More like probably denied (Image: Jon Sufrin)

Summer—a.k.a. patio season—is still months away, but that isn’t stopping the Toronto and East York Community Council from raining on everyone’s parade in advance. Seven proposals for “boulevard café permits,” including from Campagnolo and the Queen West location of Dark Horse Espresso Bar, are on the agenda for the upcoming Valentine’s Day meeting of community council. In each and every case, city staff members have recommended that the application be denied. (To be fair, most of the time at least some nearby residents have opposed the patios.) At the same meeting, the Greektown on the Danforth Business Improvement Association will continue its battle against Toronto’s inconsistent rules on patio hours. Last year, a stretch of Danforth eateries won the right to keep their patios open until midnight, but a few party animals just couldn’t help themselves and broke curfew—so city staff has recommended the privilege be withdrawn. See the full list of doomed patio proposals after the jump:

Dark Horse Espresso Bar
684 Queen St. W. (patio on Euclid Avenue)
Patio for 22 patrons
Staff report | Proposed floor plan

Campagnolo
832 Dundas St. W. (patio on Euclid Avenue)
Patio for 30 patrons
Staff report | Proposed floor plan

Woodlot Restaurant
293 Palmerston Ave.
Patio for five patrons
Staff report | Proposed floor plan

Café Stella
1261 Bloor St. W. (patio on St. Clarens Avenue)
Patio for 28 patrons
Staff report | Proposed floor plan

Mullins
537 College St. (patio on Euclid Avenue)
Patio for 49 patrons
Staff report | Proposed floor plan

Paris Bakery & Pastry
654 Lansdowne Ave. (patio on Wallace Avenue)
Patio for 40 patrons
Staff report | Proposed floor plan

White Swan Restaurant and Lounge
836B Danforth Ave.
Patio for five patrons
Staff report | Proposed floor plan

Greektown on the Danforth pilot project
Extended patio hours for the Greektown on the Danforth BIA
Staff report | List of participating businesses and violations

Kids and coffee, together at last (well, sorta) (Image: Karolyne Ellacott)

Playful Grounds has only been open a few days, but the kid-friendly College Street café is already garnering plenty of attention from the neighbourhood. Indeed, when we dropped by, one mother looked around incredulously before asking, “When did this open?” The shop is the creation of Davina Cheung-Brown and Tera Goldblatt, who met at a local drop-in centre. “We wanted to create a place that has everything moms need,” Goldblatt told us. “Drop-in centres are life savers, but we wanted an adult place that can accommodate kids—rather than the other way around.” Tired of getting the hipster brush-off in regular coffee shops, the duo decided to open a café that welcomes kids but can still appeal to adults.

Cheung-Brown and Goldblatt snagged a spot that already had child-friendly bones: a step-free entrance and toilets on the main floor. While the whitewashed bricks walls and black leather seating are much like those of any other new café, the front of the room is reserved for “stroller parking,” and tables feature corner protectors to prevent little heads from getting knocked. Each washroom comes equipped with kid-friendly seats and stools to aid hand washing; the family-sized bathroom is fitted with a chalkboard for babes to scribble upon while mommies or daddies tend to dirty diapers. Most importantly, the play zone is filled with enough stuff to keep the little ones amused for about as long as it takes to drink a cup of coffee.

With regard to beverages, adults can opt for coffee-based drinks from Alternative Grounds or Herbal Infusion tea. Weary parents can also sip on a glass of wine ($5) or have their coffee with a kick ($6.25) as the kids amuse themselves in the play area. “My mom’s always said, ‘One in the afternoon’s worth three at night,’ ” Goldblatt notes. Kiddie options include hot chocolate ($1.75) and steamers ($1.75)—available in sippy cups—in addition to Kiju juice ($2). Baked goods from Wanda’s Pie in the Sky and Sweets From the Earth are currently on the roster. As of next week, healthy lunch options will be introduced, and kid-friendly brunch is in the works.

Playful Grounds, 605 College St., 416-645-0484, playfulgrounds.com

Kyle Brown and Rodney Bowers outside Hey Meatball!’s College Street storefront (Image: Caroline Aksich)

On a wall in Rodney Bowers’s new College Street venture Hey Meatball!, there’s a photo of a bandana-clad Bowers holding up a sign that reads “You’ll love the taste of our balls.” Bowers’s name is usually associated with more elevated dining—he worked at Mistura, opened The Citizen and The Rosebud and consulted for The Gabardine—but after getting married and having a daughter, he wanted a break from the high-stress world of $45 entrées.

The inspiration comes from a kofta (Turkish meatball) shop Bowers and his wife Natalie saw in Istanbul. The premise was simple: customers picked their meatball (beef, lamb or chicken) and paired it with a side dish like salad or roast potatoes. “I was just so in love, I knew I wanted to open a kofta shop,” Bowers tells us. In the end, he’s opted for a more multicultural approach to the meatball. Expect to see daily specials like butter chicken meatballs, chicken wing meatballs in a blue cheese sauce or, come Christmas, a Newfie-inspired salt cod invention. There are also more than enough Italian-inspired dishes on the menu for this new kid to fit in on the Little Italy block. The Rodfather, for example, is three pork-and-beef meatballs with a spicy veal bolognese sauce, garnished with fresh basil, grana padano and, according to kitchen manager Kyle Brown, “attitude.”

Bowers is trying to source all his ingredients from a 100-mile radius, but because of the shop’s late opening they only managed to catch the tail end of pepper season. Still, the Hey Meatball team did manage to can 1,200 litres of roma tomatoes this year. The meat is mostly from Rowe Farms. The mix ’n’ match menu allows customers to choose a protein (veal, beef, turkey, chicken, pork or vegetarian balls), a sauce (pesto, tomato, bolognese or alfredo) and a side (risotto, polenta, pasta, seasonal veggies or salad), all for about $11 (the prices are still in flux). There are also extra sides like a roast beet salad with feta and balsamic for $5 and epic meatball subs offered in three sizes: the hero with four balls ($9–$10), the crusher with two balls ($5–$6) and a single-ball slider ($3–$4). Two more items you don’t normally expect to see served with your meatball sub: organic soft serve ice cream ($3) from a giant mid-century machine and homemade sodas prepared with Q water and fresh produce like Ontario field strawberries ($3).

Hey Meatball!, 719 College St., 416-546-1483, heymeatball.ca

Acadia, Scott Selland’s first restaurant, serves food inspired by the South, the Lowcountry and the Maritimes (Image: Renée Suen)

Earlier this summer we previewed Acadia, a new venture by first-time restaurateur Scott Selland (Splendido, Colborne Lane, Susur) aimed at introducing the flavours of the Lowcountry and the South to the city. The restaurant opened without much fanfare in late July, but has already seen a lot of buzz in the industry. We ventured back to the corner of College and Clinton to check out how Acadia is doing on its promise to shake up Little Italy’s complacent dining scene.

Selland has transformed the crowded mahogany interior of the space’s predecessor, Langolino, into an airy and minimalist southern country home. The wood-panelled split-level room is bright, with bronze wall sconces and exposed bricks. Selland’s wife, Lindsay, picked out the dark, refinished hostess stand, side stations and antique soda siphons. At the heart of the long dining room is a custom-designed stainless steel–covered bar that draws the eyes towards Acadia’s open kitchen, where patrons can see chef de cuisine Matt Blondin (Colborne Lane, Senses, Rain) and his crew at work.

Blondin’s cuisine takes familiar southern flavours and reinterprets them in a meticulously plated contemporary style. The food highlights the high-quality ingredients that Blondin brings in, such as the Anson Mills grits from Carolina and the Ocean Wise–certified shrimp used in Acadia’s shrimp and grits ($12). Acadia’s menu also relies heavily on east-coast seafood supplied by purveyors such as Taro Fish and Hooked and featured in mains like the Kolapore Springs speckled trout ($19), which is served with oyster mayonnaise, sunchoke relish, charred scallion and sea asparagus.

Acadia’s drink menu, meanwhile, is a carefully curated list of spirits, craft beers from small producers and southern cuisine–inspired cocktails. That means a heavy emphasis on bourbon, of course. State Lines ($14) mixes the distinctively southern spirit with Aperol, sweet vermouth and a maraschino cherry. Rarer varieties like the Eagle Rare Single Barrel ($13) or a 12-year-old Elijah Craig ($12) are probably better consumed neat.

Both Blondin and Selland tell us that their small, focused menu will evolve organically, with dishes shifting gradually as the season changes. “We push each other quite a bit; to always be excelling and improving in what we do,” Selland told us. “We have many exciting ideas bouncing around, but the ones that will come to fruition, only time will tell. At the end of the day it’s our call—we don’t put any limitations on ourselves. We both have the mindset that we’ll do anything once.”

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Acadia Restaurant, 50C Clinton St., 416-792-6002, acadiarestaurant.com.

(Image: Sian Richards)

In a city obsessed with elevating old-school comforts to ridiculous heights—$20 fried chicken, brie and duck confit grilled cheese—it’s refreshing to find a retro hot dog joint that honours the trashy simplicity of the ’50s staple: the Montreal-style steamed hot dog, affectionately known in La Belle Province as the steamie. Unlike grilling, which can split the dogs, steaming preserves their structural integrity so they plump up with meaty juices. Owner Sam Santino (who also runs the Big Chill ice cream parlour next door) got hooked on the gherkin-sized Lesters-brand dogs during visits to Montreal, where they go for as little as 50 cents each. At his tiny hole in the wall, just away from the bustle of College Street’s bar scene, the Lilliputian wieners cost a toonie and come with a choice of the usual salty, zingy condiments. Other kitschy options, like chili cheese dogs and poutine made with frozen McCain’s fries, will satisfy late-night bar crowds craving a greasy fix, but the best time to visit is on a lazy afternoon when you can grab a candy-coloured picnic table on the patio and indulge in some misty-eyed nostalgia.

The Little Dog, 566 College St., 416-960-2455

(Photography by Christopher Stevenson; Styling by Andrea Beechey)

Just why is Dustin smiling so broadly? (Image: Food Network Canada)

In case you hadn’t noticed, Top Chef Canada premieres tonight on Food Network Canada. If you don’t have your viewing plans all sorted out, Grace, the College Street home of contestant Dustin Gallagher, is hosting a viewing party tonight in its upstairs lounge, starting around 8 p.m. Grace was closed on Mondays during the winter but is now open Monday through Saturday, just in time for Gallagher’s small-screen debut. Apparently the viewing parties will last for at least the first five weeks of the program and may continue after that. Could this kind of celebration hint at Gallagher’s success on the show? Guess we’ll just have to watch and find out.

Meanwhile, Origin’s Steve Gonzalez, also a contestant, will be making an appearance at a viewing party hosted by the Drake.

Top Chef Canada debuts tonight at 9 p.m. on Food Network Canada. Check back on Tuesday for a recap of the episode.

This year’s crop of restaurants, from a million-dollar dining room to a brazen burger joint, pushed Toronto’s culinary culture in creative, comforting and blessedly cheap directions. Here, the 10 new spots that are redefining the way we eat, drink and play in the city By Chris Nuttall-Smith | Photography by Ryan Szulc

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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.

In the kitchen, executive chef Sean Reeve—formerly of Toronto’s Via Allegro and Cioppino’s Mediterranean Grill and Enoteca in Vancouver—will turn out traditional southern Italian cuisine with a modern touch (think eggplant parmesan or slow-braised veal ragout with porcini mushrooms and egg pappardelle). The wine list will lean toward Italian and Californian selections.

Commute Home (the people behind Nyood’s design) is giving the interior a facelift with a communal table in the back, three VIP booths and a mix of wood, marble, and metal tables.

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

With new indie cafés opening in Toronto every month, it takes a lot of gumption to jump into the fray—especially if the new spot is located between java havens Lit and The Common. Yet that’s just what Roberto and Sandra Mandarino, the co-owners of The Slow Room, have done. “We want people to come for the coffee and stay for the sandwiches,” says Roberto, who hopes his menu of locally sourced food will give him an edge on java-heavy College Street.

For his all-Italian creations, Roberto applies lessons he learned from his nonna. On offer are such sandwiches as the consentino (capicollo, sopressata, provolone and red peppers) and the vegetarian “eggplant meat(less)ball” (eggplant and basil ragu). Saturday, we’re told, is porchetta day.

The Slow Room takes its espresso seriously, too. Resident barista Drew Randall is a veteran of Bulldog Coffee, who does his thing on a shiny new La Marzocco Linea espresso machine. He’s also a classically trained cellist, so it’s not unusual for him to pop in a latte-sipping soundtrack of Italian baroque.

Seating is limited in the closet-sized space, but owners are going for a friendly, cozy vibe anyway, and hoping to pull it off without depending on Wi-Fi. Accompanying the sandwiches is a modest selection of pastries, some made in-house, like the gluten-free pistachio or almond cookies ($3 and $2, respectively) and others from La Strada Bakery.

Decor is trendily vintage, with tributes to the motherland thrown in here and there (red pepper garlands and a rather ferocious boar’s head known as Hugo). With ingredients this fresh, supplies are often limited—“when we’re out, we’re out,” Roberto says—but that’s OK, because as the closed sign eloquently points out, “shut happens.”

The Slow Room, 874 College St.

(Images: Jon Sufrin)

The leaning tower of Caplansky (Image: Jon Sufrin)

The “leaning tower of Caplansky” has been selling like a pile of hotcakes. Or, rather, a pile of challah French toast stacked three high and layered with cream cheese, blueberry jam and bacon (beef bacon, natch). The tower joins maple-dipped fried chicken, gefilte fish and a slew of veggie options to make up the new menu at Caplansky’s Delicatessen.

Zane Caplansky wants his new menu, which has been nearly six months in the making, to offer something for everyone. No longer is the College Street deli solely a haven for carnivores and smoked meat aficionados. The menu has expanded into vegetarianism with a ratatouille, an “overpowering” mac-and-cheese and a greatly expanded selection of salads. For fish lovers, Ontario rainbow trout is on offer, as well as gefilte fish—an option we’d hoped for when we first heard about the new menu over the summer. The gefilte fish isn’t made in-house just yet, but Caplansky says he has his grandmother’s handwritten recipe, which he’ll put into practice once the kinks of the new menu have been worked out.

While Caplansky’s was known to do omelettes on request in the past, doing so would often back up the kitchen. Now, Caplansky has his kitchen efficiently churning out all-day omelettes that come with latkes and rye toast. Of course, the classic sandwiches haven’t gone anywhere, and neither has the self-deprecation. A sign on the window states, reassuringly, “Great new menu, same lousy service.”

Albino Silva, the restaurateur behind Chiado on College Street, is part owner of Salt. He secured the lease for the space at 225 Ossington in January 2009, just four months before the city issued a year-long moratorium on business licences for new bars and restaurants on the street.

Stuck with the property, well into planning for the venture and assured that the ban would soon be lifted, Silva forged ahead. Then, in fall of last year, the city adopted changes to the moratorium that would have allowed a licence for smaller spaces, including Silva’s restaurant. But a handful of business and property owners in the area contested the change and brought the issue before the Ontario Municipal Board, where it has been stalled ever since. Everybody’s hands are tied until the OMB rules on the issue, city officials say. Hearings aren’t scheduled until November.

So when he opened on August 4, Silva did so with the space’s existing grocery licence—he intends to fill the room’s floor-to-ceiling olive wood shelving with Portuguese and Spanish specialty foods—and by serving wine and cocktails on the catering licence he has through Chiado.

“You know what, I said to my kids, I’m exposing myself here, but I’ve always been an honest businessman and I’m going to be truthful about this, and I hope I won’t have any problems,” he said in an interview early this week. (Toronto Life chose not to publish the story at the time, knowing that doing otherwise could get him shut down.) “What am I going to do, lie about it? No.”

The restaurant is very good: fun and casual but completely mellow, sophisticated without being pretentious, wine-focused, with an impressive selection of sub-$40 bottles. And the small Iberian-inspired plates from ex–Prego Della Piazza chef Dave Kemp are in many cases as good as you’ll find in Lisbon or Barcelona. The charred bread, for example, is as close as you can get to Catalonia’s incredible pan con tomate without actually being there: fresh, sweet, pulpy tomatoes, oil and sea salt that you spoon (they rub it in Spain, but no matter) over crusty garlic-rubbed bread. It is hardly the sort of raucous, booming nightclub that the city’s ban seemed intended to prevent; if anything, it’s the sort of place the street and the city need more of.

City councillor and mayoral candidate Joe Pantalone said today that he hopes city officials will be lenient with the wine bar. “I have absolutely no doubt that this is an excellent place, and it’s the kind of place that we want. I’ve said to them, if you should find yourself in any technical difficulties with the city…I would be pleased to write any letters and to suggest to city officials that they should apply discretion,” he said. “In my opinion, it’s really a technicality, this whole issue.” But Pantalone added that neither he nor the city has any pull with the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario, which is responsible for issuing and inspecting liquor licences.

Silva says inspectors from the city and from the AGCO visited him earlier this week, before The Star made his rule-breaking public, but noted that he hadn’t yet heard back from officials with either body. The Star piece, if anything, could speed their decision. Silva is furious with the paper. “They were after blood, and I don’t know why,” he said. “At the end of the day, there will be 18 people out of a job.” The Star’s Amy Pataki, who wrote the piece, couldn’t be reached for comment Friday afternoon. For now, Silva says, he plans to keep opening every night. “I’m going to open until somebody closes me down.”

Get there while you can, in other words.

• Despite ban, frustrated restaurateur opens on Ossington [Toronto Star]

Members only: the interior of the Toronto Temperance Society (Image: Jon Sufrin)

There may be no decoy phone booth in the vein of New York’s secret bar, Please Don’t Tell, but a door on College Street betrays no hint of the Toronto Temperance Society (TTS), a newly renovated space above Sidecar where some of the city’s best cocktails are painstakingly crafted for members only. TTS just opened on Thursday, and it’s the kind of place where martinis are always stirred (sorry, Bond) and where bartenders—quite dapper in their suspenders and bow ties—get a kick out of procuring hard-to-find bitters.

TTS has the look and feel of a speakeasy: the staff hand-cracks ice for cocktails and pours concoctions through super-fine strainers while Louis Armstrong plays in the background. Drinks are made according to a stringent pre-1920s tradition that was nearly lost in North America during the years of prohibition, says co-owner Christine Sismondo. Most cocktails on the menu were perfected over generations by bartenders of yore, with the recipes preserved in venerable bartender handbooks. The resurrection comes with a fee, though: $285 for a year-long membership, along with adherence to a set of house rules.

Gin, whiskey, rum and tequila are the big guns here, forming the base of such bevvies as the Toronto Temperance ($10), a classic cocktail named after our city but, ironically, not available here until now. The gin and tonic ($11) sounds simple enough, but the tonic is meticulously house-brewed with chinona bark, allspice and other ingredients.

For those who aren’t feeling cocktail-minded, the TTS has an all-Canadian beer menu carefully thought out by the dude who wrote Cheers! A History of Beer in Canada (Nicholas Pashley). Food items are prepared downstairs in Sidecar’s kitchen, but owners want to keep the focus on good music, good company and, of course, top-notch hooch. “Try to think of us as your spirit guides,” the menu says—a suggestion much easier to follow after your first cocktail.