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Listed for: $999,900. Sold for: $1,226,500. (Image: Courtesy of homeviewphoto.com)
The Sellers: Laura Ducharme, the 43-year-old host of Fido and Wine, in production for The Pet Network, and her husband Jason, a 51-year-old consultant.
The property: A 2,300-square-foot, four-bedroom house on Glenlake Avenue, just north of Bloor West Village.
Earth’s owner Ed Ho at the bar (Image: Jag Gundu)
Earlier this year we reported on the closure of My Place, the massive Bloor West Village pub that lasted only a year. Many restaurant owners would find it daunting to take over an 18,000-square-foot space, regardless of location, but Ed Ho (Globe Bistro, Earth Rosedale) saw it as an opportunity to service an area of town that has long been considered a culinary dead zone. His solution: a neighbourhood bistro serving local and seasonal fare paired with a lounge and private event space.
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One thing these audition videos don’t have in common: high production value
We’re already on the record as counting down the days until the April 11 debut of Top Chef Canada (it’s 42, in case you were wondering). Today, Food Network Canada announced the show’s lineup of 16 competitors. Chosen from a variety of culinary backgrounds, the contestants hail from St. John’s to Vancouver, with six Torontonians making the cut. Restaurateur Shereen Arazm, the former Terroni server who went on to open a branch in Los Angeles, will be the show’s resident judge (akin to Gail Simmons in the U.S. version of Top Chef). We round up the Toronto contestants, and their sometimes hilarious audition videos, after the jump.
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Though solidly yuppified, this erstwhile eastern European enclave has held on to its tradition of thriving small businesses. Neighbours are genuinely chummy, moms trade intel on good nannies and bad teachers (between Pilates classes in the park), and the main drag offers almost everything.
No neighbourhood will react the same way to a burst bubble. We talked to market watchers, economists, mortgage brokers and seen-it-all real estate agents for the scoop on where to park your money, what streets to avoid and when to sell, sell, sell
Jokes about making sausages are as old as sausage itself. It is rare that people actually want to know what’s in their links, delicious or not. But Toronto police warn that this wilful ignorance has the potential to cause serious injury. From the Star:
Police are urging the public to check packaging of all food products after needles were found embedded in sausages. All three cases, which occurred in May, involved Piller’s polish sausage.
Police say the packages were purchased from No Frills stores, two from the 372 Pacific Ave. location in the Junction, and the third package from 2187 Bloor Street W. in Bloor West Village.
That’s right: needles—in more than one package. Apparently the Piller’s quality control guy is either non-existent or sewing carelessly on the job.
• Police issue warning after needles found in sausages [Toronto Star]
Periwinkle owner Cindy Yong, at right, with salesperson Sheila Mazhari (Photo by Tabassum Siddiqui)
For years, Cindy Yong juggled a day job with producing her line of enamelled jewellery, called Cupcake, and selling it at weekend craft fairs. Then she realized that there were other people like herself looking to expand their business without committing to a brick-and-mortar store. That’s why she opened Periwinkle, a cozy gift boutique in Bloor West Village, in October.
Tucked into a low-rise brownstone on the edge of High Park, the shop is capitalizing on consumers’ increasing interest in locally handmade items. Yong rents shelf space to over 40 designers, who make one-of-a-kind jewellery, housewares and art.
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A style from top Ontario stylist Robert Barbosa (Photo by Justin Borbely)
While most people were gorging themselves on tiny chocolate bars and mini-bags of chips on the weekend, the country’s aesthetic elite were attending their version of the Oscars, the Contessa Awards. Held at the Sheraton, this was the 21st edition of the Contessas, which recognize excellence in hair, makeup and nails.
Though the title hairstylist of the year went to Vancouver’s Chad Taylor, and the award for the top salon went to Glam in Montreal, Torontonians took home the most awards (but, hey, who’s counting?). After the jump, the Toronto winners.
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His place: Brad Long at the bar of his spanking new Canadian pub (Photo by Mary Luz Mejia )
Well before it served its first burger, Brad Long’s new restaurant was getting chatter. At 18,000 square feet, capacity for over 700, a big-name chef, four floors, a huge patio and a Bloor West Village location, the project was an odd confluence of factors, and Toronto foodies were hotly debating it. But Long, his right-hand man Dave Billington and co-owner Randy Metcalfe seemed deaf to it all, slowly converting the former Billy Bob’s Bistro and Saloon into My Place: A Canadian Pub. The restaurant has been opening in stages since September 2, with its final phase—a sports bar—unveiled last night.
“It was never meant to be a gastropub,” explains Long as he describes the restaurant’s transformation. Gone is the funhouse feel of Billy Bob’s, replaced by a soothing palette in the dining room and a more vibrant red-and-black scheme in the main floor pub. The decor is “logistics based,” he says, noting that he preferred to invest in a brand new kitchen than in design—in other words, he wants to attract diners for the food, not the beauty.
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Go Long: celebrity chef Brad Long is opening a pub in Bloor West Village
Chef and Food Network star Brad Long has a quick answer when asked what will be on the menu at his new Bloor West gastropub: “Canadian food.” He pauses. “What the hell is Canadian food?”
Long has been trying to answer that question for a while, from his days at the CN Tower’s revolving restaurant, 360, to his current gigs as executive chef at King East’s Veritas and sometime-guest on Restaurant Makeover. The quest will continue when the new joint, officially named My Place: A Canadian Pub (subtitled “like a bad movie,” says Long), opens in early September. It will be the pub yin to Veritas’s bistro yang, but the grub will still hinge on Long’s stock-in-trade: seasonal, local ingredients.
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Where the magic happens: Sweet Flour Bake Shop, in Bloor West Village, offers instantly cooling cookies, made to order
Kim Gans, the owner of Sweet Flour Bake Shop, is not from around here. We don’t just mean that she’s from Cleveland (she is); we mean she’s from a wonderland where cookies defy the laws of physics and take just two minutes to reach a state of gooey goodness. Gans brought her desserts to Bloor West Village in the spring when she opened Sweet Flour Bake Shop, a café-style bakery where fresh cookies are made to order. Customers pick from over 20 mix-ins (sprinkles, figs, mini-pretzels, etc.) and from three fast-cooking doughs (peanut butter, plain, oatmeal). Wait two minutes, and then the cookie ($2.50) is laid on the “frost top,” which instantly takes the piping-hot treat down to an edible temperature.
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