Remember last year when Chris Cosentino, one of the pioneers of the offal revival, visited Toronto for undisclosed reasons and claimed he could smell Chinatown from three blocks away? Or when Richard Blais, the molecularly inclined winner of Top Chef All-Stars, tweeted about the interesting tasting menu he’d just lunched on in Toronto? Or when Italian food legend Lidia Bastianich dropped in at All the Best Fine Foods? Turns out they weren’t here just because they love us—they’re all guest judges on season two of Top Chef Canada. Other notable judges and tasters include—and let us be clear, this is a bit of a spoiler for those who really like to keep their Top Chef Canada viewing pure—east-coast chef Michael Smith, season one host Thea Andrews (no hard feelings, we guess!), chef-about-town Matty Matheson of Parts and Labour, Leafs assistant captain Colby Armstrong, Susur Lee and his soon-to-be restaurateur sons Kai and Jet Bent-Lee, Toca’s Tom Brodi, Roger Mooking, Top Chef Masters winner Marcus Samuelson, last season’s winner Dale MacKay and his adorable son Ayden, Keisha Chante, Rick the Temp Campanelli, Lorenzo Loseto of George, Charlie’s Burgers mastermind Franco Stalteri, husband-and-wife dynamos Marc Thuet and Biana Zorich, Odd Bits author Jennifer McLagan, Vancouver Indian restaurateur and chef Vikram Vij and assorted competitors from last season, not to mention the somewhat bizarro guests we already told you about, like Alan Thicke and Mike Holmes. (Whew!) Not bad.
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Top Chef Canada reveals the rather stacked list of guest judges for season two
This year’s What’s on the Table fundraiser for The Stop features over 30 top chefs from Toronto and beyond
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Eat well and feed the hungry along the way—that’s the concept behind the annual What’s on the Table benefit being held this year on November 2. Since 2005, the fundraiser has gathered $1.5 million for The Stop, the innovative community food centre whose goal is to increase everyone’s access to healthy food (check out our interview with chef Chris Brown from shortly after he joined The Stop). Dining stations open at 6:30 p.m., and patrons won’t be starved for choice; the event features offerings from over 30 chefs, including Lynn Crawford of Ruby Watcho, Anthony Walsh of Canoe and pâtissier Nadège Nourian (see below for the very impressive full list).
Matthew DeMille, formerly of Parts and Labour, takes the helm as Enoteca Sociale’s new chef
Rocco Agostino and Matthew DeMille, both of Enoteca Sociale (Image: Renée Suen)
Earlier this month, Enoteca Sociale, the popular west-end Italian wine bar, posted a notice on their website that their long search for a new chef was over. Executive chef and co-owner Rocco Agostino told us that the restaurant was looking for someone willing to take the concept of the Roman-style wine bar and make it their own. Their pick? Matthew DeMille, most recently known as Matty Matheson’s sous chef at Parts and Labour; his new gig starts tomorrow.
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Terroir 2011 roundup: we talk to Toronto’s top chefs and restaurateurs at the foodie symposium
Fergus Henderson (St. John’s) and Arlene Stein (event chair) at Terroir
A couple weeks back, 400 members of the food and hospitality industry gathered at Hart House for Terroir V. The annual symposium saw chefs, restaurateurs and members of the food media musing over this year’s theme: “the balance of artistic creation and traditional craftsmanship in our hospitality industry.” We caught up with some top chefs—including Jason Bangerter (Luma), Mark Cutrara (Cowbell), Matt DeMille (Parts and Labour) and keynote speaker Fergus Henderson—who shared with us what they took away from the day.
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Hipster temple Oddfellows to close in February
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Oddfellows—the only Queen West hipster hangout with a roving Winnebago—is closing. Eye Weekly reported the news earlier today, along with the fact that its building, 963 Queen Street West, is up for sale. Of course, this means the much-anticipated spring return of Oddfellows’ all-you-can-eat Sunday taco extravaganza is not to be.
The 10 best pickled foods at Toronto restaurants
Pickled things—lovingly brined, jarred and served by the city’s star chefs—are the hottest grandmotherly food since cookies and milk. Here, the best of the puckery pack
Full Throttle: Chris Nuttall-Smith takes on Parts and Labour
The Parkdale it spot is a raucous hybrid of fine dining and indie cheek. It’s loud, stylish and double-dares you to eat fried pig face
(Image: Ryan Szulc)
They started jacking the stereo around 8 p.m., just as we were eating the chopped raw lamb with herbed, salted lard. By the time the horse tenderloin arrived, it felt as if a maniacal toddler had been handed control of the dial. Groups of young, aggressively stylish women tottered in, past the velvet rope, past the bouncer with the neck tattoo and under the decorative, gold-leafed satellite dish that its designer (one of the restaurant’s owners) described as a “Hegelian dialectic between high and low.” The music, thumping from the five JBL speakers arrayed above the bar, kept rising, as if in salutation. We had to press our ribs into the edge of our long, too-wide communal table and shout to hear each other when we bothered trying to talk at all. Read the rest of this entry »
Just Opened: Parts and Labour, Parkdale’s new bar-club-restaurant-art gallery-wine bar
Bring on the bream: Parts and Labour's tables await dinner and diners
For many residents of Parkdale, the opening of Parts and Labour at the Roncy end of Queen West means one of two things: here’s a new restaurant, or here’s a new nightclub masquerading as a restaurant. Anyone who attended last week’s official opening could be forgiven for suspecting the latter, as throngs of people crowded the P&L bar—and they weren’t ordering food.
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Best gourmet ingredients
We asked five creative chefs for the one ingredient that will instantly give home-cooked meals that intangible gourmet flourish
Fresh kaffir lime leaves from T&T Supermarket (Photo by Daniel Shipp)
A peek inside Parts and Labour, a new Parkdale restaurant that unites owners of The Social, Oddfellows and Castor Design
Parts and Labour: under construction (Image: Karon Liu)
First Cowbell, then Local Kitchen, and now this.
With the arrival of Parts and Labour, a hardware store transformed into a restaurant, the tail end of Queen West takes another step from weekend antiquing destination to social hub. Parkdale locals are excited about the new spot, and with good reason: it represents a new partnership between the owners of The Social, Castor Design and Oddfellows.
During a tour with Richard Lambert, one of the owners, we’re told that Parts and Labour is designed for “Social graduates who want to be more mature and don’t go out to clubs as much anymore.” He adds with a laugh, “We also have a no-electronic-music policy.”
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Tim Hortons takes Manhattan, critic vs. restaurateur, eels on the decline
Tim’s Square: Tim Hortons is pressing ahead with its Manhattan location
• After Tim Hortons closed 11 underperforming stores in the U.S., we were skeptical about the company’s plan to open a location in Times Square. The company’s chief of operations is more upbeat, however, claiming that if people try Timmie’s coffee three times they’ll be hooked for life. [National Post]
• A lacklustre review on the New York Journal blog sparked furious comments from chef Joe Dobias, who also banned Eater.com from his restaurant after it gleefully reported on the kerfuffle. New York magazine interviews the slighted chef, who likens food critics to a high school clique (while whining about how long it takes to get reviewed). [New York]
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Elementary students declare The Drake best restaurant on Queen West
A Parkdale Puma, Femisha, presents an award onstage at The Gladstone (Photo by Davida Aronovitch)
The intrepid Parkdale Pumas—public schoolers turned restaurant critics for the performance art project Eat the Street—have delivered their final verdict on 12 of Queen Street’s trendiest spots. The two-month dinner series was curated by Mammalian Diving Reflex and culminated at the awards ceremony at The Gladstone on Monday. Honours were given out in such amusingly guileless (if unorthodox) categories as “nicest waitress on Queen Street West,” “best-smelling washroom” and “best magnetic letters.”
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Kid critics are on to something at Oddfellows
Pumas vs. Oddfellows: Eat the Street munches down Queen West (Photo by Davida Aronovitch)
Saturday night at Oddfellows looked like a feast scene out of My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Kids from the nearby Parkdale Public School—Pumas, as they’re known—invaded the über-hip restaurant as part of the ongoing performance art–dinner series called Eat the Street. There was more root beer than red wine, the decibel level was in the stratosphere, and there was a refreshing dearth of inhibition. The kid critics are rating Queen West’s hottest restaurants as part of a project by the art group Mammalian Diving Reflex (they’ve already hit The Drake and Czehoski, among others), which has given the teen squad notepads and one simple instruction: show no mercy. Read the rest of this entry »
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