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The comprehensive index of every blog post, magazine story and restaurant review that appears on Torontolife.com
Mr. Cream’s Kensington Avenue storefront, complete with neon signs (Image: Gizelle Lau)
For a neighbourhood with so much pedestrian traffic, especially during Pedestrian Sundays, it was just a matter of time until someone filled the void that was left when Kensington Market Organic Ice Cream departed for Queen West. Mr. Cream, part of a wave of new parlours this summer, opened a few weeks ago, and we stopped by to see what it was all about.
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Manager Kaili Kinnon and owners Alex Sinclair and Andrew Helfrich
“Blansdowne,” to use the oft-deprecating moniker for the strip of Bloor around Lansdowne, may be losing traction with the recent addition of new places to eat. One such business is The Lansdowne Cone, which opened its doors a few weeks ago to an enthusiastic reception from the area’s residents.
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Prairie Girl Bakery owners Andrew Auerbach and Jean Blacklock (Image: Gizelle Lau)
The March issue of our print edition featured a story that profiled five Bay Street escapees who left six-figure jobs to start their own businesses. Last week, another successful escapee got added to the list: Jean Blacklock, owner of Prairie Girl Bakery, a new financial-district cupcake shop.
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Inside Black Moon (Image: Daniel Barna)
With the notable exception of Bay Street’s upscale banker-bait, it’s been hard to imagine Toronto’s financial district ever becoming a destination for more casual fare. But with the recent openings of The Gabardine and Blowfish on Bay, and now Black Moon, a new resto-renaissance seems to be taking hold. “Most people who worked here would leave the neighbourhood as soon as they finished working, but that’s changing,” says owner Abdi Ghotb, also the man behind the Sandwich Box. Since opening last week, the glitzy resto-lounge is already becoming a go-to spot for Bay Street’s in-and-out lunch crowd as well as office castaways looking for a late-night libations.
West Edmonton's Thomas Sabo location (Image: Supplied by Thomas Sabo)
Yorkdale continues its pursuit to become the luxury haven no one asked for. To recap: over the last year, the mall brought in big names like Burberry and Victoria’s Secret, and in January, it announced yet another multimillion-dollar expansion. We thought they might be onto something—that is, until this news reminded us how Yorkdale is the Vegas strip of malls: a Thomas Sabo flagship store is on its way.
The place: Wednesday night’s opening of John Allan’s spa for men took place at The Bay’s flagship on Queen Street (just like so many things seem to these days). Occupying a corner of the third floor, the guys-only spot offers treatments for the shopping-weary fellow. The view doesn’t offer much serenity (it looks out over people who either can’t afford a membership or don’t want one), but we still think an accessible Toronto boys club is worth celebrating. Once The Bay gets its decent restaurant, we’ll never leave.
Photograph of existing Topshop location (Image: supplied by The Bay)
We’ve been wondering for months when Topshop would establish its first Canadian flagship store. Well, last night, our questions were answered, as The Bay’s president and CEO Bonnie Brooks announced that Topshop and Topman will be opening within the year at the department store’s Queen Street flagship, marking a second attempt for the U.K. fast-fashion purveyor to break into the Toronto market.
(Image: Jon Sufrin)
With the recent arrival of such hot spots as The Hideout, Tattoo Rock Parlour and Barchef, the Queen and Bathurst area has seen a boom in late-night hangout options (with the notable exception of the Bip Bop Big Bop’s closure). But a few steps north on Bathurst used to mean immediate entry into a nightlife dead zone. At least, that was before Adrian Ravinsky and David Stewart opened 416 Snack Bar on Monday, bringing with them a cosmopolitan menu of palm-sized grub options.
(Image: Gizelle Lau)
For over a decade, Katherine Rodrigues and Alison Mackenna worked in many of Toronto’s busiest Bay Street restaurants—white-tablecloth affairs where the food sometimes played second fiddle to the atmosphere. So when the two got together with chef and restaurateur Rodney Bowers—of Rosebud, Citizen and Le Petit Castor—the result was bound to put the focus where it belonged. Enter The Gabardine: a cozy yet sophisticated mom-and-pop neighbourhood gastropub smack dab in the middle of Bay Street (true to its location, The Gabardine is closed on weekends).
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For Fadi Hakim, co-owner of the Lakeview Restaurant at Dundas and Ossington, having a joint retail space and eatery is a restaurateur’s dream. He had that arrangement with Queen Street’s erstwhile Citron, and now the fantasy is about to come true on Dundas West. He and his co-owners have purchased the adjacent convenience store, in which they’re installing Lakeview Storehouse and Catering, a grocery–convenience store hybrid set to open by the first week of December.
Brockton General 
1321 Dundas St. W., 647-342-6104
(Image: Lorne Bridgman)
The usual rules of running a restaurant don’t apply at this tiny former sports bar on Dundas West: the only decorative item of note is a decrepit poster of a Portuguese soccer team, the plates are mismatched china (the best of them are decorated with fluffy baby animals), and the daily menu of just three or four small-portioned entrées is written on butcher paper hanging from the wall.
And yet the place, which is run by plucky first-time restaurateurs Brie Read and Pam Thomson, is also one of the most enjoyable openings of this past year, in no small part because of the cooking. Chef Guy Rawlings (the former chef de cuisine at Cowbell) does country food, for lack of a better term, with urban panache: puckery pickled white turnips that show a blush of pink in their middles; beguiling anchovy- and garlic-enriched white bean mash with smoky grilled bread; house-made lamb sausage grilled to medium and topped with charred scallions.
Excellent fresh maltagliati (like pappardelle, but irregularly shaped) is tossed with chopped tomato, roasted hot and sweet peppers, mint and shiso—it’s cucina povera by way of Japan. A crostino Rawlings made this summer, with toasted walnuts, Cape Vessey cheese, tender sultanas, anchovy and walnut purée, and a soft poached egg, was so good it was impossible to stop at just one order.
The chef recently completed a month-long pastry stage at WD50, a cutting-edge restaurant in NYC, and his desserts—including a pear and rosemary tart made with fruit from a friend’s backyard tree and fried brioche with kefir and Rosewood Estates honey—taste like a super-sophisticated fall fair. The cocktails are good (the crabapple and Zubrówka vodka is genius), and the playlist (Coeur de Pirate, Arcade Fire, Carla Bruni) will make you want to run to Soundscapes for a nightcap. Limited wine list. Closed Monday and Tuesday. Mains $13–$19. Read the rest of this entry »
The chef poses in front of his new pizza oven (Images: Karon Liu)
“Would you like to try a pizza?” asks chef Mark McEwan as he stands in front of the wood-burning oven at his newest restaurant, Fabbrica, located in the suburban Shops at Don Mills. “It’ll only take 90 seconds, and we can eat it at the bar.” Never mind that he’s expecting dozens of guests for a preview dinner or that he also has to head downtown in an hour or two to do his second book signing this week; McEwan sits down and shares a salsiccia pizza (lamb sausage, caramelized fennel, mozzarella) with us like it was a lazy Sunday afternoon.
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The season’s most anticipated openings are two seafood-centric spots
Maléna at Av and Dav (Image: Ryan Szulc)
Toronto is a raw bar town. We’re over-served by excellent oyster houses, and we probably consume more sushi per capita than any city east of Vancouver. But cooked fish is a problem here; we’ve never had a standout seafood spot. This spring, Nathan Isberg, of Czehoski and Coca fame, opened what early adopters described as a nose-to-tail disciple’s take on the life aquatic on Dundas West. And in Yorkville, a neighbourhood that’s desperate for a few more decent places to eat, front-of-house kings David Minicucci and Sam Kalogiros launched Maléna, a flashy fish spot. It looked like Toronto might finally turn into a seafood town. Read the rest of this entry »
Toronto the Guu'd: the Church Street izakaya may be expanding (Image: Gabriel Li, from the torontolife.com Flickr pool)
Our appetite for Japanese food spiked today after hearing the rumour, via Chowhound, that Church Street’s Guu Izakaya is planning on opening a second location at Bloor and Spadina in the fall. Since the Vancouver import opened up in Toronto last December, it’s been packed to the rafters (a two-hour wait for a table is not uncommon). A new Annex counterpart would suit Guu’ casual-yet-authentic Japanese offerings, but Vancouver office manager Yoshi Negishi says they haven’t officially decided where they’re going to open a second location. “The first one is pretty good,” Negishi says. “In the future, if it’s possible, we would like to open up a second.”
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