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All stories relating to cocktails

Introducing: Gusto 101, a new King West Italian joint that’s got wine on tap (from the basement winery)

The bar at Gusto 101 (Image: Gizelle Lau)

Gusto 101, the latest shiny new thing to appear in the perpetually-in-construction King West neighbourhood, opened its doors last Friday. Built out of a dilapidated old auto garage, Gusto 101 is still decidedly King West—and that’s exactly what owner Janet Zuccarini (Trattoria Nervosa), director of operations Jill McAbe and designer Alessandro Munge were going for. Inside, the bare cinderblock walls are outfitted with industrial-style light fixtures, and old licence plates hang on a wooden beam. The open kitchen shows off the restaurant’s centerpiece: a Tuscan-style wood-fire grill.

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The Dish

Opening

February 6, 2012 | 5:00 pm

1 Comment

Introducing: Ursa, a new Queen West restaurant serving modern Canadian cuisine (that’s secretly good for you too)

Inside the sleek space that used to house Bar One (Image: Meaghan Binstock)

Back in July, the owners of Trinity-Bellwoods staple Bar One announced they were shutting its doors after an 11-year run. Six months and one gut job later, the dramatically transformed space, complete with sleek burned wood panelling and constellations of bare hanging bulbs, has reopened as Ursa, with brothers and first-time owners Jacob and Lucas Sharkey-Pearce at the helm. Jacob, the executive chef, is no stranger to the industry, with a pedigree that includes Thuet Bistro, Centro and the Windsor Arms Hotel. And while Cosimo Mammoliti of Terroni fame is the restaurant’s third (and mostly silent) partner, the menu is almost the exact opposite of that chain’s carb-heavy Southern Italian comfort food (the brothers started off as teenage employees at the Queen Street location).

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The Dish

Bottoms Up

February 3, 2012 | 3:36 pm

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Demand for fancy cocktail ice spurs Chilean man to steal five tonnes’ worth—from a glacier

Nothing like an old-fashioned on the glacial rocks

Seizing on a new and unique way to sucker people into paying exorbitant prices for water-based products, a man in Chile chipped five tonnes of ice from a glacier in Patagonia, which he allegedly planned to sell as “designer ice cubes.” The Guardian reports that cops busted the man as he was driving a refrigerated truck with about $6,200 worth of illicit ice that would have wound up in fancy cocktails in Santiago, Chile. The ice, by the way, was taken from Jorge Montt, which ranks among the world’s most rapidly shrinking glaciers—it’s retreating at a rate of half a mile per year, according to the Guardian. In addition to making us not want to live on this planet anymore, this story leaves many lingering questions. Is glacier theft the next big bartending trend? What other landmarks might we desecrate in the name of a perfectly chilled old-fashioned? Could the Leafs raise some extra cash by selling cubes of centre ice? Read the entire story [The Guardian] »

(Images: cocktail, thebittenword.com; glacier, Luis Argerich)

The Informer

Urban Diplomat

January 19, 2012 | 12:30 pm

1 Comment

Dear Urban Diplomat: is arriving late to parties just part of Toronto culture?

(Image: Khairil Zhafri)

Dear Urban Diplomat,
I moved to Toronto from Tokyo about a year ago. Maybe it’s just a difference in cultures, but no one shows up for my parties on time. Where I’m from, if an invitation says 8 p.m., you show up at 8 p.m. Here, some guests arrive an hour late and don’t even apologize. Often, I am too annoyed to enjoy myself. Any tips for handling this situation next time?
—Times Have Changed, CABBAGETOWN

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The Dish

Opening

January 13, 2012 | 1:41 pm

12 Comments

Introducing: Bar Neon, a new Bloordale watering hole with some ambitious grub

Jeff Garcia’s striking mural adorns one wall at Bar Neon (Image: Gizelle Lau)

When Bar Neon opened last month, it became Bloordale’s answer to the trend embodied by places like Grand Electric and 416 Snack Bar: hip, local watering holes not afraid to serve food with a little ambition. Behind Bar Neon is Niki Tsourounakis, who grew up around the restaurant business, near Montreal. She also owns Café Neon in just outside the Junction Triangle and Amphora Products, a company that imports organic Vlatos olive oil and fleur de sel from Crete—both of which, naturally, make a few appearances on the plates at Bar Neon.

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The Goods

From the Print Edition

January 12, 2012 | 1:05 pm

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Where to Get Good Stuff Cheap 2012: everything you need for a cost-effective happy hour

Where to Get Good Stuff Cheap | Happy hour

Mixing glass
BYOB
972 Queen St. W., 877-989-8980
The classic Japanese Yarai mixing glass is large enough for making two cocktails at once, and its heavy glass frame looks good—but it’s infinitely more durable than similarly stunning crystal pieces (and infinitely less expensive, too).

Check out these four essential items for 60 minutes of low-cost boozy revelry »

The Dish

Rumours & Rumblings

January 6, 2012 | 11:30 am

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Bar star Moses McIntee to open Lucid Cocktail and Kitchen this month

A McIntee creation: Ame’s Hot and Sour, a bourbon and plum-liqueur creation with nori, sriracha, wasabi, egg white, citrus, cilantro leaves, maple syrup and simple syrup, rimmed with powdered miso, lime-infused sugar and seaweed and topped with tobiko, nori and salmon roe (Image: Matthew Hague)

Toronto cocktail lovers take note—word on the street is one of the city’s most inventive mixologists, Moses McIntee, is back on the scene after a brief reprieve. McIntee has done stints at many of Toronto’s top restaurants, including Nota Bene, Ame, The Spoke Club and most recently Toca at the Ritz-Carlton, where he was lead bartender (James Chatto wrote about his creations at Ame back in 2010). His many fans will be happy to hear he’s finally opening his own place: Lucid Cocktail and Kitchen, which is set to open on Queen West on January 20. And it’s not just drinks on offer: the plan is to serve food alongside McIntee’s concoctions until 2 a.m. every night they’re open. Oh, and don’t worry—this Lucid bears no relation the now-defunct John Street vodka-and-Red-Bull mainstay of the same name.

The Dish

From the Print Edition

October 21, 2011 | 12:57 pm

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New Reviews: Pizzeria Defina, Diana’s Oyster Bar and the Hoof Cocktail Bar

Thin-crust lust in Roncey, impeccable seafood in Scarborough and double-digit cocktails on Dundas West

PIZZERIA DEFINA
321 Roncesvalles Ave., 416-534-4414

The newest pizza parlour on the Roncesvalles strip isn’t world changing, but it’s a welcome addition to a neighbourhood brimming with families looking for quick, crowd-pleasing food. There are plenty of oddities on the menu: pizza salads and even a lasagna pizza (a margherita with ground beef and fior di latte). The baked pies, flash-cooked in a wood-fired brick oven, are tasty, though not Libretto, Queen Margherita or Terroni calibre. The crusts one night were a touch underdone, where they should have been blistered black. The tomato sauce is fine but doesn’t have the zip of a great San Marzano. The caesar salad is phoned in: the lettuce is still damp from washing, the dressing lacks punch, and the croutons are AWOL. Green bean “fritti” are tasty from lots of salt and pepper but floppy from deep-frying. Friendly service and a perfunctory wine list.

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The Dish

From the Print Edition

September 22, 2011 | 12:54 pm

14 Comments

True Grits: Chris Nuttall-Smith on Acadia’s sublime Lowcountry cooking

(Image: Emma McIntyre)

There are things you don’t expect in a cheap, casual Little Italy restaurant with a mediocre wine list. You don’t expect to find grits like these, for instance: melting, creamy, aggressively, exquisitely corny grits that the chef has mail-ordered in from South Carolina, because that’s where the best grits on the planet come from. They’re stirred through with pimento cheese that unfurls like a warm southern front on the tender stretch at the back of your throat.

There’s a broth around the grits, clear as glass but evil-deep and smoky from ham hocks, and there are shrimp, which are sweet, of course, but more than that. These are Gulf shrimp, mild and clean-tasting, whereas shrimp at other restaurants almost always taste like mud. The whole dish is sharp, focused, super-seasoned but not salty, a burst to the mainline. I have to shush my giddy tablemate. He’s dropping F-mother bombs because the food is so good.

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The Hype

TIFF Talk

September 20, 2011 | 12:00 pm

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TIFF 2011 Roundup: How to be Don Draper (er, Jon Hamm)

Jon Hamm at the George Stroumboulopoulos Hazel Hotel Takevoer party (Image: JJ Thompson)

One of the many A-list celebrities to grace Toronto’s streets last week for TIFF 2011 was none other than Jon Hamm himself—or as he’s perhaps better known, Don Draper, the enigmatic ad executive he plays on the television show Mad Men. Hamm was a class act throughout TIFF: he took in Toronto sights, went to all the right parties and, of course, looked devastatingly handsome while doing it. Based on Hamm’s short but sweet stay in the Big Smoke, we’ve distilled four rules on how to be a gentlemen—Mad Men style—whilst in Toronto, after the jump.

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The Dish

Opening

September 16, 2011 | 11:49 am

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Introducing: the second stop on the Drake Dining Roadshow, 1940s L.A. Chinatown

The redesigned dining room features all kinds of gleeful appropriations and kitschy Chinatown elements, like this wall of cats. (Image: Gizelle Lau)

Back in June, we told you about the Drake Hotel’s Dining Roadshow, a series of thematically changing restaurant concepts constructed in the back section of the hotel’s dining room, starting with the Drake Summer School Dining Hall. This stop: 1940s L.A. Chinatown, which opened just in time for TIFF and continues until November 19.

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The Dish

Foodie Follies

September 7, 2011 | 2:16 pm

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Attention food science nerds: Foodpairing.com’s Bernard Lahousse brings taste into the lab in two talks this week

Lahousse in the lab (Image: Sense of Taste)

Chefs often speak of perfect pairings, particularly in food and wine. While most accept that certain flavour combinations just work, a team from Belgium has developed a popular tool based on the principle that foods combine well with one another when they share major flavour components (the working philosophy of The Fat Duck’s Heston Blumenthal). The Foodpairing database features 1,000 ingredients, along with their corresponding flavour profiles, and is beloved by food science nerds the world over. We spoke to Bernard Lahousse, science research director at parent company Sense for Taste (who was in town this week to present at the Pangborn Sensory Science Symposium) about how these innovative tools are used by professional chefs, home cooks and, increasingly, bartenders and mixologists.

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The Hype

TIFF Talk

September 1, 2011 | 11:26 am

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Round 3, fight! More TIFF cocktails to help loosen us up when we’re three feet away from Ryan Gosling

Guests at the Vanity Fair party will sip the Descendants and the Martha Marcy May Marlene cocktails.

The TIFF cocktails keep coming, because sometimes it’s difficult to fraternize with A- to D-listers without the aid of some kind of social lubricant, and this time around, Belvedere tipped us off on the drinks that will be fuelling guests at Vanity Fair’s annual gala:

The Descendants is named after, er, The Descendants, although it could have easily been named the Judy Greer, since she’s starring in the film and has fiery red hair to match the colour of the drink. The cocktail includes Belvedere Red with cranberry and pink grapefruit juices and is served with a grapefruit garnish in a highball glass. Shailene Woodley stars in the film alongside Greer and George Clooney, but sadly there is no Secret Life of the American Teenager spritzer (yet).
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The Dish

Bottoms Up

August 31, 2011 | 3:30 pm

1 Comment

The vodka backlash backlash is here, apparently

Today’s Globe and Mail has a piece about the anti-vodka movement, championed by people like the Black Hoof’s Jen Agg, and the growing backlash to it. (Agg penned a memorable rant against the “stupid” spirit last February and Ortolan’s Damon Clements also gets in on the action in the Globe article.) One backlash backlasher, Vancouver’s Lauren Mote, reminds bartenders that they’re in the service industry and that they should act accordingly. Still, she prefers to use small-batch and infused vodkas for her cocktails instead of the mass market stuff. As ever, bar patrons vote with their wallets: vodka sales apparently jumped from 18 to 23 per cent of all spirits over the last 10 years in Canada. Stupid or not, the stuff sells. Read the whole story [Globe and Mail] »

The Hype

TIFF Talk

August 29, 2011 | 10:45 am

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More TIFF 2011 cocktails that will keep us buzzed among the buzzy

Northern Starlet, Toronto Tower and Le Fizz (Images: Grey Goose)

We are 10 days away from the booze-soaked celebrity circus otherwise known as the Toronto International Film Festival, and the themed cocktails continue to roll out. Unlike Skyy Vodka’s A-lister–inspired libations, Grey Goose has chosen to highlight Canada, albeit in a somewhat obvious way.

The Grey Goose Northern Starlet is layered with flavours and, according to brand ambassador Dimi Lezinska, is a “star amongst the stars.” Vodka is mixed with cherry liqueur, organic cranberry juice, passion fruit syrup and freshly squeezed pink grapefruit juice. The cocktail is garnished with a whole star anise and served in a vintage champagne saucer. Apart from the cranberries, we can’t quite figure out what’s so northern about it.
No Toronto pandering would be complete without a reference to “the sky-high towers of downtown Toronto,” and the Grey Goose Toronto Tower makes that reference—except it sounds delicious: vodka, freshly squeezed lime juice, sugar cane syrup, celery bitters and sparkling water make for what we hope will be the go-to palate cleanser of TIFF 2011.
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