, prix fixe dinners and an all-you-can-eat gala finale. From October 19 to 25, Yorkville’s Crepes a GoGo is giving away a free crêpe with any $10 purchase, and Dasho on St. Clair West is offering samples and a $5 gift card. The deals are valid only with coupons that can be printed from the event Web site.
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(Photo by riptheskull)
Attention, time-crunched turkey lovers. This weekend, some of Toronto’s top chefs and gourmet shops are offering no-fuss Thanksgiving meals to satisfy all tastes. From take-out options to sit-down dinners, here are our picks.
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Joe Pantalone: city councillor, benevolent shepherd (Photo: joepantalone.org)
Being a city councillor is a tough job—just ask deputy mayor Joe Pantalone. Fresh from killing Ossington’s buzz, he now finds himself on an increasingly lonely crusade to deny a liquor license to J.P. Challet’s new Harbord Street bistro, Ici. Ostensibly, Pantalone wants to ensure a bad precedent isn’t set and that the license doesn’t stay with the venue if the restaurant closes, causing the whole street to descend into a crime-ridden hell (you know, again).
While 285 people signed a petition in support of the alcohol bid and have voiced their support to Pantalone’s office, the councillor isn’t swayed.
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On the Marc: the logo for Conviction Kitchen appears seared onto Thuet's arm (Logo courtesy of CityTV)
The last thing prime time television needs is another screaming chef, so we are relieved to report that Marc Thuet was right when he described his new TV program as more of a documentary than a reality show. Conviction Kitchen, in which Thuet and his partner, Biana Zorich, mentor a group of ex-cons to run their new restaurant, focuses on the food and the business aspect of running the establishment rather than the personal dramas of the contestants (shocking, indeed). Only three episodes have aired so far; for the most part, the six servers and seven cooks seem pretty competent and likable; they’d probably blow the contestants of Hell’s Kitchen out of the salted, boiling water.
But here’s where the problem lies.
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Viva! Cuban food and drink come to Little Portugal (Photo by Omid Tavallai)
This weekend, West Queen West goes Cubano with the second annual Havana Cultura Festival. There will be music, cigar rolling and, most importantly, Cuban-inspired culinary experiences from 16 restaurants and bars along Ossington, Queen and Dundas. One unlikely participant this year is Poutini’s. For the first time since opening, they will be offering something other than their standard menu dish: a “Cuban-style frijole” poutine consisting of black beans, onions, garlic, peppers, tomato and herbs over fries, and topped with sour cream and cilantro (it’s traditionally served over rice). On Saturday night, the staff will be manning a booth across the street in order to serve the same frijole over a baked potato instead of fries.
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Battleground bistro: will wine corrupt the youth of Harbord Street? (Photo by Quinn Dombrowski)
It’s unusual to see a Toronto councillor acting against the wishes of his constituents, especially with an election looming, but it seems as if Deputy Mayor Joe Pantalone has chosen that lonely path. As we first reported in July, the issue concerns the liquor licence for Ici, the 22-seat bistro that renowned chef and educator J.P. Challet and his partners hope to open at the corner of Harbord Street and Manning Avenue, where their catering business is already operational.
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Book bash: Boldface Names, the new novel by Shinan Govani, was celebrated yet again
“Another book launch party?” we asked.
“This is number three—officially,” said the paperback writer in Prada.
Third time’s for the charmed circle, apparently. Gathered in Harbour Sixty’s glittering cellar were publishing magnates and paparazzi magnets, fashion editors and filmmakers, social queen bees and an MTV princess. Somehow, we were there, too, allured and bewildered, suddenly privy to the extraordinary problems of the ruling class.
“I walked in, and the first thing Shinan said to me was, ‘There won’t be enough red!’” said Mary Symons, effervescent patroness to social boozers—she’d donated caseloads from her winery, Thomas George Estates. “And I said, ‘Well, how many people are coming? You told me 40, and what now, 50?’” Her gemmy earrings shook helplessly. We vowed to drink only white. She laughed a generous laugh.
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