Despite the ascendancy of comfort food, some occasions still require more than a tricked-out sandwich. These four posh dishes are worth the splurge.
The chitarroni all'astaco from Mistura (Photo by Daniel Shipp)
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Best New Restaurants 2010
This time last year, the future looked awfully grim. We braced for restaurant closures and recessionary menus, but 2009 was surprising. Though we lost some good places (Perigee, Truffles, Alice’s and Gamelle, in particular), and mac-and-cheese quickly wore out its welcome, it was an exciting time to dine out. Anxious restaurateurs dropped corkage fees and slashed wine markups, while chefs cooked up imaginative prix fixe menus. It suited our mood as well as our wallets: these days, Torontonians want informality. We’re still hungry for local produce and nose-to-tail dining, chefs are once again finding inspiration in Italy and Japan, and the city is finally beginning to develop a serious cocktail culture. Most encouraging of all is the number of new restaurants opening. Here, the best of the vintage.
Toronto’s most extravagant Japanese dining experience
Masaki Hashimoto’s incredibly arcane kaiseki restaurant is unique in North America. As James Chatto writes, for $300 a head, before booze, tax and tip, it had better be.
Just Opened: Hashimoto comes to Toronto proper after years of wowing Japanese food fans in Mississauga
Inside the new Hashimoto (Photo by Karon Liu)
“There’s nothing else like this in Toronto, maybe even Canada,” kaiseki chef Masaki Hashimoto explains over tea at his newly opened location at the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre in North York. “The Hashimoto in Mississauga was the first step, and this is the second.”
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