After years at 297 College St., the monks of the Zen Buddhist Temple are decamping to quieter (and presumably more meditation-friendly) digs at St. Clair and Bathurst. As The Grid reports, their old building has wound up in the hands of Tribute Communities, which has plans of its own for the site. Assuming the city gives the thumbs-up, Tribute is hoping to construct a 15-storey condo tower with about 20,000 square feet of retail space at the base. Rumour has it that Loblaws is negotiating for the spot. The company remains tight-lipped, but a new location did open in another Tribute property at Queen and Portland just last week (like the new Maple Leaf Gardens location, it has a cheese wall). Local businesses, which would find it difficult to compete with the grocery giant’s prices, selection and hours, are predictably anxious. “I don’t want to see a Loblaws there,” Yvonne Bambrick, coordinator of the Kensington Market BIA, told The Grid. “I think that is extremely bad news for the neighbourhood. I don’t even want to see it being discussed.” It could be argued that independent grocers don’t deserve special protection in a free market, but really—unless it’s going to have four cheese walls and a cheese ceiling, the city probably doesn’t need another Loblaws downtown. Read the entire story [The Grid] »
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Mario Batali predicts a Toronto location of Eataly within the next 10 years
In a recent interview with The Daily Meal, Mario Batali reignited simmering hopes that Eataly, the chain of grocery mega-emporia whose New York launch last year was rapturously received, would eventually make its way to Toronto. When asked about expansion plans, he told Ali Rosen:
Well there’ll probably be five in the next 10 years. I wouldn’t be surprised if Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Toronto and Mexico City opened pretty much in any order of those four.
Let’s hope Toronto is at the top of that order.
Introducing: Alimento, King West’s bright new Italian fine food shop and cheesemaker
Inside the new King West fine food store from the brothers Contardi (Image: Gizelle Lau)
For over a year, the windows on the northwest corner of King and Brant have sported signs reading “Alimento Fine Food Emporium: Coming Soon.” Last week, Alimento finally opened, giving King Westers one less excuse to avoid using their kitchens. We stopped by to take a look.
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Recipe to Riches reviewed: Episode 1, Luscious Lemon Pudding Cakes
Last night was the premiere of Recipe to Riches, the much-hyped new Food Network Canada show where each week, a trio of home cooks compete in one of eight different categories to determine whose recipe would make the best President’s Choice product. (No, really.) The show was one pinch of So You Think You Can Dance’s nationwide talent search, a dollop Top Chef’s cook offs and product placement and a heap of Dragon’s Den’s Marketing 101, all whirred in a blender. To be honest, it can sometimes make for a strange mix—the Top Chef–style solemnity that greets each elimination seems a little out place when the contestants change every episode. Each winning product will show up on Loblaws shelves the weekend after the episode airs, and at the end, viewers will vote to crown the winner of a $250,000 grand prize. Every week, we’ll be bringing an advance sample of the winning dish into our office to see whether it’s worth the trip to the grocery store. After the jump, our thoughts on the winner of the Sweet Puddings and Pies challenge.
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Could this be the location for a new upscale grocery store by Lynn Crawford?
The former home of Ring Audio at Queen and Grant (Image: Signe Langford)
Rumours have been swirling among Riverside dwellers and foodies alike that Lynn Crawford is preparing to jump into the boutique grocery business. The hoarding is up over the glass at the former home of Ring Audio, just a few doors down from her Riverside restaurant, Ruby Watchco. But when we called her, the chef and host of Pitching In was keeping mum on the details—at least, she says, “until I have my ducks all lined up in a row.”
New co-op grocery store coming to Parkdale later this year
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The West End Food Co-op—the folks behind the popular Sorauren Farmers’ Market—have partnered up with the Parkdale Community Health Centre to open a grocery store at Queen and Dufferin in the coming months. We caught up with Ayal Dinner, the WEFC operations coordinator, who spoke about taking the organization in this new direction.
Want to know how much salt and fat there is in your food? Tough luck, thanks to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency
Do you know what’s in your food? (Image: Jason Lam)
While Canadians decide who they want leading the country, the bureaucracy in Ottawa is largely spinning its wheels until the next guy comes to boss them around. With all that spare time on their hands, some bureaucrats are turning to the time-honoured tradition of leaking to the press, and in this case we’re glad they are: it looks like the Canadian Food Inspection Agency has gotten out of the business of checking out the nutritional claims made by food producers on their labels.
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The Foodist Market, a new organic grocer, takes over Pulp Kitchen’s space on Queen East
(Image: Signe Langford)
The Foodist Market, a new small grocery shop in Leslieville, has only been open for a few days, so it’s no surprise that many of the deep, white shelves lining the walls of this former juice bar are still bare. The shop should be fully stocked in a matter of days, but until then there are still plenty of organic goodies in store to draw the locals. Standouts include over-the-top rich and porky lonza (cured pork loin), pancetta and capicollo from Niagara Food Specialties, cheeses from Monforte, breads from nearby St. John’s Bakery, salsas and chips from Toronto’s Mad Mexican and, of course, locally grown veggies, eggs and meats. Despite these, the focus here is on organic first, local second.
Loblaws planning to do something with that cool-looking building at Lake Shore and Bathurst
Near the foot of Bathurst Street, just a hop away from the Porter ferry docks, lies the old Loblaw’s warehouse, which was built in 1928 and has been abandoned for a decade. Recent activity around the building, however, makes it look like the grocer is preparing to reincarnate the site. Loblaws and the city have been in an argument over the fate of the building for years, with Loblaws wanting to demolish it and the city predictably wanting part of the heritage building preserved “in perpetuity.” Despite the erection of construction hoarding around the building, that argument doesn’t seem to have been resolved yet.
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Gourmet grocery store wants customers to buy shares, save business
Monforte's cheese-share program helped the company stay afloat (Image: Monforte)
It appears that the warm, fuzzy sentiments that usually come with supporting locavorism aren’t enough to ensure that Culinarium, a local-focused grocery store near Eglinton and Mount Pleasant, will stay afloat. Owner Kathleen Mackintosh is hoping a solid group of customers will invest in “dinner plate shares,” The Star reports, in an effort to gather the $50,000 to $100,000 needed to keep the place open. The shares would entail an initial investment that would pay itself back, with a bit of interest, in the form of redeemable vouchers over the next three years. A $500 investment would yield $600 in groceries; a $1,000 investment would yield $1,305.
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Ban the bag: London MP wants Canada to be more like Toronto
Toronto introduced its five-cent bag fee more than a year ago, and people are still grumbling about it (most recently, Mel Lastman in an interview with Eye Weekly). So we can only imagine what would happen if Irene Mathyssen, MP for London-Fanshawe, gets her way and manages to ban the plastic bag throughout Canada. She probably won’t—hey, it’s a private member’s bill from the NDP—but Big Grocer is weighing in anyway to tell us what a bad idea it is.
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New York Times’s Mark Bittman comes to Canada, is baffled by milk in a bag
Mark Bittman and Jessica Allen go shopping. Click image to go to full video. (Image: Maclean's)
New York Times writer and all-round foodie hotshot Mark Bittman came to Canada to sell his book last week, and the good folks at Maclean’s had the bright idea of bringing him to Toronto’s biggest independent grocer, Fiesta Farms (north of Bloor on Christie), for a wee spree. The video of the event (left) features Bittman and an overeager Jessica Allen meandering through the aisles at Fiesta while they discuss Bittman’s views on organic produce (in 100 years, if there are still people, they’ll be eating organic almost exclusively), weight loss (Bittman shed 30 pounds by going vegan-until-dark) and whether junk food is really cheaper than real food (nope).
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Introducing: Longo’s. Take a tour of the new 48,000 square-foot supermarket that’s sure to feed the downtown grocery war
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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Man dances his way through the Dufferin Mall No Frills
There is nothing like having a moment alone in an aisle at the grocery store to sing or dance along to whatever Carly Simon hit is blasting over the PA. But as far as Phil Villeneuve is concerned, there is no point in waiting until other shoppers have moved to frozen foods to bust a move at the dairy case. Here, in a video uploaded last week, Villeneuve dances his way through the Dufferin Mall No Frills to the Scissor Sisters‘ “Any Which Way.” We think it’s better than his Robyn frolic through the Eaton Centre (which is why this is being posted on The Dish and not The Goods)—but just barely—and are looking forward to the next instalment. “Paper Planes” at Holts? “Disturbia” at Vaughan Mills?
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