Gabe Gonda, Jodi Kantor and Victoria Webster have a party for The Obamas (Image: Tom Sandler)

Fabulous Rosedale homes are meant for more than just real estate porn and housing Toronto’s aristocracy—they also provide a great backdrop for parties. Toronto Life contributor Victoria Webster and her husband, Gabe Gonda, weekend editor at the Globe and Mail, opened their home Friday evening to New York Times correspondent and The Obamas author Jodi Kantor. Complete with a question-and-answer period, libations and a book signing, this party was a proper toast among friends. Find out what Kantor had to say about Michelle Obama and who took his shoes off (when no one else did) after the jump.

Friends attending the fete included our own editor-in-chief, Sarah Fulford (who had interviewed Kantor at the Toronto Reference Library the night prior), Steve Paikin, host of TVO’s The Agenda (who removed his shoes), Zoomer’s Suzanne Boyd, Suzanne Cohon and her CFL-commissioner husband, Mark (the couple live across the street), author John Ralston Saul (he’s also Adrienne Clarkson’s husband), Victoria Jackman, Ben Mulroney, Nancy Lockhart, Murray Frum and more.

Naturally, they were all there for Kantor, and the intrepid reporter didn’t disappoint. Her book, you see, is not without controversy. Michelle Obama herself cast aspersions on the biography on CBS, though other outlets, including the Washington Post, call the complaints unjustified. For her part, Kantor kept mum on the brouhaha, simply noting that Michelle was more likely reacting to the media’s reaction to the book than to the book itself (her message to Mrs. President: “If she doesn’t want to read the book, she shouldn’t read the book”). Kantor was graceful throughout the Q and A, and she even appeared attentive as we listened to Saul boast that he knew Barack Obama would be president one day after sitting on a panel with him prior to his election. We also overheard Kantor say the best experiences of her tour were Friday night’s party and having her honour defended by Jon Stewart (bless—we love The Daily Show). Of course, party conversation shouldn’t be limited to politics, so we enjoyed listening in as Mulroney commented on gossip columnist Shinan Govani’s greying five o’clock shadow. Sadly, there were no fist bumps to report.

Alan Thicke (Image: Lori Greig)

Alan Thicke, dad to everyone with a television in the late ’80s and early ’90s, will be sharing the laughter and love on a very special ’80s-inspired This Hour Has 22 Minutes on November 1 at 8:30 p.m. We know what you’re thinking, and yes, he has been on How I Met Your Mother parodying late-’80s Canadian television, but we’re excited for the actor formerly known as Dr. Jason Seaver to come to our television sets once more, only this time with David Suzuki, who filmed a retro Nature of Things, and Ben Mulroney, who will be playing an ’80s version of his pops, Brian.  Everything will come together with a performance from The Spoons, so it is almost like no one was left behind.

Maureen McTeer and Margaret Trudeau

On Wednesday night, the Four Seasons Hotel was bursting with honorary guests for the sixth annual Alzheimer Society Unforgettable Night gala in honour of all Canadians who care for someone with dementia. Mila Mulroney joked that “there’s no first wives club in Canadian politics,” and yet the room was filled with them: Gellis Turner (wife of John Turner, who was also present), Margaret Trudeau and Maureen McTeer came together in support of the cause despite their differing political views. The mixed crowd included Michael Ignatieff and wife Zsuzsanna Zsohar, Ben Mulroney and wife Jessica Brownstein, theatre community darling Louise Pitre (Mamma Mia) and actress Fiona Reid (King of Kensington), among others. Check out the scene and find out who made a special surprise performance after the jump.

Host of the evening and CBC correspondent Amanda Lang got it right when she said, “This is not a disease that touches strangers.” Despite the energy in the room, the mood had a sombre undertone as guests sipped champagne and politely posed for pictures against the backdrops of screens streaming personal stories of people affected by Alzheimer’s and dementia. Time and time again we were reminded of the 500,000 Canadians currently living with Alzheimer’s and how that statistic is expected to double in a generation (yikes). Halfway through dinner, guests were honoured with a performance by Canadian Tenor Remigio Pereira, who belted it out like only a tenor can. During his performance, fellow tenor Victor Micaleff suddenly emerged from the back of the room and joined Pereira on stage for a surprise performance (no one looked more excited than superfan Ben Mulroney). It was definitely a performance to remember, and with the night raising nearly $500,000, we hope this marks the near end of such an unforgiving ailment.

Lynne St. David, Paul and Judy Bronfman and Norman Jewison (Image: Jordana Divon)

Famed Hollywood reporter George Christy’s annual Four Seasons cocktail party and luncheon saw Toronto’s upper-crustiest hanging with celebs in the Avenue Bar. The ground-floor space felt a bit like a fishbowl, as passers-by leaned on the glass to ogle anyone inside. The tweenyboppers camped outside were probably disappointed that Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez didn’t attend, but we did see Kathleen Turner, Geoffrey Rush, directors Norman Jewison and Atom Egoyan, TIFF co-president Piers Handling, Gina Gershon, and the Mulroney family (including Brian—it’s like this year’s TIFF is a prime minister paradise as Stephen Harper has also been spotted around town—his wife Mila, son Ben, and Ben’s twin boys. Guests argued over Turner’s best film role—some thought it was as Joan Wilder in Romancing the Stone, while others preferred her as the matriarch to the troubled Lisbon girls in The Virgin Suicides (we still maintain her best was as Beverly Sutphin in Serial Mom) as they guzzled seemingly bottomless glasses of champagne. The heat in the narrow bar had some complaining (we heard Suzanne Boyd kvetch), but as we understand it, the best solution to a heat wave is to drink excessively, so we felt fine. Check out the scene in our gallery after the jump.

La Société serves up social cachet wrapped in sex appeal, and some decent French food, too (Image: Eugen Sakhnenko)

Four million dollars buys a lot of restaurant, even on Bloor Street, at the heart of the city’s richest retail mile. Charles Khabouth, the nightclub impresario behind La Société, the new, two-storey, 380-seat, more or less slavish recreation of a belle époque Paris bistro, brought in 29 tile workers, many of them from Montreal, to complete the spectacularly elaborate black, white and gold mosaic floors in the restaurant’s main bar and dining room. He and Alessandro Munge, of the Munge Leung design firm, commissioned a stained-glass ceiling for the bistro’s main space (which they’ve backlit, inexcusably, with sallow fluorescent lights), purchased their zinc bar top from France, outfitted the banquettes in brass and burgundy leather, and panelled the room in enough mahogany to deforest the best-endowed of banana republics. The rent, meantime, likely adds $2 million annually to Khabouth’s overhead. He’ll need to sell a lot of steak frites to cover that, but the man isn’t afraid to go big.

Khabouth made his name in nightclubs beginning in the early 1980s and has built a sprawling portfolio since. The company he runs, Ink Entertainment, operates This Is London, Dragonfly, the Dolce Social Ballroom, Guvernment, Koolhaus and Tattoo Rock Parlour. Last year, Khabouth partnered with Munge Leung and a city developer to launch Bisha (from the nickname he had growing up in Beirut), a 41-storey condominium, hotel and restaurant project that’s scheduled to open on Blue Jays Way in 2015. Even before they’d broken ground, Khabouth was calling Bisha a “global brand”; he’s hoping to export the concept to South Beach, Chicago and New York.

He’s also partnered in a string of clubby restaurants, including Spice Route, Briscola Trattoria, Ame and Ultra, the Queen West resto-lounge he opened at a cost of $3.4 million in 2004. With the exception of Ame, the pan-Asian place he co-owns with celebrity chef Guy Rubino and his brother Michael Rubino, Khabouth’s restaurants have never particularly been known for their food. His genius is in building buzzy, sexy, free-spending environments. Though it skews much older than his usual projects, La Société has got scene to burn.

The bistro’s reservations book is a tear sheet from the social pages: Ben Mulroney, Galen Weston Jr., Fashion magazine editor Bernadette Morra, Greta Constanine designers Kirk Pickersgill and Stephen Wong, and at least two thirds of the city’s Junior League ate there in its opening month. Shinan Govani, the gossip columnist, sits in a prime booth at the front of the room. One night, as I slouched with my guests in the dimly lit Siberia at the back, a procession of society wives, a few of them dressed like superannuated showgirls from La cage aux folles, led their glad-handing, silk and cashmere summer sweater–shouldering husbands on grand tours of the space. They paraded past young partner-track lawyers who punched at their BlackBerrys as their filets de saumon à la dijonnaise congealed, past impossibly handsome 20-somethings in Sperry Top-Siders and mankles, past business titans and big-ticket British tourists downing Veuve (of course) as if by the case.

If you hope to score a table on either the streetside or second-level patio, you can make a request, but not a reservation (unlike a reservation, the telephone requestervationist explained to me, a request doesn’t guarantee a seat). I’m not certain how democratically this policy is applied. The upper patio was overrun with aggressively underdressed young women one recent sultry evening, while the best the pikers (including yours truly) could do was gawk and drool from behind the glass. Dina Pugliese, the Breakfast Television host, appears to sit precisely wherever she wants.

Khabouth works the floor in dark pants, a dark shirt, a dark skinny tie and a dark schoolboy blazer, directing traffic, answering phones, shaking hands and airmailing kisses; he knows at least every third person who comes through the door. But the reason La Société succeeds as a restaurant (and it does, sort of) is Tony Longo, Ink Entertainment’s director of food and beverage and La Société’s floor boss. Longo worked his way up from busboy at the Royal York in the ’70s to manager at Centro in 1989, when Centro felt like the most important, most luxurious place a person could ever eat. He became a partner there in 1995 and then reinvented Splendido with chef David Lee in 2001. Like Khabouth, he knows everybody who matters. He knows how to run a room.

Read page 2 of Chris Nuttall-Smith’s review »

The bar at La Société (Image: Gizelle Lau)

La Société, Charles Khabouth and Danny Soberano’s new upscale bistro, opened last week to just the chic red-carpet reception one would expect, with guests like “jersey boys” Kirk Pickersgill and Stephen Wong of Greta Constantine, media mogul Moses Znaimer, Canadian musician music manager and producer Jake Gold and Food Network Canada host Kevin Brauch (no RPattz sighting, though). We first scoped out the dining room’s impressive stained-glass ceiling shortly after it was installed, and returned last week to see how everything turned out.

The overarching theme of the Munge Leung–designed restaurant is resoundingly 1920s Parisian bistro, inspired by the likes of La Fontaine de Mars in Paris and New York City’s Balthazar (a resemblance that has not gone unnoticed on Twitter). The dining room’s main feature is, of course, the 20-by-30-foot, handcrafted stained-glass ceiling by Solarium Design Group. Located as it is on the second floor of the Colonnade (right above Sephora), La Société has large windows offering plenty of natural light, with traditional hand-painted bistro signage to alert shoppers below that there’s a new joint upstairs.

To the left side, La Société’s bar area has ample stool seating, as well as intimate alcoves with rich red banquettes. Here, the dark walls have been finished with a specially curated collection of bistro-appropriate prints, photographs and vintage frames by Hamid Samad at Commute Home (Briscola, Nyood, Colborne Lane). The antique bronze candelabra statuettes, meanwhile, were inspired by one Khabouth found in Paris.

In time for high patio season, La Société has two outdoor spaces: one at street level, with its own bar and optimal sightlines for people-watching on the newly renovated Mink Mile; and another on the second-floor terrace overlooking the street, sporting simple checkered bistro-style rattan chairs and small black café tables.

All told, the restaurant contains more than 300 seats for those looking to stop over for a schmooze, quick drink or sit-down meal. The bistro menu is chock-full of bistro classics, like French onion soup with gruyère and emmenthal ($10), steak tartare ($16), duck confit ($28) and macarons and profiteroles for dessert ($8). Despite its many meat offerings, the focus, says executive chef James Olberg, is on the seafood. The menu highlights items like its oysters platter ($19 for a half-dozen), its small ($65) and large ($145) mixed platters served on tiers, and Dover sole ($44), all sourced from Allseas Fisheries, Soberano’s fish-supply company.

Less than a week after its opening, the restaurant had already seen visits from the likes of Ben Mulroney (who raved about it on Twitter) and Deepak Chopra (he ordered the frisée salad and a lemonade). We figure they’re off to a pretty good start.

Start the slideshow »

La Société, 131 Bloor St. W., 416-551-9929, lasociete.ca.

From last year’s Spring for Wildlife event, host Kevin Brauch (left) with Didier Leroy (right) and the Valrhona chocolate sculpture created by chocolatier Sylvain Leroy (centre) (Image: Robert Chapman)

There’s a reason food and fundraisers go hand in hand: what better way to encourage patrons and sponsors to empty their wallets for a good cause than to fill their bellies with delicious food? (See: this weekend’s Toronto Taste.) This month, the Toronto Wildlife Centre—the only organization in the GTA that rescues and provides treatment for wildlife in need—will be on the receiving end of two such events.

This Friday, Didier partners Tory Edwards and Didier Leroy will be hosting the second annual Spring for Wildlife fundraiser at their restaurant. Joining them in the $295-per-head event are Hiro Yoshido (Hiro Sushi), Doug McNish (Grail Springs Health and Wellness Spa), Mali Fernandez (Embrujo Flamenco Tapas Bar) and Patrick McMurray (Starfish, Ceili Cottage), to name a few. Edwards, a long-time supporter of the TWC and its services, told us, “It’s a way to help thousands of animals that most people in the community don’t realize need care. It’s not more important, but the TWC doesn’t get the same amount of respect as its hard-working, underpaid staff and volunteers deserve.”

To address this need, a live auction will follow the champagne reception, featuring a crash cymbal used by Rush on their recent tour and signed by the band; a lobster feast for 12 people hosted at the Don Valley Brick Works by Brad Long and Patrick McMurray (valued at over $2,000); a dinner for eight people in Prince Edward County by Jamie Kennedy and Norman Hardie Wines (valued at over $1,600); and an upscale pub crawl (valued at $3,000) with the evening’s hosts Kevin Brauch (Thirsty Traveler, Iron Chef America) and Ben Mulroney (etalk). Tickets are still available, but space is limited.

In a slightly less rarefied price bracket is the first annual Paella Eating Challenge on June 28 at Embrujo Flamenco Tapas Bar on the Danforth, where Toronto firefighters will compete against techies. Half of the ticket sales will go directly to the TWC.

Spring for Wildlife Fundraiser, June 10, Didier, 1496 Yonge St., 416 925-8588, $295.

The Ultimate Paella Eating Challenge: Toronto Firefighters vs. Toronto Techies, June 28, Embrujo Flamenco Tapas Bar, 97 Danforth Ave., 416-778-0007, $25.

Too much, or not enough frosting? (Image: Stefania Yarhi)

Friday night’s Greta and Ezra Constantine shows filled up rather quickly with Barbie pink lips, lace dresses and an array of semi-famous (to fairly famous) fashion and media folk. Check out the scene below to see who made the biggest statements and who just looked so amazing she could be wearing a sack and we’d still think, “Hot damn!” (Spoiler: it’s Natalie Brown.)

Two of the few Canadians: Celine Dion and René Angélil on the red carpet at the 83rd Academy Awards on Sunday evening (Image: Steve Granitz/WireImage)

Well, there you have it. Awards season is over, but the hangover—or, in the case of The Social Network gang, the lingering feelings of resentment—has now set in. The biggest buzz out of Oscar night was the totality of James Franco lameness. As far as hosts go, he may go down as the worst of all time. We would have killed for a little Uma–Oprah humour, and that’s saying something. Did poor Anne Hathaway want to wipe that disinterested smirk off his face with her fist? We’re guessing yes.

For its part, Canada was hardly centre stage this year (we stand by the opinion that Barney’s Version was robbed), although the night of nights did include some northern moments worth mentioning. The five most memorable after the jump.

1. Ben Mulroney pimps his pocket squares on the red carpet
At least we assume that bit of periwinkle blue peaking out from his pocket was part of Ben’s dedicated fashion line, coming to a brass-buttoned blazer near you this spring.

2. Jessi Cruickshank reports from the Oscar boonies
Correct us if we’re wrong here, but didn’t the red-headed half of the Aftershow duo head off to L.A. for some bigger and better career opportunity? Maybe this is eTalk’s way of putting her in her place—that is, next to a parking lot. Cruickshank was posted next to a gate, watching limo after limo roll by, and, thanks to Hollywood’s thriving window-tinting industry, she could only guess at who was inside. Dan Levy may want to reconsider his own ship-jumping, lest he be weighing in on next year’s Oscar broadcast from the inside of a sewer tunnel.

3. Incendies gets tromped by In A Better World
The foreign film category was Canada’s best hope for Oscar glory, but—damn the Scandinavians!—the golden guy went to Denmark. Funny, because everyone assumed the race was between Denis Villeneuve’s Incendies and Biutiful (the Mexican movie starring the biutiful Javier Bardem). On the plus side, nice to see an unexpected upset on an otherwise painfully predictable night.

4. Celine complicit in Corey Haim diss
Quebec’s squeekiest export since cheese curds was on hand to belt out a divalicious rendition of “Smile” while the traditional “In Memoriam” tribute played in the background. This year’s death reel, however, failed to include Toronto-born ’80s movie icon extraordinaire, Corey Haim. The star of such Beta-era classics as Lucas, The Lost Boys and License To Drive was a glaring omission. Given the similar Brad Refro diss a couple of years back, we can’t help but wonder if the Academy employs some sort of unstated morality clause in the dead celebs it celebrates. But, then, how do you explain the inclusion of the late, great LSD pioneer Dennis Hopper?

5. Oh, well. At least Marky Mark loves us
James Franco’s grandma may love the ’90s undies king, but Mark Wahlberg made it clear that his own heart belongs to Toronto, eagerly singing our city’s praises in a red carpet interview with Pocket-Square Mulroney. He even dished on a magical evening he spent with Tie Domi and some other pals at Harbour Sixty. A night carousing with NHL players? No wonder his wife looked so pissed off.

Inside Briscola Trattoria (Image: Gizelle Lau)

Briscola, the new rustic Italian restaurant from Ink Entertainment’s Charles Khabouth and Amber’s Toufik Sarwa, opened last Friday to the packed crowds one would expect from a collaboration between the two nightlife vets. After taking over the space of Sarwa’s short-lived Cinq 01 restaurant, Briscola apparently saw visits from Ben Mulroney and Galen Weston Jr. on its first weekend.

The menu at Briscola is divided up into Antipasti, Primi Piatti, Pizze and Secondi Piatti. Chef Sean Reeve (formerly of Via Allegro) aims to create traditional Italian dishes that let ingredients shine, but with modern twists. For starters, there are fried olives ($6), tuna carpaccio ($14) and deep-fried artichokes ($8). Primi dishes include modern takes on eggplant parmigiana ($11) and spaghetti pomodoro ($10/$16). Pizzas come in seven styles, including a classic Neapolitan-style margherita ($12), made in the restaurant’s stone-bottom oven in the pizza kitchen next to the bar. Mains range from $21–24, with dishes like osso buco ($21) and seared branzino ($24).

Cinq 01’s loungey interior was refreshed by Commute Home (of Nyood and Colborne Lane) to create a rustic yet whimsical environment. At the front of the restaurant, one wall shows off a flat, life-sized, candy apple–red Citroën DS sculpture, modelled after the Italian-designed car from the 1950s. Custom wire-framed chandeliers hang over lounge tables at the front—perfect for playing briscola, the Italian card game after which the restaurant is named—as well as in the back, over plush white booths. A long communal table made of Canadian walnut with cushioned benches offers additional family-style seating.

Meanwhile, Khabouth’s Ink Entertainment is already busy with its next project. Look for La Société, a new bistro, to open in Dynasty’s old space in the Colonnade on Bloor in June, and a new resto-lounge project along King Street West sometime afterward.

Briscola, 501 College St., 416-964-1555, briscola.ca.

He’s not a full-on designer yet, but Ben Mulroney is going to develop a line of, wait for it, pocket squares! He’s partnering with Canadian tie-makers Braemore Neckwear to do it, but why? Well, according to the press release, Mulroney says “most men don’t take advantage of the best way to distinguish themselves: a breast pocket square.” And he seems to mean it—we looked through photos of the eTalk host over the years (see our slide show of Ben’s 10 Best Pocket Square Moments) and could only find two instances of him in a suit sans pocket square, and that was back in 2003 and 2006. But then, we also found a photo of him wearing this. In Toronto, the line will be carried at Holt Renfrew, Got Style and Ted’s Style Shoppe.

Begin the Ben Mulroney Pocket Square Slide Show >>

• Ben Mulroney enters fashion world [National Post]
• Style notes: Ben Mulroney tackles design, students ready for Montreal runway [Winnipeg Free Press]

Galen Weston Jr.’s Bieber haircut, a commando mission to shoot Conrad Black, and the never-ending battle for fashion supremacy—George Pimentel has seen, done and documented it all. Tonight, the celebrity photographer shares 300 of his favourite Toronto society snaps at a VIP-filled bash at the Carlu. In case you didn’t get an invite, here’s a sneak peek at some of Pimentel’s most memorable shots.

Begin the slide show >>

Anthony Hopkins was the talk of the luncheon (Image: George Pimentel/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty Images)

The luncheon and reception at the Four Seasons hosted by famed Hollywood columnist George Christy is always one of the hottest TIFF tickets. At Saturday’s reception, mega-stars mingled with the genteel set—including Galen and Hilary Weston, Kim Newport-Mimran and Joe Mimran (looking regal in plush blue and gold slippers) and Ben Mulroney—in the Avenue Bar before proceeding to a sumptuous lunch upstairs.

Anthony Hopkins, in town to promote his film, the Woody Allen-directed You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, had the ladies a-twitter (“He looks so good. How old is he?”) and brought the inevitable fava bean and chianti jokes as he offered one-word answers to our questions. Yes, he does like Toronto, and yes, it was good working with Allen. Roger Ebert chatted with Norman Jewison and took pictures of actor Dominic Cooper. As hotel staffers tried to wrap the party and usher guests out, they were stopped by one who insisted, “It’s George’s decision. Let it go on as long as he likes.”

= Find this story on our Celebrity Sightings Map, where we plot the locations of stars spotted throughout Toronto

Save for hosts, we saw the typical CanCon boldfaces, like eTalk co-host Tanya Kim, Brett Wilson of Dragons’ Den, The Trotsky director-screenwriter Jacob Tierney and star Emily Hampshire. Tierney and Hampshire are in town promoting Good Neighbours, which premieres at the film festival on Tuesday, September 14. And was that Garth Drabinsky we spied at the bar? Bail is a wonderful thing. But TIFF parties don’t need to be star laden for good times; free booze tends to create loose lips among patrons. Our favourite conversation of the night was with celeb hairstylist Robert Gage, who remarked about a hulking security guard, “He’s so tall you’d have to go up on him.”

= Find this story on our Celebrity Sightings Map, where we plot the locations of stars spotted throughout Toronto

The roof pool at the Thompson Hotel (Image: George Pimentel)

By 10 p.m. last night, the wait for the elevator was an hour long, and the rooftop patio was at capacity. We shouldn’t have been surprised that the place was packed. Yes, yes, everyone was there. To drop some boldfaces, Kelly Rowan, Trevor Born, Jeanne Beker, the boys of Greta Constantine, Jeremy Laing (who designed the fabulous dresses the servers wore), Stacey Kimel, Ben Mulroney, Galen Weston Jr., teen blogging sensation Tavi Gevinson, Society gals Ashleigh Dempster and Amanda Blakley, Jian Ghomeshi, DJ Tony (from Ellen), et al.

Fortunately, we’d managed to get up to the roof pronto—lingering in the lobby, as gorgeous as it is, is not how to spend opening night at the Thompson Hotel. And it is as fabulous as we’d been promised: the elevator doors open onto a glistening infinity pool (in it, three frolicking ladies in sunglasses and sun hats) and a stunning vista of downtown Toronto at night. Has the CN Tower ever looked so sexy? Even the most blasé of the city’s jet set were oohing in their Choos. That is, if they weren’t cursing the elevator lineup or giving the stink-eye to the lingerie-clad women hired to pillow fight in a feather-covered boxing ring—they duked it out adjacent to the elevator line.