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The comprehensive index of every blog post, magazine story and restaurant review that appears on Torontolife.com
Upwardly mobile at the new Longo's (Image: Karon Liu)
The latest supermarket to open in the downtown core is a sleek, 48,000 square-foot megastore by Longo’s. The new spot is part of Maple Leaf Square—the spanking new sports-themed development beside the Air Canada Centre—and should make locals rejoice as their area, better known for tourists and expressways, takes one step closer to becoming a bona fide neighbourhood.
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Hotel comforts, inhalable grilled cheese and epically hot servers
(Image: Lorne Bridgman)
THE COUNTER
550 Wellington St. W., 416-640-7778
Set within the glamour of the Thompson Hotel, this something-for-everyone, 24-hour diner comes across like a yokel cousin at a society wedding. The decor is bafflingly incoherent: velvet damask and cheap faux-wood tables, Cuban floor tiles and smoked mirror accents. The food is inoffensive: a caesar salad that meets the dictionary definition but only just (dried parmesan crumbs, flavourless croutons), hand-cut fries, a $29 sandwich called “obscenely large muffaletta,” strawberry pie that’s lost somewhere between the flaccid crust and red glaze. Read the rest of this entry »
The buttermilk fried chicken and double-battered onion rings are both good bets; “iceberg wedge,” smothered in mild blue cheese–buttermilk dressing, is refreshingly simple.
Religious burgers, heavenly house-made bread and a world-class oenophile
(Image: Ryan Szulc)
THE BURGER’S PRIEST
1636 Queen St. E., 647-346-0617
The battle for the city’s best burger just got more heated. The loosely packed, hand-formed, cooked-to-medium patties at this tiny Catholic-kitsch place have a legitimate claim. They’re gloriously simple: Alberta beef that’s ground in-house a few times a day, plus exquisitely insubstantial buns that can be accessorized in any of the old-school ways. (If you want caramelized passion fruit, you’d best look at a heathen establishment.) The Option, made from two roasted portobello caps sandwiching a mix of cheeses, rolled in panko and deep-fried, is the city’s first joyful veggie burger. The Pope is a double cheeseburger, plus The Option, all on a single bun. (It’s also a death wish, in case you were wondering.) As for the name, the proprietor, a former seminary student, claims to be “redeeming the burger one customer at a time.” He’s even installed confessional privacy screens in place of sneeze guards. Cheesy, yes. But that’s the point. Unlicensed. Cash only. Closed Sunday. Read the rest of this entry »
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Gourmet magazine may have kicked the bucket last October, but its recent death twitches have some wondering if a resurrection is in the offing. First, June saw the launch of Gourmet Live, an iPad app that provides access to recipes, food essays and the like to fans of the foodie rag. Now Gourmet is making a print comeback in the form of three newsstand-only editions, one of which is due to hit shelves next week.
The French dishes at this Harbord Street restaurant stun as much at lunch as they do at dinner
(Images: Renée Suen)
The place: This south Annex gem promises gourmet bistro fare both noon and night, but there’s extra incentive in the summer: Loire’s breezy canopy-covered terrace.
The crowd: Neighbourhood regulars, golf shirt-clad businessmen, university professors and administrators playing hooky.
The deal: The midday menu of French-inspired comfort foods may be priced the same as it is at dinner, but the selections are excellently matched with the time of day.
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It’s a sign of the times. Gourmet, the quintessential foodie digest that died last October, has suddenly been revived, thanks to a new iPad application called Gourmet Live. The free app will be available this fall and will give users premium access to recipes, food essays and tons of delicious photos. In the spirit of new media communities (read: minutiae swapfests), the app will also allow users to share articles via Facebook and Twitter, as well as tag favourites and access popularity rankings.
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Many Torontonians have sampled this caterer’s delights at parties, but boxed meals from its small lunch counter satisfy, too
Apricot-glazed apple tart from Daniel et Daniel
The place: One of the city’s most popular catering kitchens is also an excellent lunch stop for Cabbagetowners. The tiny takeout counter has all the gourmet goodies for a picnic at nearby Allen Gardens.
The crowd: Regulars with running tabs, executive assistants picking up office lunches and construction workers filling up on the hearty spanakopita.
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Referred to as Little Poland by long-time residents and Roncey by the younger crowd, the Roncesvalles strip is one of the few neighbourhoods in the city that has earned its “hip” label without been invaded by raucous nightlifers. Progress keeps marching forward here, despite an ongoing road rehabilitation project that has claimed a few business causalities. We recommend spending a spring Saturday visiting these 25 spots.
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Every year, Toronto Life’s April edition names the current food and restaurant trends we love, hate and those with which we have a love-hate relationship. Here, in no particular order, are out seven favourites for 2010
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Trend count: Fresh and local? Check. Communal table? Check. Ossington Avenue? Check. Designer lighting? Check (All photos by Karon Liu)
Paul Boehmer’s soon-to-open restaurant is like the cherry on top of the Ossington sundae. The eponymous eatery was one of the last to obtain a restaurant and bar permit before the city imposed a one-year moratorium on new establishments last May. “People around the neighbourhood thought that I was opening a nightclub, but since I told them it wasn’t the case, I haven’t received any complaints,” says the former Stadtländer apprentice, who has also cooked at Rosewater Supper Club, Six Steps and Scaramouche. He expects Boehmer to open in less than a month—about six months later than originally planned.
(Photo by xiaofeng17)
Unsurprisingly, cooking class registration increases in the weeks after Christmas, as wannabe chefs redeem gifts of culinary education. Those shopping around for just the right present will find options for any taste and talent level, with seminars on everything from making chocolate to tasting cheese or learning how to fry an Indian dosa. For romance, try a couples class; for kitchen newbies, there are beginner chef series. Below, our list of nine Toronto teaching kitchens and the gift-worthy classes they offer this December.
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• Various drunken Santas will be stumbling around New York, Vienna and several other cities for this weekend’s SantaCon, “a not-for-profit, non-political, non-religious and non-logical Santa Claus convention, attended for absolutely no reason.” Starting at 10 a.m., groups of Jolly Olds Elves will hit the streets on a daylong pub-crawl governed by the following rules: Don a Santa suit, have rosy cheeks and a white beard, don’t get arrested, and don’t forget Santa’s signature generosity—each participant has to donate one or two food items to a food bank. Last year, New York’s St. Nicks collected 1000 pounds of food. [NBC]
• Mississauga city councilor Carolyn Parrish, infamous for her “I hate the bastards” anti-American sentiments when she was an MP, has now re-directed her trademark rage to a foe closer to home, Hazel McCallion. Parrish, after dining at Port Credit’s Aielli restaurant, spotted a poster supporting Mississauga’s long-serving mayor decided tear it off the restaurant’s door, rip it up, and then stamped on it with “a smirk and laughter.” Although Parrish later apologized to chef Louis Macerola, noting that the “evil Carolyn surfaced for 30 seconds,” we wonder if this was just a sad attempt to reprise her fractional second of famed that peaked with her stomping a George Bush doll on This Hour Has 22 Minutes. [Toronto Star]
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The chatter started months before Mark McEwan opened the doors to his gourmet groceteria last June. The choice of location, which was then a tired strip of Lawrence East, seemed quixotic at best. As boutique shops go, it was cavernously large: at 22,000 square feet, it was 33 per cent bigger than Pusateri’s, which until then had been the first and last word in high-end groceries in Toronto. And then there was the timing. Weren’t we in the middle of a recession? Surely shoppers were trading down, looking for bargains. Would they really pay $12.95 for chicken caesar salad? Or $6.25 for a squat 250-millilitre jar of salad dressing?
Ruth Reichl goes Hogtown wild (Photo by Brigitte-Lacomb)
• The defunct Gourmet magazine was thinking of putting out a Toronto-themed issue, former editor Ruth Reichl says, following the success of their Montreal issue—their most popular issue ever. In this interview with the Globe, Reichl discusses her admiration for Toronto’s “amazing” food scene, along with the state of the magazine industry and her disappointment with Gourmet’s end. [Globe and Mail]
• There’s something fishy going on with Canadian seafood. A nationwide investigation has found that fish sold to customers are frequently misidentified and mislabelled. Of 500 samples, about a quarter of the fish were not what they were purported to be. In one case, sashimi-grade tuna (which is subject to stringent preparation methods) was replaced with cheaper skipjack tuna. [Toronto Star]
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