CCTV, DJ Woody and Abel Boulineau

1. JANE’S WALK (FREE!)

Inspired by urban writer/activist Jane Jacobs, this festival of walking tours, led by Toronto-loving volunteers, is all about seeing the city with new eyes. With over 170 walks to choose from, we’ve narrowed our selection down to three: (Video) Eyes on the Street, U of T prof Andrew Clement’s exploration of the downtown core’s CCTV cameras; a gentrification-focused tour of Cherry Beach; and the cultural studies pick, A Hipster’s Guide to Ossington. May 7 and 8. Various locations, janeswalk.net.

2. KARDINAL OFFISHALL (FREE!)
Kardi’s made some headway south of the border, signing with Akon’s Konvict label and recording with chart toppers like Estelle and David Guetta, but he’s still a hometown boy. Proof? This free concert in Yonge-Dundas Square, part of Coke’s 125th anniversary celebrations. And last year’s “The Anthem” of course. May 7. Yonge-Dundas Square, icoke.ca.

3. TURNTABLES IN TECHNICOLOUR WITH DJ WOODY

This weekend, Never Forgive Action, The Drake’s monthly tribute to the golden age of hip hop (about 1986 to 1994, for the uninitiated), plays host to the U..K.’s DJ Woody, who’s performed with M.I.A. and Madlib and collaborated with producers like DJ Vadim. Here, Woody combines mad turntable skills with a lifelong interest in art and years of graphic design experience to create an awesome audio-visual experience—basically, it’ll be like living in this video for one glorious night. May 6. $10. The Drake Underground, 1150 Queen St. W., 416.531.5042, thedrakehotel.ca.

4. TORONTO COMIC ARTS FESTIVAL (FREE!)
We may not be the world’s biggest comic book people, but with all the superhero blockbusters coming out this summer, our interest is piqued. This eight-year-old fest isn’t quite as big as San Diego’s Comic-Con and it’s unlikely that Thor, Captain America or the Green Lantern will be in attendance, but that’s okay. Instead, check out the exhibitions, panels, readings, autograph signing and workshops, and meet underground and indie comic book creators like Jillian Tamaki, Chester Brown and Chris Ware. May 7-8. Toronto Reference Library, 789 Yonge St., torontocomics.com.

5. FORESTS
The third in Wajdi Mouawad’s four-part series of plays about family bonds, this is the long-awaited English translation of his follow-up to the Governor General Award–winning Tideline and Scorched (which became the Oscar-nominated Incendies). In the play, Loup’s mother, Aimée, risked her life to have a child after being diagnosed with a brain tumour, only to die when Loup is just a teen. In this story, which spans six generations and takes place on two continents, Loup searches for the cause of Aimée’s illness. To May 29. $37-44. Tarragon Theatre, 30 Bridgman Ave., 416-531-1827, tarragontheatre.com.

6. “WHERE I WAS BORN…”
Last year, U of T grad student Vanessa Fleet was just an intern at the AGO. Now, she’s the woman who discovered a previously unknown artist and solved a long-running mystery. It all started with a photo she stumbled across in the gallery’s archives, with the words “where I was born” scribbled on the back. From there, Fleet discovered the photographer was a man named Abel Boulineau, a French painter. The resulting exhibit features over 70 photos by Boulineau taken from 1897 to 1916. To August 21. $19.50. Art Gallery of Ontario, 317 Dundas St. W., 416-979-6648, ago.net.

7. TRISH MAGWOOD (FREE!)
Celeb chef Trish Magwood’s new cookbook, In My Mother’s Kitchen, is the perfect Mother’s Day gift—it includes recipes from three generations of Magwoods. And for the kid buying the cookbook for Mom, there are plenty of treats to sample at this meet-and-greet and book signing. May 6. All the Best Fine Foods, 1101 Yonge St., trishmagwood.ca.

8. FARMERS’ MARKET TOUR AND CULINARY EXPERIENCE

It seems like we’re forever stocking up at the farmers’ market and then going home to find our fridge still bursting with last week’s purchases. It’s not that we have memory problems—it’s just all that fresh produce can be a little overwhelming. Enter Harbourfront’s latest foodie-friendly event. This tour, hosted by one of the instructors from Liaison College of Culinary Arts, sounds fun, but we’re really excited about the post-tour cooking class, focused on the fruits and veggies purchased at the markets, naturally. May 7. $35.40. Harbourfront Centre, 231 Queens Quay W., 416-973-4000, harbourfrontcentre.com. (This event has been cancelled.)

UPDATE: the Farmers’ Market Tour and Culinary Experience has been cancelled. 5/4/2011

(Images: CCTV, picturenarrative from the Torontolife.com Flickr Pool; DJ Woody, Keith Hinkle, Abel Boulineau, Art Gallery of Ontario)

Inside the new Fifth Elementt (Image: Jon Sufrin)

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.(The Thai joint now operates, rather awkwardly, out of I Love Sushi down the street.) The result is a menu that’s a dead ringer for the old one, but about 30 per cent cheaper, due to lower operating costs.

At 65 seats, Fifth Elementt’s reincarnation is smaller but retains its core of South Asian cuisine, with culinary influences from around the world thrown in. Indian standards include saag paneer ($11.95) and tandoori shrimp ($8.95), while the non-Indian salmon-wrapped scallops ($7.95) are spiced up with a worldly array of garnishes, like salsa, masala and a soy glaze. The braised lamb shank ($17.95), a customer favourite, is served in tomato sauce that’s infused with garam masala. At lunchtime, there’s a three-course prix fixe for $11.99.

Savarimuthu decided to bring his cuisine to Queen and Bathurst after witnessing the influx of new developments in the area: a condo is going up across the street, and, of course, La Palette paved the way by setting up shop last year. Just as in its days as a cheap and cheerful Thai joint, the space is far from devoid of kitschy artwork, but it’s still a step toward the inevitable gentrification of this strip of Queen West. If the trend continues, the surrounding “cesspool of burgers and wings and pizza,” as La Palette’s Shamez Amlani once called it, could be on its way out.

Fifth Elementt, 506 Queen St. W. (at Portland St.), 416-504-3213, 5thelementt.com.

The shop lights on Gerrard Street East stay on till nine—a late-night tradition that started out with the old Bollywood movie house that originally brought Indian merchants to the strip. Now sari shops, glowing neon signs for Kashmiri tea and sidewalk stands selling spiced corn on the cob keep the area filled with Pakistani Canadians from nearby Victoria Park, South Asian families in from the burbs, and residents from the slowly-but-surely gentrifying side streets. The retail bustle is creeping west of Jones, where several new businesses are revitalizing a dreary stretch of empty storefronts, noodle houses, laundro­mats and hair salons. By Crystal Luxmore | Photography by Emma McIntyre

Start the Gerrard Street East tour »

The strip of Dundas West between Ossington and Lansdowne has not been immune to the wild gentrification going on directly south of it. New restaurants, stores and bars have been cropping up for the past couple of years (Red Canoe, a swank Canadiana shop, opened two weeks ago), but there is a hesitation in the ’hood to turn Little Portugal and Brockton Village into the next Ossington. Incoming business owners make a point of blending in with the long-standing family-owned bakeries, soccer bars and pho stops. Even in new establishments, the decor has a thrift shop feel, and the prices cater to locals rather than destination diners. From east to west, here are our 21 favourite Dundas West spots for cheap eats, good music and authentic Portuguese cuisine. By Karon Liu. Photos by Jenna Marie Wakani.

Breakfast is served at Around the Corner (Image: Signe Langford)

New Toronto—that little pocket of post-war bungalows at Islington and Lakeshore—is teetering on the brink of gentrification. Just off the tired, time-worn main strip, new residents are tearing down the dinky houses to build dream homes by the water. Stepping in to feed these folks is Mark Ali, the enterprising foodie-locavore who has owned and operated The Village Butcher for the past three years. At his new café, Around the Corner, Ali shifts his devotion to all things fresh and local to the world of gluten-free eating.

Running an all-day, organic, gluten-free eatery wasn’t part of his initial plan. It took a sales rep to convince Ali to carry a few celiac-friendly products at the butcher shop, and once he saw customers’ reactions—joy, gratitude, relief, excitement—and a space became available around the corner (get it?), he knew the opportunity was too good to pass up.

The sun-drenched café has mint-green walls, bright orange banquettes and a slate floor. It seats 40 inside and another 30 on a bare-bones patio. In the short time since he opened on June 20, the place has been rammed. “The first weekend, it was stupid in here,” he told us. “Some people waited up to an hour for their food.” He and his chef, Jack Clift, have since worked out all the glitches.

Clift is a natural fit for New Toronto. He had a blue-collar upbringing in a small Ontario town (Brights Grove, near Sarnia) and started working in restaurants at the age of 15. With some diverse training under his apron strings—Hooters, Easy on Roncesvalles—he pumps out all-day breakfasts that are filling and healthy: French toast with sautéed berries and cream ($12), water buffalo short-rib hash ($9.50), house-cured Berkshire bacon and eggs from small-flock, free-run hens. A customer favourite is the freshly squeezed organic royal gala apple juice ($4). Beer and pop are not available, however. Ali explains, “It’s not part of my vision. I want this to be a healthy place for families with lots of screaming kids.”

Around the Corner, 132 6th St. (at Lakeshore Blvd. W.), 416-503-9555.

(Image: Carsten Keßler)

The Downtown Yonge Business Improvement Area, the group that helped boost the not-quite-NYC-no-matter-how-hard-it-tries Yonge-Dundas Square, is looking to expand its territory as far south as Adelaide and as far north as Charles. The proposal is opposed by some local business owners who would prefer not to face the annual fee of 14.5 cents per square foot and who are worried that expansion would spell corporate gentrification for the area. “If we get too big and too slick, we turn into a Gap,” John Anderson, the long-time owner of Morningstar at Yonge and Isabella, told the National Post. “We turn into Queen Street between Beverley and Spadina, where there isn’t a Canadian operation on the street.”

We assume he means with the exception of Steve’s Music Store, Lululemon, Black Market, Silver Snail, Active Surplus, The Rivoli, Black Bull, Ultra, Show Room, The Horseshoe, Peter Pan, CIBC, BQM, Le Château, David’s Tea, Fashion Crimes, Bell, Fido, Your Good Health, C Squared, Roots, Little Burgundy, Due West and Lettieri.

• Yonge businesses to BIA: Get lost [National Post]

The Saint remains closed on Ossington (Image: Jessica Darmanin)

When the contentious moratorium on new bars and restaurants on Ossington Avenue was passed last year, the strip lost its gentrification momentum. The outright ban has been replaced by strict rules that limit the size of new restaurants, cafés and bars and restrict them to only the ground floors of buildings. Some business owners are troubled by what these regulations mean to the boom, but the Star notes that galleries have been able to capitalize by moving into large homes. Case in point, the opening of three new art projects.

Angell Gallery has moved from its 700-square-foot residence on Queen Street West to a massive 4,000-square-foot space, which, under the new rules, is too large to be occupied by a restaurant. The significantly bigger space, which is equipped with a mini-theatre, has allowed the gallery to display a greater range of artworks, including video installations.

Artscape will open its massive Shaw Street Centre on Ossington in 2012. Formerly the Shaw Street School, the building has gone unused for a decade. Under Artscape, it will provide 75,000 square feet of gallery and workspace for artists.

Formerly located in the Distillery District, Meta Gallery will reopen in the old Rolly’s Garage building on April 2 and will continue, like Rolly’s, as an event space.

• Ossington a booming creative hub…for now [Toronto Star]
• Rolly’s Garage RIP as Meta Gallery Moves In [BlogTO]

• In search of more balance on West Queen West [National Post]

(Photo via Google Street View)

Last week, Urban Planet closed the doors on its massive store at 262 Queen Street West (the same building that once housed Caban), and the latest news is that Shoppers Drug Mart will be taking over the 20,000-square-foot space. The story was reported today in the National Post as the official sign of “long-coming death of Queen Street West bohemia,” though we’d never associate chain clothing store Urban Planet with bohemia.

“Obituaries for the spirit of the original Queen West have been written for years, particularly the stretch between University and Spadina,” writes Carmen Chai. “But there is a growing sense that the ongoing gentrification has finally cost the neighbourhood the character that made it famous.”

We understand the grievances of tenants being priced out of the area, but we’ll take makeup and magazines over this any day.

• Shoppers Drug Mart moves onto Queen West [National Post]

Carman's Dining Club, 1959-2009 (Photo courtesy of Google)

Arthur Carman’s storied and troubled steak house on Alexander Street went into hibernation this summer, never to wake up. This makes the restaurant—credited with introducing Toronto to garlic bread—the latest Village establishment to disappear in recent months (the list also includes Crews and Tango, Bigliardi’s, Il Fornello and Zelda’s).

When we called the restaurant this week, we were greeted with this voice mail message:

This year, Carman celebrated his 50th anniversary in the one and same location. He has decided he will not be reopening after 50 years and thought it was time to say goodbye and to say thank you this fantastically beautiful country of Canada. What he accomplished here he could not have accomplished in the country of his birth at that time. Thank you to the countless number of people who made this possible. Peace begins at home, Carman.

It is a truly sad day those loyal to the landmark restaurant. Toronto Life food writer James Chatto documents eating at the 19th-century mansion in his 2000 memoir The Man Who Ate Toronto, which includes a brief bio of Carman (born Athanasios Karamanos), who immigrated from Greece in the ’50s. Although Chatto describes the restaurant as one of the best in Toronto, recent on-line reviews suggest that the sizzle had gone from the steak house: “Sad to see this formerly packed spot deteriorate so dramatically,” wrote a Chowhounder in 2008. “Once the notoriously garlicky purveyor of hospitality, now it is insipid, unsophisticated and expensive.”

The celebrity clientele once featured on the restaurant’s menu and Web site (no longer functional) included Al Green, Nat King Cole, Lorne Greene and Sammy Davis Jr., a sign that this was a boys’ club hangout for the real Don Drapers, not his modern-day fans. (Sara Waxman once wrote about being the only woman in the place.) The decor, as most people described it, was dark, medieval and, as another amateur reviewer writes, “something out of a vampire movie.”

In the end, 50 years is many lifetimes in the restaurant industry—especially in Toronto. We hope that Carman’s will be remembered as the joyful, high-end steak house with the perpetual aroma of garlic, rather than the relic that was left behind during its neighbourhood’s gentrification.

Brew colours: coffee houses are sprouting up everywhere this recession (Photo by Iain Farrell)

While McDonald’s, Tim Hortons and Starbucks duke it out across North America in their giveaway coffee war, a new batch of independent brewers has emerged in Toronto. Since our last roundup six months ago, at least 13 new cafés have opened up. Here, organized by neighbourhood, is our survey of the city’s hot new fuel-up joints.

Leslieville
The east end’s coffee house culture continues to thrive with the addition of Te Aro, opened by New Zealander Andy Wilkins and his wife, Jessie. Unlike most independent cafés—essentially elegant holes in the wall—Te Aro gussied up a car garage, placed their giant roaster among the tables and converted the large driveway into a spacious patio. Cream: The Urban Dairy, which opened in mid-July, is differentiating itself from the rest with an emphasis on milk products (house-made ice cream is a big draw). Co-owner Danielle Thomas says they wanted to open a place where families could come after dinner. Soon, Cream will be getting competition from the yet-to-open Lil’ Bean’ n’ Green. Designed as a socializing hub for parents, the new café will offer loads of space for stroller parking. Up in South Riverdale, the Sideshow Café is located at the Centre of Gravity circus training studio (the vintage acrobat and elephant décor reflects this). The venue strives to be more than just a coffeehouse, with poetry readings on Mondays and acoustic sets on Wednesdays.

Annex and environs
Like Cream (above), Scoop and Bean is also getting into the ice cream niche, with selections from the Kawartha Dairy Company along with its caffeinated options. Just around the corner from long-time hangout Grapefruit Moon, “S&B” also offers cavity-inducing fare for vegans and celiac suffers. The Illy coffee slingers at B Espresso Bar—a favourite of office dwellers in the Church and Queen area—have recently thrown open the doors of their second location at the renovated Royal Conservatory of Music on Bloor. One of the most eagerly anticipated cafés is from Sam James, the barista champ formerly of Manic Coffee and Hank’s. His Sam James Coffee Bar, slated to open on Harbord on August 8, will introduce siphon coffee—a method popular in Asian countries that produces a lighter taste. He describes the place as having a “polished, Italian feel” rather than the ubiquitous “shabby chic with exposed brick” aesthetic.

Lansdowne
The once-derelict strip of Lansdowne Avenue between Dupont and College is rapidly following the gentrification examples set by Ossington and Queen West. The owners former managers of the Tranzac Club opened Holy Oak at Bloor and Lansdowne; a little farther north, the Starving Artist offers a large deck, waffles and one of the strongest coffees in the city. And then there’s the Naco Gallery Café near Lansdowne and College. “We’re trying to be more than a coffee shop,” says Naco owner Julian Calleros. “We’re the only café we know of that also does dance parties. We want to reach out to the community and act as a cultural hub.”

Trinity Bellwoods
Peter Primiani—formerly half of DJ duo Peter and Tyrone—opened the Communal Mule on Dundas Street West in June, but he hasn’t completely retired his turntables: he often spins while pulling shots. Ezra’s Pound quietly expanded with another spot at near Trinity Bellwoods Park that serves breakfast and lunch; the Dark Horse is garnering both positive and negative press after opening a second location on Spadina.

• Te Aro, 983 Queen St. E., 416-465-2006, te-aro.ca

• Cream: The Urban Dairy, 1298 Queen St. E., 416-463-0110

• Lil’ Bean ‘n’ Green, 1133 Queen St. E., lilbeanandgreen.com

• Sideshow Café, 1300 Gerrard St. E., 416-938-6030

• Scoop and Bean, 2 Follis Ave., 647-342-7770

• B Espresso, 273 Bloor St. W., 416-866-2111

• Sam James Coffee Bar, 297 Harbord St., 647-341-2572

• Holy Oak, 1241 Bloor St. W., 647-345-2803

• Starving Artist, 584 Lansdowne Ave., 647-342-5058, starvingartistbar.com

• Naco Gallery Café, 1665 Dundas St. W., 647-347-6499

• The Communal Mule, 984 Dundas St. W., 416-653-2084

• Ezra’s Pound, 913 Dundas St. W., 647-346-8488, ezraspound.com

• Dark Horse, 215 Spadina Ave., 416-979-1200, darkhorseespresso.com

Lovers likely awaiting a table at Foxley, a popular Ossington Avenue restaurant (Photo by Jessica Darmanin)

Over the past few years, we’ve watched the Ossington strip evolve from a no-go set of dodgy storefronts to an edgy Queen West offshoot to the city’s hippest drag—a gentrification so rapid that city council recently imposed a year-long moratorium on licensing new bars and restaurants. While residents and entrepreneurs face off over growing pains, we traipsed the avenue, day and night, to compile a user’s guide to Toronto’s latest eating and drinking destination.

View the guide>>

Ossified: The avenue is changed forever (Photo by Dawn Paley)

How much more can Ossington take? A lot, it seems. The avenue’s seemingly endless gentrification will take another step this summer when chef Paul Boehmer opens his first restaurant, Böhmer. After considering Queen West and Yorkville, the former Rosewater Supper Club chef set his sights on a 5,000-square-foot single-storey building at 93 Ossington Avenue. “I see a real surge of restaurants on Ossington. It’s bringing the whole street alive, and it’s full every day,” says the chef, whose credits also include Scaramouche, Atlas and, more recently, Six Steps. “If you capture a reasonable market—like, don’t charge $45 for an entrée—and keep it to a price range where people can afford it and hang out, they’ll keep coming back.”

Boehmer sums up the menu with one word: local. “I’m going back to my roots, to when I apprenticed with Michael Stadtländer 25 years ago,” he says, noting that caribou and foie gras will be some of the items featured. “I’m also working with Michael Potters [Harvest, Spoke Club], and there’s going to be a market concept on the side where we’re going to sell preserves and vinegars.” He estimates appetizers will cost $10 to $20 and mains $20 to $30.

The dining room will have a recycled wood motif, done by local furniture makers Brothers Dressler. The decor will be a collaboration between Boehmer and Roy Banse, whose clients include the Toronto Film Festival and condo builder UrbanCorp. And to get the neighbourhood involved, he plans to display artwork and photography by locals.

As for the vanity moniker, Boehmer says it wasn’t his idea. “I got convinced by my friends—mainly Adam Calhoun from Oyster Boy, who insisted on it. So the signage is my signature.”

Mark McEwan, shopkeep (Photo by Nikki Leigh McKean)

We’ve been hearing about McEwan—Mark McEwan’s proposed gourmet grocery store—for what seems like eons now. News about it broke in late 2007, with an opening date set for January 2009. But then we were told we’d have to wait another five months. Now, even though controversy is brewing over the store’s gentrifying effects, we are told that the suspense is almost over. Come June, the Bymark chef will open the doors to his supermarket at Lawrence and Don Mills. He envisions the size of his store as somewhere between Pusateri’s and Whole Foods, with aisles of gourmet ingredients and prepared foods tended by employees offering restaurant-style service.

McEwan thinks the popular big-box outlets—think Metro and Loblaws—have it all wrong. “You walk into a large grocery store, and they’re selling housewares. There are so many items on the shelves that you can’t find anything.” These one-stop-shop outlets are at one end of Toronto’s grocery spectrum, while the other extreme is occupied by artisanal shops that provide few products and suit fewer budgets. McEwan wants to occupy the middle ground. He cites SoHo’s Dean & Deluca as the project’s inspiration, however, so expect steep prices.

“Toronto is a very savvy town. People are highly discriminating and well versed, and I think they’ll totally get it,” says the chef. Even the anticipated opening of a Whole Foods at Avenue Yonge and Sheppard hasn’t fazed him: “If I felt there was an abundance of good product out there, I probably wouldn’t be opening a store.”

So how does he plan to pull this off? With an army of 100 employees. “I’m looking for management on the floor to behave like restaurant management,” he says. And he’s not kidding; host-like figures who will watch the door and orient new customers are part of the plan.

The long wait has reportedly been due to construction delays, not the sluggish economy. And despite rumours that the upcoming location is the first of four, McEwan is making no hasty plans: “I never talk about the next one till the first one’s running well.” Good news for Don Mills dwellers. The rest of us will have to sit tight.