Now that Ferran Adrià has shuttered El Bulli, it seems that the dishes and techniques he pioneered at the World’s Greatest Restaurant are now fair game. Matt Kantor, the chef behind the Secret Pickle Supper Club pop-up venture, has just released the menu for the three-night-only El Bulli Imitació, which is either a tribute to the great master or an act of brazen recipe theft, depending on where you stand. Indeed, Kantor is part of a raft of Adrià appreciators—Chicago’s Grant Achatz will be serving nothing but El Bulli–inspired dishes at his culinary history exhibit restaurant, Next, in January. Kantor’s dinner—with dishes like frozen foie gras charcoal and Oreo black olive double cream—takes place next week at the Cookbook Store, and has unfortunately been sold out for some time. See the whole menu [El Bulli Imitació] »
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Best of the City 2011: The city’s most interesting dishes, places to eat them and, yes, hot sauce
(Image: Christopher Stevenson)
Baguette Pasta Fad Hot Sauce Lobster reinvented Carnivore cure Roast chicken Devilled eggs Patio for dessert
Welcome to Toronto the Rude
We swear at each other from cars, bark at each other on the TTC and yell into our cellphones. How a supposedly livable city suddenly turned boorish
(Illustration by Kagan McLeod)
I got into a cat fight the other day at the Bolshoi ballet, one of those live satellite transmissions at my local Cineplex, where people arrive an hour early to get a good seat. The orchestra in Moscow hadn’t yet begun warming up when one balletomane barked at me for sitting in her territory, a 10-seat swath ambiguously marked with scattered scarves and hats. “You can’t sit there,” she said, with surprising nastiness. When I chose a seat farther down the row, she snapped, “That’s taken, too.” Steaming, I moved to a third spot and plunked my bag down on the seat beside me, not to save it for anyone, but to ensure zero human contact after being bullied by Lady Ten-Seat.
Rudeness is contagious. When another woman arrived a minute later and needed two seats, I set my jaw. “You’re not going to move your bag?” she asked, incredulous. “Nope,” I replied. We exchanged sharp words. “I’m tired of being pushed around by your friend,” I finally hissed, nodding at Lady Ten-Seat. It turned out not only did they not know one another, but my newfound adversary had just received the same rude treatment. “Now I’m totally edgy, too,” she confessed, suddenly extending her hand. “I’m Jane. Let’s be friends.” Mortified, I shook her hand, apologized and moved my coat. Then we all settled in to watch Giselle.
I wish such hostile encounters were rare, but it’s hard to navigate the city these days without experiencing friction. At least that’s my observation. Perhaps I’m just a magnet for trouble. Perhaps you, on the other hand, float through winter with people politely stepping into snowbanks to let you pass; perhaps you’ve never been held captive to a cellphone user’s inane conversation on a streetcar. But I say civility is on the decline, and the evidence is everywhere.
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
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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Susur Lee lite: the celebrity chef is back, but he didn’t bring his A game. Lee Lounge, his latest venture, falls flat
In the year following the announcement of Susur Lee’s new project in the storied room that once was Susur restaurant, it was tempting to believe that the chef was planning a triumphant return to Toronto. Speaking on his behalf, Brenda Bent, his wife and the designer of his Toronto restaurants, sounded keen to have her peripatetic husband back in the city more often. She even went so far as to enumerate the days Lee is contractually obliged to spend at his restaurants in New York, D.C. and Singapore (a total of 58 per year), adding that her husband wanted to “offer a more intense level of cooking” here at home.
This was great news for diners craving something more ambitious than Lee, the casual, cash-spinning and comparatively low-maintenance restaurant he has run, albeit often from a distance, since 2004, or Madeline’s, which stood for a couple years in the former Susur space but never came close to being as good as its predecessor.
Could diners dare to dream that the chef might give it his all in a Toronto kitchen again? When the new place, Lee Lounge, opened on Valentine’s Day, after eight months of delays, the first thing you saw inside the door was a black and white picture of Lee as a child with his family in Hong Kong, and the words “Re-Entry Permit” written above the photo on the wall. “Re-Entry Permit” was the theme of the Lee Lounge launch. What else were we supposed to think? Susur Lee was back. Read the rest of this entry »
The Bay’s latest in a string of many exclusives: Marchesa’s home collection
Fashion plates by Marchesa Home (Image: supplied by The Bay)
Marchesa, known for its frou-frou dresses and the celebs who love them (just last week Toronto’s queen of splendour, Suzanne Rogers, hosted a Marchesa fashion show), has launched a home line that can be bought exclusively in Canada at The Bay. The collection of plates and flatware is inspired by Marchesa’s evening wear and joins another Bay designer exclusive, the Diane von Furstenberg home line. With all these illustrious designers creating housewares, it’s never been easier to act fancy at a dinner party.
Best New Restaurants 2011
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
Six things we learned from the Star’s interview with Momofuku chef David Chang
Momofuku chef David Chang (Image: David Shankbone)
Last week saw a flurry of excitement over the rumours and then confirmation that David Chang, chef and owner of New York’s Momofuku empire, would be setting up shop here in Toronto. But the e-mail Chang’s PR chief sent out was pretty short on specifics about the two new restaurants. Yesterday, the Toronto Star ran a piece by food editor Jennifer Bain with some additional details, straight from the horse’s mouth. After the jump, six things we learned:
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Introducing: Salad King, the Yonge and Dundas cheap eats stalwart reborn
Salad’s new kitchen and dining room (Image: Renée Suen)
It’s been 10 long months since its kitchen last sent out an order, but judging from the reaction over Salad King’s soft opening this past weekend, there’s no question about who reigns over the corner of Yonge and Dundas. The mainstay of cheap eats might have been shut down on the eve of its 20th anniversary (following a building collapse), but after battling through a tricky renovation in a new space, the King is back, with even shinier new digs.
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Q&A with Susur Lee: the chef discusses Lee Lounge’s new dishes, lower prices and new flavours
Lee lounging before the opening of Lee Lounge (Image: Renée Suen)
On Monday night, we found ourselves at the highly anticipated Valentine’s Day opening of Lee Lounge, the new restaurant from Susur Lee. The room was buzzing, with all hands on deck working to the beat of the floor manager’s Iron Chef-like calls. A bartender was making frantic last-minute adjustments to one of the new cocktails, the very dirty ume plum martini. Amid this chaos, Susur Lee was the eye of the storm. He spoke with us at length, excusing himself with only thirty minutes to go before the service started. Our conversation, below
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A first glimpse inside the renovated Canoe
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.
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Alternalicious: a roundup of this year’s Winterlicious rebels
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Few subjects are as divisive among Toronto diners and industry people as the merits of Summer- and Winterlicious. While the biannual culinary event may help restaurants fill empty tables during an otherwise slow season, as we’ve explored before, participation in the city-run festival can have its limitations (dining rooms filled with stingy tippers, owners bound by the city’s rules). As in previous years, a number of restaurants have decided to strike out on their own with prix fixe specials.
Dear Urban Diplomat: how do I say no to philanthropic colleagues who invite me to $1,000-a-plate dinners?
(Image: Gavin Schaefer)
Dear Urban Diplomat, Read the rest of this entry »
I have several philanthropic colleagues who regularly invite me to attend their $1,000-plus-a-plate fundraisers. It’s good for my image, and some of these colleagues are friends, but it’s getting expensive. How can I decline without jeopardizing my friendships (or my career opportunities) and looking like an uncharitable tightwad?
—Out-of-pocket calculator
KING WEST
Good Stuff Cheap: four standout dinner dates for penny pinchers
(Image: Lorne Bridgman)
FOR A CINQ À SEPT Read the rest of this entry »
Devoted locavores should head to Beast after work Wednesday through Friday, when former Jamie Kennedy chefs Scott and Rachelle Vivian serve up nose-to-tail small plates—including pig’s head pappardelle for only $4. Lovely Quebec and Ontario beers for pairing are also just $4; a number of wines are $5 a glass. 96 Tecumseth St., 647-352-6000.
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