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J. P. Challet at his new Queen East bakery (Images: Signe Langford)
Queen Street East has been steadily attracting culinary entrepreneurs for the last decade or so, but with prime spaces available for rent and condos and townhouses going up at every turn, the pace has really picked up. French ex-pat J. P. Challet, a culinary craftsman of many trades, is the latest to try his hand with Le Matin, a new authentic French bakery that’s slated to open in December.
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Jennifer Decorte and J.P. Challet at Ici Bistro (Image: Davida Aronovitch)
Ici Bistro is open for business. No, really.
Two years after they signed the lease on 538 Manning Avenue, J.P. Challet and Jennifer Decorte’s modern French bistro is finally serving dinner. The official grand opening isn’t until mid-November, but the place has its liquor licence and has been packed for the past week. All of its 24 seats are reserved for the next 14 days, too, thanks to the restaurant’s very long and public fight for survival. Guests have graffitied a wall with well wishes, and neighbours have even brought gifts. One local couple has booked three times in Ici’s first week of operation. “It’s the only restaurant we’ve ever worked at where everybody hugs each other,” says Decorte. “It’s like a family.”
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Prime, that famed steakhouse at the Windsor Arms Hotel, has become a revolving door for chefs, of late. After executive Stephen Ricci left earlier this year, alumnus J.P. Challet (he helmed the kitchen during Prime’s 1999 relaunch) returned to liven up the joint. Just five months into his tenure, Challet abruptly announced his resignation. “I don’t believe in the steak house. I don’t believe in fine dining anymore,” he told us in June. The restaurant has managed to pick up the pieces with a new head chef—Richard Andino of Flow—and brand new menus. There are also plans for an all-new restaurant at the hotel.
A farewell to Arms: J.P. Challet bids farewell to the Yorkville institution (Image: windsorarmshotel.com)
Master chef J.P. Challet is leaving the Windsor Arms Hotel’s Prime just five months into his tenure—and nine years after doing it the first time. His company Jean-Pierre and Co. unceremoniously pulled out of the steak house after a deal to take over the hotel’s food and beverage program fell through. Challet served his last supper for the Arms at a 2,000-person function at Exhibition Place last Sunday and is now looking to restart construction on his once-hyped Harbord Street project, Ici Bistro.
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Bespoke bread from Marc Thuet (Photo by Renée Suen)
It’s no secret that 2009 was rough for restaurants—“It’s a year a lot of restaurateurs are happy to see go,” says C5’s Ted Corrado—but with the new year almost a month old, optimism is back on the table. We talked to some of the city’s top chefs about five culinary trends for the coming year.
1. Less Is More Read the rest of this entry »
Small, chef-run restaurants that are down-to-earth in both atmosphere and culinary style. Chef Jamie Kennedy, who’s focusing on the Gilead Bistro, a decidedly more casual restaurant than the Wine Bar he sold last fall, anticipates more “chef-driven” spots like J.P. Challet’s Ici Bistro and Grant van Gameren’s Black Hoof. Claudio Aprile, who’s working on his second restaurant, Origin, agrees: “I’m hoping that we see a lot more restaurants that are open kitchen, 30 seats, three line cooks.”
Peter Tsang, Jennifer Decorte and J.P. Challet (Photo by Jessica Darmanin)
More than a decade after he reopened the restaurant at the Windsor Arms, French chef J.P. Challet is returning to revamp the dining options at the classic hotel, along with partners Jennifer Decorte and Peter Tsang. Their company Ici La-bas Partout, which has been operating out of an as-yet-unopened bistro on Harbord, will be transforming Prime, the hotel’s steakhouse, into a modern French restaurant called Ici. As for the spot on Harbord, it’s still coming, assures Decorte; they plan to open Ici Aussi in March.
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We hear that George Friedmann of the Windsor Arms has asked local legend J.P. Challet and his team to take over the Yorkville hotel’s food and beverage service, including a reinvention and possible renaming of its main restaurant Prime. No dates have been confirmed for the takeover, and questions remain about the future of Challet’s most recent project, Ici Bistro (but it appears that recent plumbing problems might keep the Harbord Street hot-spot-that-never-was closed for the time being). Check back next week for full details.
[Update: The full story on Challet's move to the Windsor Arms is available here.]
Once-sleepy Harbord Street leaped into the spotlight last year when it became the setting of Toronto’s latest NIMBY vs. business debate. Citing residents’ rights, crime and the strip’s uncertain future, deputy mayor Joe Pantalone tried to keep a new restaurant—Ici Bistro, helmed by famed chef J.P. Challet—from getting a liquor licence. His intervention may have had the opposite effect he was looking for: Torontonians turned their focus to the south Annex and realized that Harbord isn’t as stuffy (or dodgy) as the councillor would have them believe. With its gradually expanding array of shops, galleries and cafés, Harbord is fast becoming a destination for diners seeking an alternative to Ossington and Queen West. We take a look at 25 seminal spots, old and new, along a street in transition.
(Sam James photo, Jessica Darmanin; Harbord Bakery thumbnail, Danielle Scott)
After winning over Annex residents and fighting a protracted battle with various bureaucracies, chef J.P. Challet and his partners are being granted a liquor licence for their latest restaurant, Ici Bistro. The news came down late yesterday and can be taken as a victory for cooler minds. The licence itself has a few provisos—15, to be precise—that include a ban on video arcades and loud music. But perhaps the key condition of the licence is that it cannot be handed down to any new business on that property without another hearing with the Alcohol and Gaming Commission. This should be good news to deputy mayor Joe Pantalone, who opposed boozing at the bistro out of fear that a yet-unheard-of sleaze spot might one day move in, peddle hooch to local teens and tear the community asunder.
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Joe Pantalone: city councillor, benevolent shepherd (Photo: joepantalone.org)
Being a city councillor is a tough job—just ask deputy mayor Joe Pantalone. Fresh from killing Ossington’s buzz, he now finds himself on an increasingly lonely crusade to deny a liquor license to J.P. Challet’s new Harbord Street bistro, Ici. Ostensibly, Pantalone wants to ensure a bad precedent isn’t set and that the license doesn’t stay with the venue if the restaurant closes, causing the whole street to descend into a crime-ridden hell (you know, again).
While 285 people signed a petition in support of the alcohol bid and have voiced their support to Pantalone’s office, the councillor isn’t swayed.
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Battleground bistro: will wine corrupt the youth of Harbord Street? (Photo by Quinn Dombrowski)
It’s unusual to see a Toronto councillor acting against the wishes of his constituents, especially with an election looming, but it seems as if Deputy Mayor Joe Pantalone has chosen that lonely path. As we first reported in July, the issue concerns the liquor licence for Ici, the 22-seat bistro that renowned chef and educator J.P. Challet and his partners hope to open at the corner of Harbord Street and Manning Avenue, where their catering business is already operational.
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