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The comprehensive index of every blog post, magazine story and restaurant review that appears on Torontolife.com
All stories relating to kitchens
House of the Week: $1.6 million for an Annex condo with a one-of-a-kind view
ADDRESS: Unit 2002, 1 Bedford Rd.
NEIGHBOURHOOD: The Annex
AGENT: Vicky Tal and Meir Gluzberg, Harvey Kalles Real Estate Ltd., Brokerage
PRICE: $1,629,000
THE PLACE: This 20th-storey unit in the newly completed One Bedford condos is defined by a beautiful south-facing view of the Toronto skyline and a variety of custom finishes: a leather-upholstered wall in the master bedroom, a light box in the master ensuite shower, his-and-hers master closets, a custom kitchen by Paris Kitchens and, of course, a wall-mounted iPad to control the sound system.
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12 best bets for Winterlicious 2011: our chief critic goes through the menus so you don’t have to
A steak dinner at Noce (Image: Renée Suen)
Big-spending downtown Torontonians have taken in the past few years to whining about Winterlicious, but the two-week dining festival, running from January 28 through February 10, remains popular for a reason: it offers great value, particularly if you choose your reservations well. Here are a dozen of Toronto Life’s best bets. They’re older, more established places, generally, with kitchens that clearly care. And though we haven’t yet tasted the restaurants’ 2011 Winterlicious menus, they’re full of interesting, delicious-sounding picks.
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Nine amazing kitchen gadgets from Toronto’s restaurant kitchens
We’re all for home-cooked meals and comfort food, but let’s face it: people go to restaurants to order stuff they can’t duplicate at home without the right skill set, equipment or the $625 to buy Nathan Myhrvold’s Modernist Cuisine cookbook. We talked to nine Toronto chefs about their weird, famous or indispensable food-making gizmo.
Forget the five-second rule—food eaten off the ground is always nasty
According to a new article in National Geographic, the zero-second rule should replace the five-second rule. Not that anyone took these regulations seriously, anyway, but a study from Clemson University has concluded that bacteria can be transferred to food as soon as it hits the ground. Some scientists are saying that where the food is dropped is more important than how long it’s been on the ground. Food dropped on the sidewalk, for example, might be more salvageable for the truly waste-wary than food dropped on the kitchen floor, which collects more dangerous bacteria. For those who were wondering, the bathroom floor is also, apparently, a terrible place from which to reclaim dropped food.
• Scientists count five-second rule down to zero for safety [Toronto Star]
Just Opened: Marben trades in the onyx for oh-so-popular reclaimed wood
Carl Heinrich with a companion in the newly redesigned Marben (All images: Karon Liu)
Splendido did it, then Centro, then Brassaii, and now Marben. Sure, they’ve all been renovated, but more specifically, they’ve all received make-unders.
Back in March, Marben auctioned off bits and pieces of its former self, including the famous glowing onyx bar, in order to make way for understated pieces, vintage fixtures and reclaimed wood. General manager Sarah Evans says the Wellington West restaurant’s overhaul was meant to lighten up the place and make it known for its food rather than its scene (Brassaii cited similar urges). Still, with the restaurant open until 2 a.m. every day and Bavette—a separate downstairs party space—set to open at the end of the month, Marben isn’t retiring from the revelry. “The city needs a rowdy restaurant,” says Evans.
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Summit Scene: dispatch from inside the G20′s kitchens by local restaurateur John Lee
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Flak jackets, photo badges and the K-9 unit are a rare sight at catering functions (more often a staple of the ensuing after-party), but they were in full force at Experience Canada, part of the G20 pavilion for the foreign press (think fake lake). I was there as a member of Nick Liu’s culinary team from the Niagara Street Café, invited to assist in presenting an Asian-inspired dish featuring local ingredients for international journalists. On the menu: General Tao sweetbreads on a bed of Asian slaw with jellyfish topped with cilantro, red pepper and sesame seeds.
The High Life: four glam condos that redefine urban opulence
They call it downsizing, but who are we kidding? Four glam condos that redefine urban opulence
Marijuana and haute cuisine: Toronto chefs on how some top kitchens are going to pot
Who's hungry? (Image: Torben Hansen)
The correlation between marijuana and the munchies is no secret, but a New York Times article that went viral a few weeks ago is taking the link to new heights. In the Big Apple’s “new kitchen culture,” haute cuisine is being influenced by chefs and kitchen staffers who find culinary inspiration by indulging in a little weed. We talked to a few Toronto chefs about the emerging trend and its breakthrough potential in Toronto.
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New York considering banning salt in restaurant kitchens—no, really
(Image: TheGiantVermin)
Big Brother is watching, and his name is Felix Ortiz. The New York lawmaker has introduced a bill that would forbid chefs from adding salt to their dishes in an effort to reduce consumers’ sodium intake. Instead, diners would add their own salt at the table. “In this way, consumers have more control over the amount of sodium they intake and are given the option to exercise healthier diets and healthier lifestyles,” Ortiz told Nation’s Restaurant News.
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Technician’s eyebrows presumed missing after gas explosion at Caplansky’s Delicatessen
Thankfully, Caplansky's Delicatessen remains intact (Photo by Ian Irving)
Caplansky’s Delicatessen was closed yesterday, and officials crowded its College Street space after a technician set off a small fireball while trying to install a fryer. Zane Caplansky writes on the restaurant’s blog that the technician got burned and, amid the panic, used the fire extinguisher, then ran onto the street. Firefighters arrived, and soon the police, EMS, Toronto Public Health, the Ministry of Labour and Technical Standards and Safety Authority arrived to see if the technician who fled was OK. Eventually, the fryer vendor who hired the technician came to the restaurant and told the police that he installed the fryer himself. The cops promptly arrested him for obstruction. “Seeing your kitchen equipment guy being cuffed in your dining room and led away by the police is an experience I never imagined I’d have,” writes Caplansky. “And I’m not grateful for it.”
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A first look inside Paul Boehmer’s eponymous Ossington restaurant (and details of his new Dean and Deluca-esque retail shop)
Trend count: Fresh and local? Check. Communal table? Check. Ossington Avenue? Check. Designer lighting? Check (All photos by Karon Liu)
Paul Boehmer’s soon-to-open restaurant is like the cherry on top of the Ossington sundae. The eponymous eatery was one of the last to obtain a restaurant and bar permit before the city imposed a one-year moratorium on new establishments last May. “People around the neighbourhood thought that I was opening a nightclub, but since I told them it wasn’t the case, I haven’t received any complaints,” says the former Stadtländer apprentice, who has also cooked at Rosewater Supper Club, Six Steps and Scaramouche. He expects Boehmer to open in less than a month—about six months later than originally planned.
Menus trick diners into spending more, $26.50 brownie mix, the manliest cooking magazine
The brownie mix from Bouchon
• Amy Pataki taste-tests a $26.50 brownie mix from the bastion of expensive cooking supplies, Williams-Sonoma. The mix, modelled on Thomas Keller’s Bouchon Bakery chocolate “corks,” fared better than the Duncan Hines and Betty Crocker mixes she also baked, but the brownies were a pain to make, and so buttery they stained the photographer’s table, and overall were not worth the money. A $26.50 jar of powder rarely is. [Toronto Star] Read the rest of this entry »
• Globe restaurant critic Alexandra Gill turns the tables, so to speak, when she takes up a waitress gig at one of Vancouver’s hottest restaurants, Cioppino’s. Spoiler alert: it’s harder than she thought. Gill struggles with the Saturday shift, incorrectly calls the chef by his name (in kitchens, the chef is always referred to as “chef”) and has trouble memorizing the daily specials. Perhaps after these new life lessons, Gill will have a few memorable posts for the myriad angry waiter blogs. [Globe and Mail]
Midnight snack redefined as masked chef starts breaking into Toronto restaurants in the middle of the night
If there has been a bump in the night at Toronto restaurants lately, it wasn’t a jolly old man bearing gifts. It’s the Night Chef—a man pillaging the fridges and cupboards of the city’s kitchens to whip up a midnight meal. He claims he loves to cook and wants to do it on his own terms (if not his own turf), using the restaurant’s meat, vegetables and booze. According to his Facebook page, “no lock or law can hope to stop him.” Tough talk, especially since all his photos are tagged with his real name and the names of his accomplices: Matt DeMille, Rick Wahl, Martin McNenly.
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