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The comprehensive index of every blog post, magazine story and restaurant review that appears on Torontolife.com

All stories relating to comfort food

The Dish

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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

From the Print Edition

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Where to Get Good Stuff Cheap 2012: a pimped-out sandwich, the ultimate bargain gourmet meal

Where to Get Good Stuff Cheap | Sandwiches

Where to Get Good Stuff Cheap | Sandwiches

Waldorf chicken salad
Bannock
401 Bay St., 416-861-6996
The excellent sandwiches at Oliver and Bonacini’s new downtown Canadiana spot Bannock epitomize the high standards and unfussy elegance of big brother Canoe, at grab-and-go prices. A savoury Waldorf salad—the classiest vehicle for mayonnaise and chopped chicken—arrives on a perfectly buttery, flaky croissant.

Check out three of the city’s most pimped-out sandwiches »

The Dish

TV Diner

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New Canadian TV show You Gotta Eat Here! hops on the comfort food bandwagon

You Gotta Eat Here host John Catucci takes his comfort food seriously (Image: Food Network Canada)

It looks like Food Network Canada is betting that comfort food, the culinary trend that refuses to die, has yet more staying power left. Tomorrow the network will launch You Gotta Eat Here!, a new show that will see host John Catucci heading to diners and greasy spoons across Canada to sample the food, talk to the owners and learn some tricks in the kitchen. The premise sounds like a Canadian take on the tremendously popular Diners, Drive-ins and Dives (we’re hoping, though, that Catucci will steer way clear of some of Guy Fieris frat-boy phraseology).

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The Dish

Aprons & Icons

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Q&A with Bobby Flay: the Iron Chef talks to us about comfort food, Toronto dining and his Thanksgiving dinner for 55

Bobby Flay is a busy, busy man. In between flipping burgers with President Obama and opening up new restaurants (he launches his ninth Bobby’s Burger Palace next week), he finds time to shoot five TV shows and write cookbooks (he’s penned nearly a dozen). As if that weren’t enough, he also races horses and raises money for charitable causes. We caught up with the Iron Chef, who was in Toronto this past weekend hosting the Chef’s Challenge, a fundraiser that supports breast and ovarian cancer research at Mount Sinai hospital. Here’s what he told us:

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The Dish

From the Print Edition

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Chris Nuttall-Smith on Keriwa and Bannock, two restaurants riffing on Canadian culinary traditions

Chef Joseph Bear Robe works the stoves at Keriwa, the city’s only Aboriginal restaurant

Chef Joseph Bear Robe works the stoves at Keriwa, the city’s only Aboriginal restaurant (Image: Emma McIntyre)

In the basement hallway of Keriwa Café, there’s a row of photographs showing an Ojibwa man dancing through Paris in feathered powwow regalia. From the Louvre to the Champs Élysées, the stomping, rattle-shaking man appears in hyper-saturated colour, while the City of Light behind him is rendered in muted sepia, as if to invoke a noble past. But in the final image, the dancer leans over. As you look more closely, you see that he’s fiddling with something, an iPod connected to a ghetto blaster—Sitting Bull meets the b-boy crew. “You think you know me?” the photo seems to say.

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The Dish

Aprons & Icons

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Foodie film alert: A Matter of Taste follows 10 years in the life of Paul Liebrandt

In 2001, Paul Liebrandt—whose story is told in A Matter of Taste: Serving Paul Liebrandt, on now at the TIFF Bell Lightbox—was one of New York’s most promising chefs. At 24, after working in some of Europe’s most accomplished kitchens, the British expat moved to New York to make a name for himself. He practised a high-concept, experimental style of cooking—chocolate-covered scallops, crystallized violets—that was lauded by critics but commercially unviable during the ascendancy of comfort food. Soon enough, Liebrandt found himself flipping burgers and making seven different kinds of french fries, just to keep his restless mind occupied.

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TV Diner

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Top Chef Canada winner Dale MacKay to launch new restaurant (sadly not in Toronto) and spice line

Dale MacKay finds out he’s the winner of Top Chef Canada as Toronto’s Rob Rossi looks on. (Image: Food Network Canada/Insight Productions)

We don’t usually cover Vancouver restaurant news here at the Dish, but for Top Chef Canada winner Dale MacKay, we’ll make an exception. Shortly after taping the series, MacKay opened Ensemble (although he wasn’t able to make use of his winning until after the series aired). Now the Vancouver Sun is reporting that he’s launching a new eatery a few blocks away this December (the name is currently a secret). Sure, we’re disappointed we won’t be trying his food in Toronto any time soon, but we take solace in the fact that MacKay is also apparently introducing a line of spices.

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The Dish

Opening

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Introducing: Food Cabbie, a new food truck with classic American comfort food

Toronto’s newest food truck (Image: Karolyne Ellacott)

The Food Cabbie, an unassuming yellow-and-black food truck serving American classics, popped up a couple weeks ago in a car park at the corner of Queen and Jarvis. Already, owner Spiros Drossos has gotten to know the hungry mugs from the neighbourhood: George Brown students making the trek north and office workers taking a break from their ritual Subway sandwiches (including not a few employees of St. Joseph Media, Toronto Life’s parent company).

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The Dish

Opening

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Introducing: The Hogtown Vegan, vegan comfort food from the Hot Beans crew

Inside the new restaurant from the trio behind Kensington Market’s wildly popular Hot Beans (Image: Daniel Barna)

In the past few years, Toronto has become a bona fide meat-tropolis, with a new charcuterie-heavy jointbarbecue smokehouse or gourmet burger shack opening faster than you can braise a veal shank (which admittedly takes some time). But that hasn’t stopped the trio behind Kensington Market’s popular vegan takeout place Hot Beans from expanding its burgeoning meat-free empire with the newly opened Hogtown Vegan. Though Hot Beans serves strictly burritos and donuts, owners Madeleine Foote, Scott McCannell (Foote’s boyfriend) and Ross Corder have decided to tackle a decidedly trickier trend, one that’s already popular in both New York and L.A.: vegan comfort food.

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The Dish

Opening

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Introducing: The Combine Eatery, the new place for fish tacos on the Danforth

Outside the new southwestern restaurant (Image: Karolyne Ellacott)

The Combine Eatery, a new southwestern comfort food spot started by siblings Albert and Amy Chan, stands out from the slew of Greek eateries along the Danforth strip. Amy’s background in fashion frequently led her to San Diego, where she quickly took to gobbling up fish tacos during her downtime, which was the starting point for the restaurant.

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The Dish

Opening

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Introducing: Smith, the gay village’s new destination for both grubbing and clubbing

Looking out onto Church Street from inside Smith (Image: Daniel Barna)

Smith may be one of the less Google-able of Toronto’s new restaurants, but owner Renda Abdo is counting on sharp design and a menu of updated takes on comfort food to lure in the masses. “Smith is for anybody that enjoys good food, good music and good atmosphere,” the Wish and Black Skirt boss says of the newly opened three-level restaurant, which took over the space formerly occupied by Straight, one of the gay village’s more popular clubs. But just because it’s a restaurant, don’t expect things to go quiet at night.

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TV Diner

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We chat with the winner of Top Chef Canada season one

We caught up with the winner of season one of Top Chef Canada last night shortly after the show aired to get their impressions on the season and find out what they’re doing with the loot (the grand prize was $100,000, along with a GE Monogram kitchen). And yes, we’re keeping things intentionally vague to stave off spoilers. Read our Q&A and find out who won, after the jump.

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The Dish

Opening

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Introducing: Barque, Roncesvalles’s new, lighter take on the traditional smokehouse

Barque’s haute-BBQ dining room was designed by the Design Agency (Image: Daniel Barna)

With newish barbecue joints The Stockyards and Hadley’s still going gangbusters and Hardy’s set to open this June, it looks like the Big Smoke is finally starting to live up to its name. Toronto’s newest smokehouse is Barque, a laid-back Roncesvalles spot whose fare is a little lighter than the artery-clogging calorie bombs usually associated with the cuisine of the American South. “There’s no reason why barbecue needs to be heavy,” says chef and owner David Neinstein, as he slathers his homemade rub on a sky-high pile of smoker-ready ribs.

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The Dish

Opening

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Introducing Parkette: Italian comfort food, Trinity Bellwoods style

(Image: Davida Aronovitch)

Aptly named for its proximity to Trinity Bellwoods, Parkette is yet another new, rustic Italian outpost, this time only a couple blocks away from Terroni, which, arguably, launched the trend in Toronto. Cheery and warm, the 30-seat space features sandy blond woods, exposed brick, a playful park bench banquette in classic picnic green and a kitschy vintage Coca-Cola sign.

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The Dish

Opening

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Introducing: Stout Irish Pub, the Cabbagetown tavern with a serious beer list

(Image: Signe Langford)

The traditional gold lettering set against a black wall might bring to mind Foxes, Fiddles and Firkins, but this is no cookie-cutter ye olde pub. Behind the simple black doors is a serious chef, 20 local craft and imported beers on tap, another 30 by the bottle, fat leather wingbacks and the welcoming aroma of smouldering peat.

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