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Top Chef Canada season two contestants announced; here are your six Toronto chefs

(Images: Food Network Canada/Insight Productions)

With the sophomore season of Top Chef Canada set to premiere on March 12, Food Network Canada has finally introduced the 16 chefs hoping to cook their way to $100,000 (and, lest we forget, a GE Monogram kitchen). The group (which, perhaps responding to feedback about season one, is a tad more multicultural) once again contains six Torontonians, among them Marben’s Carl Heinrich and Ruby Watchco’s Ryan Gallagher. Tasting the food will be new host Lisa Ray, alongside head judge Mark McEwan and resident judge Shereen Arazm and a spate of guests that includes culinary personalities (Top Chef Masters winner Marcus Samuelsson) and sundry celebrities (handyman Mike Holmes, actor Alan Thicke, Kenny vs. Spenny’s Spencer Rice). We round up the Toronto contestants, starting with Victor’s David Chrystian »

The Dish

De-licious

January 9, 2012 | 3:15 pm

2 Comments

Winterlicious 2012: Toronto Life’s picks for King West and the Financial District

WINTERLICIOUS 2012 | DOWNTOWN SOUTH

The dining scene in and around the Financial District has seen a lot of changes since last year’s festival, with new restaurants (Aria, Estiatorio Volos) and new chefs at existing restaurants (Lucien, Brassaii). Here, 24 Winterlicious picks south of College.

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The Hype

TIFF Talk

September 7, 2011 | 1:57 pm

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TIFF after hours: the 44 (and counting) film fest venues with the coveted 4 a.m. last call

(Image: walknboston)

Every year celebs from all over the world flood into the city for TIFF, but for many, it’s the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario that’s the real star throughout the month of September. Just in time to combat post-summer blues, the AGCO grants certain venues the rights to the elusive 4 a.m. last call. While last year’s list clocked in at 44 venues This year’s list of venues with extended hours finally caught up with last year’s, bringing the current number to 44—some of them not open to the public (we’re looking at you, Windsor Arms) and others open for one night only. Check out the list of late-night watering holes after the jump and stay tuned for updates on extended hours, as more are expected to roll in before the festival.

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The Dish

From the Print Edition

April 20, 2011 | 9:11 am

9 Comments

The sipper club: meet the city’s competitive cabal of top sommeliers

Will Predhomme belongs to a competitive cabal of top sommeliers who sniff, sip and spit their way through hundreds of bottles a week. They do this to help you decide what to drink with your dinner, while making you think it was your idea all along
By Jason McBride | Photography by Sandy Nicholson

One hundred and fifty-one people have reservations at Canoe tonight. Among these are many Bay Streeters, a couple celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary, dozens of people on dates, including the bar manager from Crush, and a young woman who plans to propose to her boyfriend over dinner. The two private dining rooms are fully booked.

Canoe, part of the ever-expanding Oliver and Bonacini empire, is routinely considered one of the finest restaurants in the city. Last summer, in a rigorous competition held by the Canadian Association of Professional Sommeliers, known as CAPS, Canoe’s head sommelier, Will Predhomme, was proclaimed Ontario’s best. Predhomme has devoted a third of his life—he’s 29—to wine scholarship. He now knows more about wine than almost anyone in Toronto.

Just after 5 p.m., the bar area begins to fill up with commuters sipping cocktails as they wait for the traffic on the clogged Gardiner, 54 floors below, to dissipate. One of the restaurant’s first guests, a retired trial lawyer, arrives. As a young female host escorts him to his large corner table, he puts an arm around her shoulder. “I don’t like to pay bills,” he says. “I want a fucking account. Last time I was here, I offered those ladies”—referring to the hosts who greeted him at his last visit—“$300 and told them to set up an account for me. And I still don’t have one.” He and his three dining companions, Canoe regulars, have brought in several bottles of their own wine, including a cabernet franc from the ex-lawyer’s private vineyard in Tuscany. When Predhomme arrives at the table to discuss the wine, the ex-lawyer, captivatingly bratty in a way that only the rich and sort-of-powerful can be, repeats his complaint. “Look, I spend about $50,000 a year at Bymark, and I’d do the same here if I had a fucking account.” Predhomme is unmoved, but gracious. “If you give me your contact information,” he says, “I’ll make sure that it gets to the right people.”

“You’ll get me an account?”

“I’ll look into it.”

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The Dish

De-licious

January 4, 2011 | 4:15 am

5 Comments

The Best of Winterlicious 2011: Toronto Life’s 62 favourite restaurants

(Image: Renée Suen, from the torontolife.com Flickr pool)

January is upon us, and for many hungry Torontonians, that means one thing: Winterlicious. The menus are less predictable than previous years—crème brûlée’s out, lentils du Puy are in—so even the ’Licious haters might have a reason to take advantage of the festival this year. We’ve already named the 12 menus that we think are the best bets, but that doesn’t begin to cover it. Here, find Toronto Life’s 62 favourite Winterlicious restaurants, complete with menus, reviews and reservation numbers.

Winterlicious runs from January 28 to February 10. Reservations are accepted from January 13 onward (January 11 for American Express users).

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The Dish

De-licious

December 17, 2010 | 3:49 pm

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The Winterlicious 2011 menus are out, so let’s compare them to previous years

By now, Torontonians are well-seasoned winterliciousers—and at Winterlicious 2011, we will be deftly dodging the wilted arugula and heading straight for the belly of the beast (preferably pork). Looking through the newly published list of restaurants and menus, there is plenty to be pleased about this January. Our popular “Best of Winterlicious” piece is coming out next week, but we thought we’d get a jump on things and take a look at how this year’s roster compares with last year’s ’Licous lists.

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The Hype

TIFF Talk

September 3, 2010 | 11:38 am

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Where to get a TIFF drink: the film festival’s 44 spots with 4 a.m. licences

The arrival of TIFF always demands answers to three crucial questions: which celebs are coming to town, what are the best flicks to see, and where can we get inebriated at ungodly hours of the night? The first two we’ve taken care of here and here, and now we have the nearly complete list of venues with extended hours for TIFF. The news is good: last year, around 25 bars and restaurants were approved for extended hours; this year, about 44 will be serving late. The selection is more varied, and with spots like Gabby’s and Hey Lucy on the list, it’s decidedly more casual. The Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario tells us that the list could expand as more venues get last-minute approval. Here, the 44 bars officially licensed to stay open until 4 a.m. »

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The Dish

From the Print Edition

July 26, 2010 | 9:04 am

14 Comments

Glazed and Enthused: 13 of Toronto’s best doughnuts

Fried dough is suddenly everywhere, infiltrating dessert cards and pastry cases and threatening to dethrone panna cotta as the sweet du jour. From rounds to holes, beignets to churros, here are a baker’s dozen of the city’s best By Eric Vellend

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The Dish

De-licious

June 9, 2010 | 3:28 pm

11 Comments

Summerlicious 2010: the restaurants have been announced, so let’s pick them apart

The view from Toula: be a tourist in your own city (Image: Ian Muttoo)

First things first: there’s not much change under the Summerlicious sun. All of the old favourites are here (including Canoe and Bymark, which always sell out first). Seven Numbers, which by Winter/Summerlicious rules is allowed only one location, has swapped out its Danforth location for its Eglinton one. Winterlicious participant Conviction is out for the summer edition as the second season of Conviction Kitchen films in Vancouver. The new owners of Crush Wine Bar are apparently not feeling the ’licious love—nor is Moroco. And while The Citizen’s digs are alive and kicking under new ownership, its vaunted replacement, Ruby Watchco, is opting out.

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The Dish

Weekly Lunch Pick

May 10, 2010 | 8:33 am

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Where to eat lunch this week: The Queen and Beaver Public House

This downtown resto-bar elevates pub grub to swish dishes

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The Dish

Restauran-TO

January 15, 2010 | 3:38 pm

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Jamieson Kerr talks about selling Crush and opening a second Queen and Beaver-esque pub

CrushWineBar After eight years as owner and operator of Crush Wine Bar, Jamieson Kerr has decided to sell the once-French, now-British King West bistro in order to focus on his growing family and the Queen and Beaver—his Elm Street gastropub that opened last spring. “I’ve been spending six nights a week at Crush, and I felt it was time to give a bit of time back to my family,” Kerr tells us. “A great offer came my way, to be honest. We all know that the economy was tough on large fine-dining restaurants, and I managed to hold my own, but when this offer came along, it was worth looking at.”

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The Dish

Opening

June 18, 2009 | 12:18 pm

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The Queen and Beaver takes up house near Yonge-Dundas Square

A nook, a castor and a monarch: The dining room at the Queen and Beaver (Photo by Karon Liu)

Jack Astor’s, Hard Rock Café, Milestones—the area around Yonge and Dundas Streets is hardly known for its authentic cuisine. And yet, it was here that Crush Wine Bar owner and English expat Jamieson Kerr chose to open his classic British gastropub. The new Elm Street spot combines the owner’s love of Canada and Britain (the pub’s name came from the two sides of a nickel) and shows a glimmer of hope for simulacra central.

“There’s nowhere in Toronto where I can really sit down and enjoy a pint,” says Kerr, who is hardly a stranger to the area, having attended Ryerson in the late ’80s. “The pubs all seem to be the same here, with pizza, curries, wings, a mix of everything.” Bored with it all, he hired chef Andrew Carter (Le Paradis, Herbs), who grew up in a small town outside Manchester, to create a traditional British menu replete with pub staples. Thick slices of black pudding are served with a poached egg and frisée tossed in a light mustard-shallot dressing ($15); an unabashedly fatty potted duck comes adorned with bread slices and wild cherries ($8); and, of course, there’s ale-battered haddock and chips ($17).

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The Dish

Rumours & Rumblings

June 1, 2009 | 3:32 pm

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Barberian’s celebrates Louis Jadot’s 150th birthday with Geddy Lee, Jamieson Kerr and a meal money can’t buy

Table wine: Diners celebrate Louis Jadot's 150th birthday surrounded by $6 million of wine (Photo by Karon Liu)

Like a speakeasy holding a social during prohibition, Barberian’s Steakhouse quietly hosted 29 guests in its wine cellar last Thursday evening to celebrate the sesquicentennial of the Burgundy winemaker Maison Louis Jadot. The setting and menu were brazenly recession-unfriendly, with vintages easily costing hundreds, if not thousands, per bottle. Invitees were mainly from the owner Aaron Barberian’s wine club—which he says is currently looking for a new member—and Toronto foodie celebs (there was one rock star, too). Though fighting off a sore throat, Barberian made his guests feel extra welcome because there were actually two anniversaries to commemorate that night: Louis Jadot’s 150th and Barberian’s Steakhouse’s 50th.

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The Dish

Bottoms Up

May 27, 2009 | 10:06 am

24 Comments

BYOB: Toronto restaurants drop corkage fees

Bottle shock: corkage fees are falling all over Toronto (Photo by Quinn Dombrowski)

Along with prix-fixe menus and pink slip parties (we’re looking at you, Globe), reduced corkage fees have become a popular recession-era tactic for restaurants trying to attract diners. Ontario jumped on the BYOB bandwagon in January 2005, it has never had the same success as similar programs in Quebec. That is, until now.

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The Dish

Bottoms Up

April 22, 2009 | 2:30 pm

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Niagara winery premieres Canada’s first biodynamic wine

Our first biodynamic wine

In celebration of Earth Day, Southbrook Vineyards in Niagara-on-the-Lake has launched what it says is the first biodynamic wine produced in Canada. For those who don’t know what biodynamic farming is, it’s essentially a more hard-core version of organic farming with astrology thrown into the mix.

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