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All stories relating to La Palette

The Dish

From the Print Edition
December 15, 2010 | 9:06 am

23 Comments

Toronto’s five best steak frites

The world’s most perfect meat-and-potatoes pairing is a bistro classic. Here, the city’s top five steak frites. By Rob Mifsud

1. Nota Bene’s Cumbrae Farms steak
The rub (thyme, rosemary, balsamic and olive oil) offsets the complex, almost gamy flavours of an incredible strip loin nurtured by 60 days of dry aging. Flesh so tender it parts at the nudge of a knife contrasts with the snap of lustily salted frites. $45. 180 Queen St. W., 416-977-6400.

2. Jacobs and Co. Alberta rib-eye
Toronto’s best steak house doesn’t serve steak frites, per se, but sumptuously marbled and aged High River Hereford beef ($50). The rib-eye deserves an equally extravagant partner, in this case a side order of tarragon-showered duck-fat fries ($12) that mingles the earthiness of the potatoes with the musk of the deep-fryer. 12 Brant St., 416-366-0200.

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The Dish

Restauran-TO
November 19, 2010 | 8:47 am

14 Comments

When it comes to making restaurant reservations, is OpenTable a friend or foe?

From a customer’s perspective, OpenTable might seem like the perfect dovetailing of the Internet and dining: restaurant reservations are made and confirmed instantly. There’s no favouritism, waiting for a return e-mail or negotiating with front-of-house staffers. Lots of restaurants use it (290 in Toronto alone), and, perhaps best of all, it’s free. For all that convenience, restaurant owners foot the bill.

That’s where the problem comes in for Mark Pastore. He’s the chef at San Fransisco’s famous Incanto restaurant. In an eloquent, if long-winded, indictment of the service posted on his eatery’s Web site last month, Pastore notes that OpenTable’s fees are exorbitant. “OpenTable is out for itself, the worst business partner I have ever worked with in all my years in restaurants,” one anonymous restaurateur from NYC told him. “If I could find a way to eliminate it from my restaurants, I would.”

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The Dish

Deathwatch
November 18, 2010 | 3:33 pm

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La Palette shuttering its Kensington location this weekend

When Shamez Amlani muses about this coming Sunday, it’s not without a little sentimentality. Three days from now, the restaurant he co-owns in Kensington Market, La Palette, will shut its doors for good so that he and his team can concentrate on the Queen West location. Ten years ago, Amlani and his associates applied a meagre $18,000 to a grungy Chinese joint and turned it into an edgy French bistro. They never imagined that it would have taken off the way it did. “It’s a miracle,” Amlani tell us. “We shot at the moon, and we actually hit it.”

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The Dish

Opening
May 26, 2010 | 8:32 am

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Just Opened: La Palette, Queen West edition

Horsing around: the new La Palette is open on Queen West (Image: Jon Sufrin)

The new outpost of La Palette on Queen West has much in common with the Kensington Market original: a nearly identically sized dining room set on checkerboard tiles, a quirky south-of-France vibe, and a menu spearheaded by executive chef Brook Kavanagh. “Although they have the same genetic makeup, they are different individuals,” says Shamez Amlani, who co-owns both incarnations of La Palette with his wife.

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The Dish

Opening
March 23, 2010 | 9:09 am

3 Comments

More details about La Palette’s new Queen West location

RIP, Taro Grill; hello, La Palette

As we reported last week, Kensington Market’s La Palette is opening a new location on Queen West. After a chat with owner Shamez Amlani, we learned that he’s shooting for a mid-to-late-May opening date, since the space formerly occupied by Taro Grill is still in good form. “There’s some gutting, but it’s not a complete overhaul. It’s mostly new floors and changing the decor.”

Amlani quickly snatched up the location when Taro went belly up last month. “I started my career in the restaurant business in 1989 at Le Sélect when it was still on Queen West, so I’ve been trolling the neighbourhood for years and years.”

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The Dish

Restauran-TO
March 18, 2010 | 3:37 pm

1 Comment

Three restaurant expansions offer some optimism for Toronto’s restaurant industry

(Image: grindercoffee.posterous.com)

After two years of restaurant death watches, it seems like 2010 is going to be a time of cautious expansion in Toronto’s restaurant industry. We’ve noticed that several local establishments are planning second locations, and they all look promising. A short list, after the jump.

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The Dish

Culinary Curiosities
December 16, 2009 | 4:44 pm

4 Comments

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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The Dish

De-licious
October 1, 2009 | 12:57 pm

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Localicious: frugality knows no season

(Photo by Catherine Kustanczy)

Suffix solution: the latest -licious kicks off tomorrow (Photo by Catherine Kustanczy)

We’re surprised it took so long for another “-licious” event to spring up between Summerlicious and Winterlicious, but here it is. As part of Localicious (running from October 2 to 18), 11 restaurants across the city will be offering menus of dishes containing local, seasonal and sustainable ingredients, with proceeds going to the World Wildlife Fund. The Toronto edition of the dining deal (Montreal, Vancouver, Halifax, Ottawa and Calgary are also involved) features the following establishments: Cowbell, Epic, Gilead Café, Grano, La Palette, Marvellous Edibles, Quince, Rebel House, Reds, Veritas and Victor.

Our recommendations, after the jump.

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The Dish

Pantry Raid
May 21, 2009 | 1:52 pm

1 Comment

Last call for Fiddleheads: Now we eat them, soon we won’t

Heady times: Fiddleheads come but once a year (Photo by Foodista)

Heady times: Fiddleheads come but once a year (Photo by Foodista)

The season’s first locavore love affair is about to come to an end. Fiddleheads—the fern fronds harvested for only one month each spring—have been popping up on menus throughout the city recently, but experts advise that the coming weekend (and the onset of stem-shrivelling summer heat) will likely mark the end of the veggie’s short season. Even the most optimistic predictions have the Polkaroo of plant life on Toronto plates for another week. We scavenged for details of what five of the city’s top chefs are doing with the of-the-moment ingredient.

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The Dish

Restauran-TO
April 21, 2009 | 2:05 pm

2 Comments

Where the wild things are: Finding exotic meats in Toronto’s restaurant jungle

Time to bite back (Postcard from Steven Martin)

Time to bite back (Postcard from Steven Martin)

For those who are bored with beef or are still mourning the cancellation of Fear Factor, take heart (literally). Toronto restaurants serve enough exotic meats and wild game to satisfy any adventurer’s appetite. And since most of these animals are raised locally (and none of them are up for adoption by World Wildlife Fund), the environmentally conscious can indulge guilt-free. Our list, after the jump.

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