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Completing its transition from King West chic to rustic barnyard, Marben has announced it’s hosting the first annual Marben Sausage League. Over the next five months, 12 chefs from some of Toronto’s hottest restaurants—including C5, The Harbord Room, La Palette and Parts and Labour—will compete for the title of “Sausage Champion.”
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Meet five Bay Street escapees who left six-figure jobs to work for themselves
They left six-figure corporate jobs for the queasy uncertainty of self-employment. Tales of emptied bank accounts and the elusive but oh-so-sweet gratification of running your own shop
The Candy Man
Tim English, 46
Then: Bay Street lawyer
Now: owner of Chocolateria
I started my Bay Street career as a labour and employment lawyer at Filion Wakele Thorup Angeletti in 1991. Then I moved to Ontario Power Generation for eight years, and after that to Direct Energy for about a year and a half. I had a high salary, about $250,000, and was on the cusp of moving up into the executive ranks, but in the back of my head, I’d always wanted to run my own business and work for myself. In the summer of 2009, when I turned 45, I decided it was time.
My first step was to study every shopping district in the city, to figure out what kind of business appealed to me and which neighbourhood was booming. I realized chocolate is really hot right now. I had taken baking classes at George Brown College for fun and enjoyed it. So I set up a production kitchen in my house and rented a candy kiosk at the Downsview farmers’ market for three months last summer. I wouldn’t call it a hugely successful apprenticeship: the chocolate melted in the summer heat, and I ended up giving most of it away. Also, Downsview doesn’t attract a demographic that buys quality chocolate and pastries. Read the rest of this entry »
Holiday Gift Guide: 13 edible present ideas
We prefer to pass the holiday season by eating our way through it and forcing loved ones to do the same. So we’ve come up with 13 inventive edible gifts (and not a mini-muffin basket in sight).
See our foodie gift guide now >>
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Best of the City 2010: 14 picks for the top food in Toronto
Leaf fan: Matchbox Gardens grows rare and wonderful lettuces (Image: Jay Shuster)
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Famous frites not on menu at Jamie Kennedy’s Gilead
Jamie Kennedy (Photo by Davida Aronovitch)
Jamie Kennedy had a rough year in 2009: he sold Hank’s and the Wine Bar, his Gardiner Museum restaurant took a more casual route, and he was essentially on the brink of bankruptcy. “I expanded too quickly,” he told The Globe back in June. “I was exposed to costs far out of balance with my revenue.”
Now Kennedy is making his way back to the kitchen five nights a week at Gilead Bistro, where his study in economy hasn’t gone unnoticed by The Star’s Amy Pataki (nor has the less-than-packed dining room). For example, Pataki notes that the bistro charges $3 for bread. Also, Kennedy sells charcuterie and soups through the Healthy Butcher and turns chicken and beef bones into stock that can be bought at Rowe Farms.
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Jamie Kennedy sets the record straight on the Gardiner, the debts, and the Wine Bar sale
Trim the fat: Jamie Kennedy is scaling back his restaurant empire to suit the times (Photo by Davida Aronovitch)
Last month, Jamie Kennedy called a press conference to talk about the transformation of his Gardiner restaurant from a fine dining destination to a café lunch spot—but that was only the beginning of the story. Kennedy is also facing crippling debt, bailout bids and the sale of his signature Wine Bar.
Kennedy says he will sell the Wine Bar, but only under the right circumstances. “I’m in no hurry,” he says, “This is not a fire sale.” In a Splendido-style hand off, Kennedy has offered the place to the next generation: senior staff Jamie Drummond, Laura Cleland, Aron Mohr and Scott Vivian. If the new JK cohort can scrape the funds together, the founder favours a clean break, though he’s conscious that his managers may want to keep up the association. “The Wine Bar was a beautiful thing and it should continue,” he says, “It occupies an important niche in the landscape of Toronto as a meeting point for local food.”
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Christine Cushing wants to teach “lovable losers” how to cook
Fearless: Christine Cushing takes aim
Spirited TV chef Christine Cushing is on a mission to transform Toronto’s “hopeless lovable losers” into confident cooks on her new reality series, Fearless in the Kitchen. The show, which premieres this fall on the Viva Network, is one part Kitchen Nightmares and two parts Makeover Story. Episodes will feature true cooking amateurs—who will have been tested to prove that they can’t even fry an egg—being treated to lessons by Cushing (for whom “failure is not an option”). Fearless promises all the voyeuristic appeal we’ve come to expect from this sort of endeavour, complete with laughable neophytes, surprise challenges and, as Cushing puts it, a little bit of “oh crap, what’s gonna happen?” Read the rest of this entry »
Perigee’s canapé giveaway, LCBO wine sale, DIY nose-to-tail
The ubiquitous—and heretofore unrecyclable—coffee cup (Photo by Martin Cathrae)
• Dinner for two at Perigee runs about $210, so this is the last restaurant we expected to be offering giveaways. Yesterday morning, however, executive chef Christopher Brown hit Union Station with 500 promotional canapés in an attempt to get business flowing. [Toronto Star]
• Toronto’s goal of diverting 70 per cent of its waste from landfills by 2010 makes every piece of waste a target. Back in the crosshairs of city officials is the ubiquitous—and heretofore unrecyclable—coffee cup. [Globe & Mail]
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