HOME February 9, 2012 The Magazine | Digital Edition | Subscribe | Newsletters
Advertisement
The comprehensive index of every blog post, magazine story and restaurant review that appears on Torontolife.com
ADDRESS: 8 Colborne St., Unit 2702
NEIGHBOURHOOD: Church-Yonge Corridor
AGENT: Corinne Pencer, Slavens and Associates
PRICE: $1,799,000
THE PLACE: A penthouse condo on the 27th floor of the Cosmopolitan, a boutique hotel that’s been singled out on the Condé Nast Traveler Hot List and comes equipped with a gym, business centre, spa and wine bar. Before going on the market as a condo, the penthouse was available for $3,500 a night.
Read the rest of this entry »
ADDRESS: 136 Glen Road
NEIGHBOURHOOD: Rosedale-Moore Park
AGENT: James Strathy Warren, Royal LePage J&D Division, Brokerage
PRICE: $7,495,000
THE PLACE: An enormous near-century-old mansion nestled deep within Rosedale’s twisting roads that stands as a reminder of Toronto’s regal past.
Read the rest of this entry »
ADDRESS: West Shore Road, Kennisis Lake
NEIGHBOURHOOD: Kennisis Lake
AGENT: Gary F. Vasey, Lynne Tate and Ross Jarvis, Gary F. Vasey Ltd., Brokerage.
PRICE: $1,895,000
THE PLACE: Situated on Kennisis Lake midway between Huntsville and Bancroft, this cottage is large, spacious, sun filled and fully equipped with modern features in every room.
Read the rest of this entry »
After three years of restaurant restraint, Aria and Toca, two unabashedly flashy new spots, are giving diners a reason to get dressed up again
Opulence, I missed you. I missed high thread-count table linens and hand-blown water glasses and even edible gold leaf a little. I missed the dining rooms whose owners gave carte blanche to talented designers, insisting only on “something grand.” But mostly, I missed gasping when I walked into restaurants—having to stop to take a space in, to admire. Though restraint wasn’t all bad for dining culture these past few years, it wasn’t always easy on the eyes.
Two ambitious, expensive, flashy new dining rooms have opened downtown in recent months, one of them from a hotel chain that’s synonymous with conspicuous luxury, the other from a pair of neighbourhood restaurateurs who’ve come out shooting for the moon. Both are fine dining (more or less), and both are likely to make you gasp when you enter.
Read the rest of this entry »
Victor’s new semi-private dining room
With upscale bars and restaurants popping up in new hotels in and around King West, Victor, an operation that staked an early claim to the area, has given itself a makeover. Long-time general manager Michael Sullivan and chef David Chrystian recently stepped in as the new owners of the restaurant, located in the Hôtel Le Germain, and have relaunched it with a new menu and a contemporary facelift by Jenny Francis Design.
Read the rest of this entry »
Guu Sakabar’s open kitchen (Image: Gizelle Lau)
Despite rumours last week that the opening of Guu Sakabar (a.k.a. Guu 2) would be delayed due to the lack of a liquor licence, we’re happy to report that Toronto’s second Guu location opened this weekend. (Sakabar was originally set to open a couple weeks back, but was delayed due to a broken water tank). After almost a year of renovations, owner James Hyun-Soo Kim and Sakabar manager Natsuhiko Sugimoto, an eight-year veteran of Guu in Vancouver, are both eager to begin serving the Annex clientele.
Read the rest of this entry »
The dining room at Blowfish on Bay features a chandelier crafted from Pyrex tubes (Image: Catherine Pan)
The owners of King West Asian fusion resto-lounge Blowfish are banking on the Bay Street crowd with their newest venture, Blowfish on Bay, an expansive new restaurant in the Bay-Adelaide Centre. The new location boasts a more refined take on the look than the King Street original—think business lunches and after-work cocktails instead of late dinner and drinks.
Read the rest of this entry »
(Image: Renée Suen)
After 16 years at the top, Canoe, one of the city’s culinary beacons, closed its doors on New Year’s Day for a renovation. Unlike most restaurants, they actually completed it on schedule. Although we previewed Canoe’s overhauled space during its Winterlicious opening, the Oliver and Bonacini flagship officially relaunched last week with a completed dining room and revamped menu, so we thought we’d take a closer look.
Read the rest of this entry »
Back in October, we reported that chef Tom Brodi (formerly of Canoe, North 44 and Gramercy Tavern in New York, under Tom Colicchio) would be behind the new Ritz-Carlton’s signature restaurant. When the luxury hotel opened last week, we got our first glimpse at Brodi’s year-long project, Toca (the name is a play on TOronto, CAnada).
Read the rest of this entry »
(Image: uhuru1701)
The era of high-tech kitchens is fading, but it seems as though gizmos are now colonizing the dining room. Stacked: Food Built Well, a food chain from Southern California, has announced that iPads will be replacing menus and waiters as a means for customers to order their meals.
Read the rest of this entry »
A caribou etching adorns the wall near the soapstone bar (Image: Suresh Doss)
Last December we reported that Canoe would be closing up shop for a million-dollar facelift. Unlike most construction projects in the city, the restaurant was remodeled on schedule, and opened last night with insiders reporting (ok, tweeting) its down-to-the-wire progress. We snagged some images at the start of yesterday’s service for this first look at Canoe’s new digs.
Read the rest of this entry »
Read the rest of this entry »
Fourteen years after first opening, Canoe is closing its door to undertake a major renovation starting New Year’s Day. The million-dollar revamp, which partner Michael Bonacini calls “a 30-day extravaganza,” will include top-to-bottom redecoration, Canadiana accents and a fresh menu. “We need to continue to reinvent to keep Canoe pointed true north,” says Bonacini, “and, of course, afloat.”
What happens when a preservation-minded art lover marries a professional minimalist
By 2008, Victoria Jackman and Bruce Kuwabara, Toronto’s artsiest power couple, decided their family of four had outgrown their Admiral Road Victorian. Neither Jackman, executive director of the Hal Jackman Foundation, nor Kuwabara, the architect and co-founder of KPMB, wanted to leave the Annex, but Kuwabara wasn’t wild about renovating another Victorian—the predominant architectural style in the neighbourhood.
Then they saw this Lowther Avenue house built in 1893 by Edmund Burke, the same architect who designed the Bloor Viaduct and The Bay on Queen (back when it was Simpson’s). The 5,500-square-foot house had been converted into a warren of lawyer’s offices, but once Kuwabara got his hands on the 100-year-old blueprints, he was impressed by the building’s great bones. It wasn’t far from the Av and Dav flower stores Jackman loves, and Kuwabara, who refuses to get a driver’s licence, likes that they can still walk to their favourite restaurants (Sotto Sotto and Joso’s) and to such cultural institutions as the ROM and the Gardiner. They decided to buy the place and gut it.
The couple wanted an open, bright and calming space.
Calligaris is home to sleek, multifunctional Italian-made furniture
The place: Toronto’s largest selection of Calligaris merchandise is housed in a heritage building, originally built in 1907 for the Sovereign Bank of Canada, on King Street just east of Jarvis. Of course, King East needs more furniture stores like Queens Quay needs more condo buildings, but this Italian import offers a sleek alternative to the more traditional styles of Up Country and the antique stores that dot the strip.
Read the rest of this entry »
The first time Robin Lewis saw the Corktown garage that would become his home, there was an oven in the middle of the kitchen, a bathtub upstairs in the sleeping loft and rubble everywhere. The derelict building had been a machine shop in the 1940s and then a semi-converted storage unit. Read the rest of this entry »
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
© 2012. All Rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part strictly prohibited. Toronto Life is a registered trademark of Toronto Life Publishing Company Limited
Follow Toronto Life on Twitter, Facebook and via RSS