When Bay Street’s Fifth Elementt closed down last May, chef Johnee Savarimuthu knew he wanted to continue the Indian fusion restaurant’s legacy. His culinary career had taken him down many roads—from sommelier to Disney cruise cook to head chef at New York City’s Revival—but he’d never owned his own restaurant before. So he and his sous-chef partnered up and bought the Fifth Elementt brand, taking it to Queen West earlier this month in the space where Bangkok Paradise used to churn out its signature pad see ew.
• Mid-’90s rapper Coolio has traded in rhymes for recipes. The Ghetto Gourmet now has an on-line cooking show and a new book called Cookin’ With Coolio. Mixing African-American and urban foods with such world cuisines as Asian and Italian, Coolio has crafted what he calls “ghetto fusion,” offering dishes like chicken lettuce blunts, Coolio caprese salad and cold shrimpin’. Although the rapper said he grew up in the kitchen, there might be an ulterior motive behind his food: “If I can get [a woman] to eat my food, I can [seduce her]”—meaning, we think, that he can follow a rump roast with some serious back. [Boston]
• We are sad to report that the tussle between food mavens Martha Stewart and Rachael Ray ended before it had a chance to get interesting. In the end, Ray won the Miss Congeniality belt, and Stewart was simply outclassed. After appearing on the Rachael Ray Show, Stewart condescendingly remarked on Nightline that while she herself is a teacher, Ray is a mere entertainer. Instead of slinging back insults, Ray gracefully acknowledged Stewart’s strong talents and admitted that when it comes to food she’d rather eat Stewart’s than her own. Now, Martha, could you teach us how to strike it rich on the markets? [New York]
My friend Guu's got a new debut: Masaru Ogasawara is overseeing the Toronto opening (Photo by Renée Suen)
“Patience is a virtue” is an axiom that Toronto fans of izakaya have been repeating to themselves since we first reported that Guu, the west coast’s popular Japanese restaurant, would be coming to town in 2009. Recently, we met up with Masaru Ogasawara, the chef at one of the Vancouver locations (Guu in Gastown), who gave us the lowdown on the opening date (early December), the cause of the delay (the municipal strike) and the location (398 Church Street, near Carlton).
Right away, he tells us that Guu’s new home will be in a strip mall close to the Ryerson campus. The middling Sushi Plaza restaurant that once occupied the space has been gutted, leaving barren walls and ceilings, and kitchen equipment shoved into one corner. The 76-seat Guu will fill the space with long communal tables—think Salad King, but with more wood than chrome—designed by Bennett Lo, veteran of Spring Rolls. Come summertime, 20 more seats will be added on a patio.
At the Four Seasons hotel's Studio Café, the menu may change, but the faves live on (Photo by redtype)
The Four Seasons’ Studio Café is celebrating its 15th anniversary with a shakedown this month, complete with a new menu from the freshly minted executive chef, Claudio Rossi. “We’ve changed 24 items on the menu,” says an excited Marc Dorfman, director of food and beverages at the hotel. “That’s something that hasn’t happened since we opened in 1994.” The Studio’s status as a Yorkville institution had Dorfman apprehensive about separation anxiety among patrons—“We expected more backlash from our regular clients,” he says—but the duo has done its best to avoid an epidemic of gasping, fainting regulars. The popular French onion soup made the cut (“As much as we would like to take it off the menu,” confesses Dorfman), and Studio classics tandoori chicken and chicken curry won’t budge, either. The restaurant also did extensive tasting sessions with some of its top clients to make sure the new deal would please VIP palates.
Manifest destination: another American chain restaurant opens its doors in the GTA (Photo by Andrew Phelan)
• Last Thursday marked the opening of Canada’s first Chili’s Grill and Bar (think generic family dining covered in Velveeta Pepper Jack). Located at Vaughan’s Colossus Centre, the Dallas-based chain plans to open four more restaurants in the GTA in the next five years. [Boston.com]
• Star critic Corey Mintz reveals how he hears about new restaurants (he found Odd Fellows while riding his bike and chefs told him about Black Hoof) and what criteria a restaurant must meet to be one of the 50 places he reviews each year. Not having a red-headed clown as a mascot is one of them. [Toronto Star]
Ame cometh: Guy Rubino will be cooking up authentic Japanese fare at Rain's replacement
When Rain closed its doors in early January, it was supposed to be for modest renovations. The co-owning Rubino brothers (Guy and Michael, of Zoom and Luce fame) were planning a sushi and sashimi bar to add some new flavour to the restaurant as it approached its 10th anniversary. But club king and visionary Charles Khabouth arrived on the scene with another idea. “It’s all Charles’s fault,” explains executive chef Guy Rubino. “He said, ‘It’s not enough. Come to my office.’ So I did.” Now, after massive changes to the concept, space, name and menu, the souped-up supper club Ame is slated to open at the end of June, featuring an Obama shout-out, a more relaxed ambience and a brand new menu. Says Guy, “It will be completely unrecognizable.”
Eight is enough: Come summer, these food vendors will be slinging fare street-side (Photo by Davida Aronovitch)
Toronto has chosen its street food vendors—finally. The eight alternatives to hot dogs were announced by Councillor John Filion at city hall this morning. The more health-conscious options—which run the gamut from biryani to kimchee—will hit selected high-traffic streets in time for the Victoria Day long weekend. While the aim of the program is to showcase the city’s culinary diversity, we’re worried that it turns the city’s beloved hot dogs into underdogs. A full list of the new options after the jump.
Add one more to the stack of tepid reviews of Susur Lee’s Lower East Side fusion restaurant. In today’s New York Times, critic Frank Bruni summarized his experience at Shang thusly: “Pleasant, but inconsistent and uneventful. The magic that Mr. Lee reputedly made in Toronto hasn’t followed him here.” Ouch. Read on to find out how many stars were awarded to the restaurant.
Ultra Supper Club is attempting rebirth (Photo by Matt MacGillivray)
Recession menus and food giveaways are quickly becoming the norm for Toronto restaurants. It is in the midst of such bad-times ballyhoo that Ultra Supper Club has gone in a defiant direction, choosing to adopt a new look, a new name (“Ultra” instead of “Ultra Supper Club”) and a new menu (Asian fusion). Since its inception in 2003, the supper club has become known as a TIFF hot spot and the site of non-festival celebrity sightings. It hardly seemed to be in need of a facelift—so why now?
• The recent rat fiasco at Loblaws’ Dupont location raised awareness across the city about food safety issues. Here, CTV’s detailed (read: gross) look at what can go wrong when rodents invade. [CTV]
• Underground supper clubs are more common in Toronto than we would have guessed. Apparently, the lawless establishments aren’t just for the rebellious; tight patron regulations ensure that they’re for the discerning foodie, too. [BlogTO]
The verdicts are starting to trickle in for Susur Lee’s three-month-old Manhattan venture, Shang. New York magazine sent local legend Adam Platt to sample the wares, and his review is far from a rave. From the “generic club music” to the “scraggly sprays of cherry blossoms” and “lanterns made of what look like rumpled old stockings,” much about Shang appears to have left Platt unimpressed. He denounces the spiced beef cheeks as “curiously flavorless” and the oxtail dumpling soup as tasting “bland as dishwater.” Giving it two stars (out of five), he is most concerned about the restaurant’s prosaic setting and its remote location.
• The Ontario Hostelry Institute has announced that the owners of Yorkville’s Pangaea are the 2009 Gold Honourees in the category of Independent Restaurateurs. The award will be given at a Four Seasons Hotel black-tie gala in April. [Newswire]
• A recent survey by food standards officers has found that the average kebab contains 98 per cent of a person’s daily recommended salt intake and almost 150 per cent of the daily recommended intake of saturated fat. No wonder they’re so popular. [Reuters]
• Listeria strikes again—maybe. Fresh Obsession brand enoki mushrooms possibly contaminated with the bacteria are being recalled from Metro stores across Ontario as a preventive measure. [Montreal Gazette]
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