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Nadège Patisserie’s new 700-square-foot Rosedale space
Fourth-generation confectioner Nadège Nourian won over many Toronto palates when she opened her eponymous Queen West bakery and café almost two years ago—it’s become a destination for high-end pastries. This week, Nourian, along with her front-of-house manager and partner Morgan McHugh, opened a second store in Rosedale, bringing a little bit of Paris to the gourmet strip.
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Sweets counter at Petite and Sweet
What do you get when you put two high-end event planners and a cake decorator together? Petite and Sweet, a new Summerhill boutique specializing in luxe events, with a shop that showcases all their offerings, like specialty desserts, confectionery, flowers, gifts and special occasion accessories. Petite and Sweet is the spawn of two companies: Madison Eight Event Laboratories, corporate event planners, and SweetFix, which provides dessert tables for events, parties, and business meetings. At the centre of both companies is Elle Daftarian, who brought together her business partners, Casper Hydar of Madison Eight and Yolanda Gampp of SweetFix, to create the new store.
In the shop, customers can get a taste of what both constituent companies have to offer. Taking notes from Ladurée in Paris and Chanel’s white-with-black-trim motif, the boutique has a light, contemporary touch. Giant flower arrangements, crystal chandeliers, decorated tiered cakes and two white-buttoned winged chairs line the store. Special event staples like cake stands, silk flower arrangements, cookbooks, ornamental pieces, gift-wrapping and invites are also on display.
At the front of the shop is a contemporary version of a candy shop offering chocolate bars (wrapped in beautiful handmade Japanese paper), gumballs, specialty M+M’s and more. At the back you’ll find “fancy Oreos” ($2.95), dipped marshmallows ($2.75), French macarons ($2.75) and cupcakes ($3.25), as well as croissants and cookies. Italian Hausbrandt coffee and French Fauchon tea are offered, and an outdoor patio is on the way.
Petite & Sweet, 420 Summerhill Ave., 647-348-7700, petiteandsweet.ca.
Warning: these chips are habit-forming (Image: Sian Richards)
Trend-conscious Roncesvalles has fallen hard for the chocolate-dipped potato chip, the wickedly addictive best-seller at the avenue’s newest confectionery, The Chocolateria. The winsome shop is run by Tim English, a corporate lawyer who succumbed to the siren call of chocolate after taking a pastry course at George Brown. His sweet gamble has paid off: despite opening at the end of August, in the midst of a debilitating heat wave and Roncey construction chaos, the shop has been an instant success. (Smartly, the woo campaign this fall included free samples of nutmeg-laced hot chocolate.) Best bets: craggy hunks of sponge toffee, deliciously gooey turtles with fresh pecans (a huge improvement on Grandma’s drugstore collection) and, of course, these wondrous, habit-forming chips.
The Chocolateria
361 Roncesvalles Ave., 416-588-0567
Leaf fan: Matchbox Gardens grows rare and wonderful lettuces (Image: Jay Shuster)
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The German chocolate company Chocri caught our eye this week with an announcement that its made-to-order chocolate bars are now being shipped to Canada. Local chocoholics can now design their own confections using Chocri’s Web site createmychocolate.com, which allows users to choose from four types of base—white, milk, dark and mixed milk and white—and over 100 toppings of fruit, nuts, spices, gold flakes and grains. We’ve never tasted the products, but were intrigued since the European company uses only organic, ethically-produced chocolate from Belgium. Seems like a great way to develop either an extremely complicated chocolate fix or a gross-out monstrosity. Current examples on the site include:
“________’s Specialty PMS Bar” (Milk Chocolate with Blueberries, Sour Cherries, Cornflakes and Toasted Hazelnuts)
Nuts and Jolts (Milk and White Chocolate with Coffee, Macadamia Nuts, Bourbon Vanilla, Cocoa Nibs and Roasted Cashews)
All the rage: finger foods (Photo: Renée Suen)
To follow up the Canadian Chef Survey of food trends, we decided to attend the annual conference of the Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association (CRFA) to see if the proof was in the pudding. Turns out, it was in the verrines (see photo). Our 12 key trend observations, after the jump.
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New Generation Sushi on Bloor St. W. (Photo by Google)
• What began as a minor argument between two employees at New Generation, a popular stop along the Annex’s sushi strip, culminated in a murder. As many as 18 patrons were present at the restaurant on Saturday night when the nightmarish situation unfolded. Unfinished plates of food remained on tables on Sunday as investigators searched for clues. A 27-year-old employee was killed, and a 25-year-old co-worker was arrested at the scene. [Toronto Star]
• Good magazine has compiled a comparative infographic that looks at the national obesity rates and caloric intake of various countries around the world. As in so many other competitions, the U.S. reigns supreme, with 66.3 per cent of its citizens considered obese; the average daily caloric intake there is 3,767, with about 39 per cent of those calories coming from fats, oils and sugar. It’s no wonder, then, that the U.S. couldn’t make it into Forbes’ top 10 healthiest countries in the world. Canada came in eighth, with a still-shameful 23.1 per cent of its citizens overweight. [Good]
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• “Bouquet of Nerds candy” good; “notes of Bazooka Joe gum” bad. So says the populist, DIY wine critic Gary Vaynerchuk, who has broken out of YouTube into the wine-tasting big leagues , according to the New York Times. Old-fashioned vinophiles have no idea what to do with the guy. He once wrapped a smelly old gym sock around asparagus to demonstrate how a good Burgundy bottle should smell. [New York Times]
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Sweet booth: The Dufflet Pasteries store in The Beach (Photo by Ian Irving)
Torontonians have celebrated her for years, but now even Americans are lauding our queen of sweets Dufflet Rosenberg. At the 37th Sofi Awards the baker-businesswoman won gold for best confection with an almond and pistachio version of her famous (and trademarked) Caramel Crackle. The event, held in New York and organized by the National Association for the Specialty Food Trade, saw 2,000 entries submitted in 33 award categories (best condiment, best cracker, best appetizer, antipasto, etc.), which were then narrowed down to 128 finalists. Celeb chef and host Ming Tsai handed the Oscar-like trophy to a shocked Rosenberg, who has won three silver awards in the last four years.
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