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Amber’s new bar is made from Calcutta marble (Image: Gizelle Lau)
For almost 12 years, Yorkville’s Amber has been the place to see and be seen. Having just finished turning his Cinq 01 into the new Briscola Trattoria at the end of February, it seems owner Toufik Sarwa has reno fever—he’s just completed another major renovation at Amber. We checked in with Sarwa to get the dish on the new digs.
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Cinq 01 awaits its brunchers (Image: Karon Liu)
Fresh from bringing the party back to College Street, Cinq 01 is now stepping up to continue the area’s brunch tradition. The resto-lounge’s first venture into brunch territory seeks to capture New York’s post–Saturday night vibe of which owner Toufik Sarwa is so fond. “I want it to be a nice, civilized brunch, something that would remind me of my New York Sundays,” he says. “I love New York on Sundays, and I find Toronto is sometimes too sleepy on Sunday.”
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Cinq 01: Take the boy out of Yorkville, but not Yorkville out of the boy (Photo by Karon Liu)
After finding success among the socialites with Yorkville’s Amber, nightclub king Toufik Sarwa opened Cinq 01 to create a more grown-up venture—a place where the emphasis is on the food rather than the guest list. But no such luck. Since the spot opened last fall, it has been increasingly packed with the well heeled, making this the first time since the ’90s that the glitterati are partying on College Street (and this time, they’re not slumming it).
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Parked on College Street: Cinq 01 contains elements from Toufik Sarwa's childhood (Photo by Karon Liu)
Lounge king Toufik Sarwa, owner of Amber, is branching out of Yorkville with the opening of a quaint bistro called Cinq 01 in Little Italy.
“When I set out at Amber, I thought I’d devote 10 years of my life to it. I had offers to be partners in other projects, but I turned them down,” Sarwa says. But last September, four months before his one-decade anniversary at Amber, the space formerly occupied by Arthur’s became available and Sarwa snatched it up. “It was just perfect timing; everything fell into place.”
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Shinan Govani at the launch party for his new book, Boldface Names (Photo by Jen McNeely)
Amid TIFF hoopla, the National Post’s society and celebrity ink slinger, Shinan Govani, held a launch for his book Boldface Names at the Holts Café—an event that seemed to procure more boldface names than Vanity Fair’s tiresome TIFF party the night prior. The event condensed every big schmoozer-boozer in the city, culminating in champagne-induced strategic chit-chat, name-dropping and back-handed gossip.
Few parties in Toronto could hope to pull in so many prominent figures. Here’s a run-down of the crowd: Jeff Stober owner of the Drake Hotel, Amber’s Toufik Tarwa, ever-so-tanned club king Michael King, Zoomer’s Suzanne Boyd, Society dolls Ashleigh Dempster and Amanda Blakley, Ben Mulroney of eTalk, Roots founder Michael Budman, Fashion Television’s Glen Baxter, Hello! Canada’s Ciara Hunt, brash book agent Sam Hiyate, Bustle’s design man Shawn Hewson, PR powerwomen Debra Goldblatt and Natasha Koiffman, actor Kristin Booth, singer Jill Barber, the Globe’s Leah McLaren (who rode her bike into Holt Renfrew) and a sprinkle of hot-to-trot 20-somethings that brought just the right amount of sexiness to mill about the lingerie section.
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The red carpet at the Visa Screening Room was hot last night with the arrival of Demi Moore, Amber Heard and Ashton Kutcher. Check out our photos below.
Drake of dawn: the Queen Street hotel is one of many spots open until 4 a.m.
Stalking celebs at TIFF takes a lot out of us—and, we imagine, avoiding us takes a lot out of celebs. The best way to soothe those festival blues or celebrate festival triumphs is with a few cocktails around dawn. Luckily, more bars than ever are serving late this year.
Why so many licences this year? David Brown, bar manager at the Drake Hotel, posits a theory: “The economy is a little tight in general, regardless of what the Bank of Canada says. Giving licences earlier is a benefit to the city and businesses.” He notes that the crowd typically thins out a bit around 2 a.m., with a fresh round of TIFFers coming in around 2:30 a.m. Richard Lambert, owner of The Social, echoes Brown’s sentiment: “We will see a good turnover in the crowds, with a second wave coming around 1:30.” Read the rest of this entry »
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As the social columnist for The National Post, it is practically part of Shinan Govani’s job description to eat out in Toronto. No wonder, then, that in his debut novel, Boldface Names, there are plenty of dishes served along with the dishing. Govani calls the book a “tell-some,” in which Ravi—a fictional gossip columnist for, ahem, The National Mirror—navigates the semi-imaginary Toronto “of the rich, the famous and the wicked.” This includes the restaurants, of course, and some of the locales may seem very familiar to local foodies and gadflies. We’ve pulled back the thin veil and created this crib sheet to the eating establishments of Boldface Names.
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