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All stories relating to Joanne Kates

The Dish

Restauran-TO
February 5, 2010 | 9:02 am

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Tracking the changes at the Wine Bar and Hank’s

Out with the old: the former sign in front of the Wine Bar (Photo by 416style)

Out with the old: the former sign in front of what is now the Wine Bar (Photo by 416style)

It’s been four months since foodie power couples Ted and Mary Koutsogiannopoulos (Joy Bistro) and Scott Vivian and Rachelle Caldwell (Jamie Kennedy Kitchens) bought the Jamie Kennedy Wine Bar and adjoining Hank’s café. Their rebrand is evident everywhere: Hank’s now has table service and dinner (a barbecue-inspired evening menu debuted this week), but the big change that has locavores squealing like whey-fed pigs is that the Wine Bar now takes reservations. “I got a lot of shit about it,” says Vivian about the old policy, “especially from people like Joanne Kates.”

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The Dish

Read All About It
January 5, 2010 | 8:45 am

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Cora Pizza reopens, Joanne Kates picks her top restaurants, the fooderati’s top Twitterers

Ratted out: Cora Pizza re-opens after health inspectors discovered rats on the premises (Photo by The Pizza Review)

Ratted out: Cora Pizza reopens after health inspectors discovered rats on the premises (Photo by The Pizza Review)

• U of T students, rejoice: Cora Pizza reopened its doors last week. The restaurant, a long-standing refuge of drunken university students, was closed due to unsanitary conditions (including, apparently, several dead rats and rat feces on the premises). With a history like this, we’re sure the customers will come flocking back. [CBC] 

• Joanne Kates counts down Toronto’s top new restaurants of 2009, with fairly predictable results. Among her favourites are Buca, Black Hoof, the revamped Splendido, Osteria Ciceri e Tria and Mildred’s Temple Kitchen. The one wild card is Ba Shu Ren Jia, a Szechuan spot with a four-figure Steeles Avenue address. [Globe and Mail]

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The Dish

Read All About It
October 15, 2009 | 4:45 pm

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The Ruby Restaurant fiasco: come for the Peking duck, stay for the salmonella

Kates' review says that "every item has snap, crackle and pop to spare."

Kates' review says that "every item has snap, crackle and pop to spare."

In what appears to be a colossal case of bad timing, the Globe and Mail’s Joanne Kates offered a glowing review of Ruby Chinese Restaurant a full three days after health inspectors had closed it down. Apparently the Scarborough restaurant flunked its inspection due to dirty floors, an infestation of cockroaches, inadequately cleaned cooking surfaces, raw meat maintained at the wrong temperature and, last but not least, salmonella. The investigation was prompted last week after an outbreak of salmonella poisoning that left at least 18 people sick was linked to food served at Ruby. Authorities are also investigating the death of an elderly man who ate there, as well as 15 other potential cases.

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The Dish

Aprons & Icons
June 26, 2009 | 8:51 am

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A room of his own: Zane Caplansky moves his deli to old Jewish town

Guardian of the beef: Zane Caplansky lords over a cake version of his famous sandwich

Guardian of the beef: Zane Caplansky lords over a cake version of his famous sandwich (Photo by Renee Suen)

Zane Caplansky is bringing his celebrated “Toronto smoked meat”—part Schwartz’s, part Hogtown corned beef—to a brand new space in the heart of the city’s old deli town. The new Kensington chop shop is slated to open in August and will feature an expanded menu, a patio, a performance space, and a family legacy close to Caplansky’s meat-loving heart. With many of the city’s charcuterie shops up at Eglinton, Caplansky opened his current Clinton Street spot in the hope of bringing the traditional deli experience back downtown. Almost a year later, he’s garnered praise for his hand-cured, hand-smoked brisket: Joanne Kates called him a “one-man smoked-meat renaissance” selling fare fit for her bubbe, and even the “godfather of deli,” Shopsy’s Yitz Penciner, signed off. Now that the beef buff has curing cred, Caplansky is bringing the deli rejuvenation home to what he calls “the heart of the old Jewish deli soul”: the former Jewish quarter of Kensington Market.

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The Dish

Aprons & Icons
May 13, 2009 | 11:41 am

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Gourmet magazine editor Ruth Reichl talks about her mother, her serotonin and the brown bananas in her freezer

The prolific Ruth Reichl (Photo by Brigitte Lacombe)

The prolific Ruth Reichl (Photo by Brigitte Lacombe)

“I’ve always thought that privacy is overrated,” says avant-garde epicure and Gourmet magazine editor Ruth Reichl. She is talking to the Globe and Mail‘s restaurant critic, Joanne Kates, about her most recent book (Not Becoming My Mother and Other Things She Taught Me Along the Way), but we start to wonder if she’s actually referring to Kates, who is wearing a plumed mask to preserve her critical anonymity. Reichl, who long ago shed her comical critic-incognito getups, is boldly baring all.

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The Dish

Rumours & Rumblings
May 12, 2009 | 8:41 am

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Chef Greg Couillard takes a Hemingway-esque departure from the Spice Room

The logo of the Spice Room bears Couillard's name

The logo of the Spice Room bears Couillard's name

Yorkville’s schmoozy Spice Room chef, Greg Couillard, has skipped town for Mexico once again, leaving long-time colleague and fellow chef David Nganga to hold down the fort—only this time, it’s for an indefinite period. No, Couillard’s not a fugitive bandido, but there may be reason to believe that the unceremonious departure is about more than just sun worship.

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