Publishing powerhouse Condé Nast recently released the Condé Nast Traveler Reader’s Choice Awards—an annual roundup of the best places to visit and stay around the world—and Toronto’s showing was average at best. More than eight million votes were cast for the survey, with top honours going to exotic locales like Ritz-Carlton Shanghai, the Peninsula House in Dominican Republic and Four Seasons Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt. Toronto, on the other hand, seems to lack the allure of other far-flung (read: tropical) destinations. In fact, no Toronto-based hotels made the cut on the Top 100 travel experiences list, although a few Canadian locations did (King Pacific Lodge in B.C., Langdon Hall in Cambridge, Ontario, Emerald Lake Lodge in B.C. and Auberge Saint-Antoine in Quebec City). In the Canadian rankings, Toronto ranked fifth, behind practically every other city that matters (Quebec City, Vancouver, Montreal and even little Victoria). Although a few local spots did make the cut for the Canadian hotels list (the Hazelton Hotel was named fifth best in the country, the Four Seasons in Yorkville ranked 27th and the Windsor Arms and the Toronto Marriott Downtown Eaton Centre Hotel took 31st and 35th place, respectively), the results prove that the CN Tower has nothing on historical clout, mountains or waterfalls. The verdict: we could really use an ocean view and year-round sunshine. Read the entire story [Condé Nast] »
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TIFF 2011 Roundup: How to be Don Draper (er, Jon Hamm)
Jon Hamm at the George Stroumboulopoulos Hazel Hotel Takevoer party (Image: JJ Thompson)
One of the many A-list celebrities to grace Toronto’s streets last week for TIFF 2011 was none other than Jon Hamm himself—or as he’s perhaps better known, Don Draper, the enigmatic ad executive he plays on the television show Mad Men. Hamm was a class act throughout TIFF: he took in Toronto sights, went to all the right parties and, of course, looked devastatingly handsome while doing it. Based on Hamm’s short but sweet stay in the Big Smoke, we’ve distilled four rules on how to be a gentlemen—Mad Men style—whilst in Toronto, after the jump.
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TIFF Weekend Roundup: the five splashiest parties
It girl in the making Elizabeth Olson is introduced to perennial it man George Clooney. (Image: Jeff Vespa/WireImage/Getty Images Entertainment)
The first weekend of TIFF is basically one big long party, with a non-stop crush of big premieres, boldface names and tremendous amounts of running around (sleep is usually not involved). In case you missed it, here are last weekend’s five splashiest parties:
- If you haven’t already heard, the party for A Dangerous Method at Greg Goose Soho House was pretty much the best party ever. In attendance: David Cronenberg, George Clooney, Win Butler, Régine Chassagne, Bono, Keira Knightley, Evan Rachel Wood, Emily Blunt, Adam Scott, Jonah Hill, Chris Pratt, Anna Faris, Jon Hamm, Alexander Skarsgård and many more. Read our recap »
- As usual, the Vanity Fair party had all the markers of a successful TIFF bash: happy (drunken) partygoers and a stack of celebrities sticking around for more than 10 minutes (Bono, George Clooney, Elizabeth Olsen, Alexander Skarsgård and more). It also featured some rather provocative posing by The Oranges’ Allison Janney. Read our recap »
- George Stroumboulopoulos once again took over the Hazelton Hotel for his trademark mix of big stars, CBC television personalities and gawkers. We particularly enjoyed seeing Jon Hamm in full-on shaggy-hair mode (compared with Don Draper, at least). Read our recap »
- There’s something about tall, Scandinavian vampires that sets the fan girls wild, which is exactly what happened at the Melancholia party when Alexander Skarsgård (Eric Northman from True Blood) showed up. Kirsten Dunst had the good sense to smile politely and stand aside. Read our recap »
- A rather more genteel time was had at the annual luncheon thrown by famed Hollywood reporter George Christy at the Four Seasons. In attendance: Kathleen Turner, Geoffrey Rush, Norman Jewison, Atom Egoyan and assorted Mulroneys. Read our recap »
SPOTTED: Jon Hamm at Strombo’s Hazelton Takeover party at One restaurant at the Hazelton Hotel
We saw Don Draper last night—with our own eyes! That’s right, Jon Hamm in the flesh. Only, rather strangely, Hamm was looking decidedly un–Don Draper–like in a blazer that was almost too small, a colourful tie and with his hair rather dishevelled (at least, compared to his typical Mad Men coif) at George Stroumboulopoulos’s Hazelton Takeover party at One restaurant at the Hazelton Hotel.
Find this story on our Star Spotting Map, where we plot the locations of celebrities spotted around Toronto.
SPOTTED: Bono currently dining at One in the Hazelton
Bono (Image: hds)
The U2 doc is TIFF’s opening film tonight, so it makes sense that Bono would be in Toronto, but his whereabouts were unknown until now.
Both eTalk and Shinan Govani tweeted, almost in tandem, that the U2 frontman is currently dining at One in the Hazelton Hotel. ETalk’s tweet is straight to the point: “Bono has been spotted in Toronto at One in the Hazelton!” Govani’s tweet is equally excited, if slightly hilarious: “He’s heeeere. Bono and gang corner-table’ing just now in One in The Hazelton.” Star-stalkers should rush over now, or risk missing Bono picking his main out of his teeth.
Find this story on our Star Spotting Map, where we plot the locations of celebrities spotted around Toronto.
The swag series: Hazelton Hotel takes care of its celebrity guests with, um, everything
Why go out when the necessities can come to you? (Image: Fraser Abe)
What it is: Every guest who stays in one of the Hazelton Hotel’s 77 rooms and suites during TIFF (and visiting celebs renting out the residences) gets one of these bags for themselves. Think of it as an offset to the pricey rooms, which are upwards of $1,000 a night. If it’s good enough for Oprah, well, surely a pleb like George Clooney might deign to be seen here. Find out who goes there and what they get after the jump.
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Clive Owen, Steve Nash and Juliette Lewis celebrate Strombo at the Hazelton Takeover party
The man of the (half-) hour (Image: Stefania Yarhi)
The plebs swarmed Yorkville last night in droves, and the red carpet and photographers stationed outside the Hazelton Hotel acted as a honing beacon for star-seeking hopefuls. “Is that a celebrity? Who is that everyone’s looking at? That’s that model–she’s famous in Canada and internationally.” That would be Stacey McKenzie, sometime Top Model guest and Toronto party scenester, who had to push through a thick group of onlookers to get inside for the CBC’s Hazelton Takeover party, a bash for George Stroumboulopoulos’s new half-hour show, George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight.
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Spotted: Don Draper has landed
That’s right, ladies. Don Draper himself, Jon Hamm has arrived in Toronto. Sightings of the Mad Men man (in town to promote The Town, Ben Affleck’s flick) have been reported in Yorkville outside the Hazelton Hotel.
= Find this story on our Celebrity Sightings Map, where we plot the locations of stars spotted throughout Toronto
The swag series: celeb guests get Bulgari bling, Bay blankets at the Hazelton Hotel
(Image courtesy of the Hazelton Hotel)
Yorkville’s Hazelton Hotel is one of the swankiest places to stay in Toronto, which is why 30-something celebs are booked in for this year’s film festival. To keep the VIPs happy and presumably away from hotels closer to the Lightbox (Hyatt Regency, The Thompson), each guest receives a goodie bag complete with a Hudson’s Bay Company cashmere throw, Bulgari cufflinks, a monogrammed Longchamp tote, a Moleskin film journal, Kiehl’s skin care products, Burt’s Bees spot treatment, VIP passes to bars Goodnight and Amber, tickets to George Stroumboulopoulos‘s party tonight at the Hazelton, vitamins, drinks and room fragrances. Take that, King West.
The TIFF cocktail list is out: this year’s celebrity-themed drinks
The Oh Golly Molly! looks suspiciously like a regular martini (Image: James Mulholland)
With September looming, the annual swarm of boozers and cruisers is about to descend upon our city. No, not incoming U of T students—the Toronto International Film Festival is nigh. The Hazelton Hotel played host to the first of many TIFF events (and our first celeb sighting of the season—Brandon Walsh, oops, Jason Priestley, hanging in the lobby, talking about a visit to the Astral Media studios), with official sponsor Skyy vodka unveiling its annual celebrity-themed cocktails. In years past, such Canucks as Don McKellar, Ellen Page and Lisa Ray have been immortalized in alcohol. Here, the cocktails a lucky few will be sipping on the party circuit.
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New York Times picks the “coolest” places in Toronto
Parkdale's in, Leslieville's out: Parts and Labour makes the list (Image: Jon Sufrin)
With the film festival mere weeks away, Toronto is the focus of a recent T Magazine style map, which names a dozen of the shops, restaurants and hotels that put the “‘Tdot’ on any style-setter’s radar.” Other than the fact that all of the businesses are south of Dupont and west of Jarvis, it’s a good list, with fantastic smaller boutiques, like Chasse Gardée and Fawn, earning mentions, as well as new fashiony foodie destinations Parts and Labour and Cinq 01. Former NYT favourite the Drake Hotel is notably absent; The Thompson and The Hazelton are its hotel picks. The full list, after the jump.
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Hot child in the city: Drake is on the patio at One
Michael Budman helps Drake try on a Douglas Coupland jacket (Image: Roots)
Drake is apparently over his fear of rough-and-tumble Toronto, because he’s on the patio at One, the oh-so-exclusive Yorkville restaurant at the Hazelton Hotel. The hip hopper was flown into town on Richard Branson’s private jet recently and attended Roots’ bash for Douglas Coupland’s new line this week. Maybe it’s One’s row of hedges or Mark McEwan’s posh comfort nosh that has eased his unease.
The inn crowd: Toronto’s five new luxury hotels
Over the next couple of years, this city will get five new luxury hotels. It starts with the Thompson, which opens its high-concept doors this month and promises to be ground zero for the beautiful people
If you build it: the Thompson Toronto, on Wellington West, is the first international arm of the New York–based brand (Illustration: Kagan McLeod)
Lately, King West is an urban cloud nine: designer condos, old brick studio spaces, fantastic carpaccio. Only 15 years ago, no one had much reason to venture down here—not for work, not to live, not for a dining scene, because there wasn’t one. There were no ad agencies, no Susur Lee joints, no Spoke Club and certainly no boutique hotels. But now the dozen or so blocks bounded by Spadina and Bathurst, from Adelaide down to Wellington, are a humming, self-sustaining ecosystem—a model of how to retrofit a vintage downtown neighbourhood.
Real estate agents call this part of town King West Village, a handle the locals find too artificial to pass their lips, especially considering the place isn’t yet fully formed. At every turn, there’s a construction site, or a gaping hole in the ground, or a lot with a target on its back, almost all of them bearing the same signage: an artful graphic in lower case letters saying “freed.” It’s not an existentialist statement; “Freed” stands for Peter Freed, the Forest Hill–bred developer who has nine projects on the go in the area. No one has been a bigger catalyst of the evolution of King West, or capitalized on it more, than Freed. His real estate portfolio, mainly condos, is worth $1 billion, and much of it is geared to a highly specific breed: a 35-ish, design-obsessed demographic that wears Japanese denim, listens to Phoenix, works in advertising or banking or consults in high tech, travels often and widely, and stays at properties designed by Ian Schrager, the Manhattan entrepreneur often credited with founding the boutique hotel genre. In King West, Freed has prepared a landing strip for these hipster high flyers (and those who aspire to become them). They’re not rich, necessarily. Their ambition is to be tastefully in the know.
For them, Freed has invested in a crowning achievement, a gleefully anticipated light box on Wellington: the 102-room Thompson Toronto, which is scheduled to open its high-concept doors this month. Read the rest of this entry »
House of the week: a $12.8-million customizable Yorkville penthouse
Sky’s the Limit
ADDRESS: Penthouse, 206 Bloor St. W. Read the rest of this entry »
NEIGHBOURHOOD: Yorkville
AGENT: Diane Stead, Sotheby’s International Realty Canada, Brokerage
PRICE: $12.8 million
THE PLACE: This unit is the kingpin of the 26 exclusive luxury suites that will sit atop MuseumHouse. The pre-built penthouse will occupy both the 18th and 19th floors, providing 180-degree views of the city. Though all residents will have direct elevator access in their suites, the MuseumHouse team stresses that this building will be all about “community.” With just over two dozen units, occupants will have a hard time not getting to know their neighbours; we hear a mystery rock star, a bigwig athlete and a handful of financial giants are among them.
Home of the week: $6.1 million to live in Yorkville’s Hazelton Hotel
(Images: Chestnut Park Real Estate)
Leisure Sweet
ADDRESS: 118 Yorkville Ave. (a.k.a. the Hazelton Hotel), Suite 501 Read the rest of this entry »
NEIGHBOURHOOD: Yorkville
AGENT: Janet Marlene Lindsay, Chestnut Park Real Estate
PRICE: $6.1 million
THE PLACE: A five-star hotel to call home, this fifth-floor suite is the last of 16 spots available for purchase in the luxe Yorkville Hazelton Hotel. The king-size master suite makes city living sexy, with his and hers bathrooms and French doors that open onto two large balconies.
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