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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 prosciutto
50 Reasons to Love Toronto: No. 28, Sweetbreads are the new chicken nuggets
The prosciutto-wrapped offal at Buca. (Image: Angus Fergusson)
When nose-to-tail restaurants like Cowbell and the Black Hoof started serving offal a few years back, diners debated the adventurous menus with the giddy trepidation of children about to play a game of truth or dare (“I’ll get the tongue sandwich, if you go for the pig’s tail”). Since then, entrails, organs, faces and feet have become requisite on the city’s best menus, emboldening our tastes and turning out a new breed of grown-up diner. Without a moment of misgiving, we’ll order prosciutto-wrapped lamb’s brain at Buca, slurp marrow out of a calf’s shank at Fabbrica, dip fritters in tripe ragù at Enoteca Sociale and top our crostini with tongue-to-tail duck rillette at Canoe. Our appetite has even surpassed the need for exotic-sounding names to mask the offal truth—the more brazen the dish, the better, like Parts and Labour’s pig platter, which brings sweetbreads, belly, foie gras and ear in trotter sauce. Yes, in 2011, there’s no half-assing our commitment to the flesh.
Introducing: Obikà, Brookfield Place’s long-awaited mozzarella bar
(Image: Laura Cameron)
If Toronto’s growing number of fromageries, pizza joints and restaurant cheese caves is any indication, the residents of this city love their cheese. It’s fitting, then, that Obikà Mozzarella Bar made its Canadian debut in downtown Toronto. After meeting with strong reviews in Rome, L.A. Tokyo and New York, Obikà opened this week at Brookfield Place in the heart of the Financial District. The sushi bar–inspired concept centres on one key ingredient: mozzarella di bufala from the Campagna region of Italy.
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Introducing: Bar Salumi, an aperitif bar by the owners of Local Kitchen
The interior of Bar Salumi. Volano meat slicer located near bottom left (Images: Jon Sufrin)
Inside Queen West’s new Bar Salumi—under hanging Berkshire prosciutto, garlands of hot peppers and a wild boar’s head—sits the Ferrari of all meat slicers: a Volano. In the hands of the right operator, the apparatus is supposed to make a perfect slice every time. Michael Sangregorio and Fabio Bondi, Bar Salumi’s owners, are hoping to become such operators. “It’s the most expensive thing in the entire bar,” says Sangregorio, who likens it to a Swiss watch. Bondi admits they’re trying to figure out how to use it to its full potential.
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A photographic tour of one of Toronto’s best brunch menus
A mere six months after opening, the brunch at the Hoof Café has become the city’s most coveted (witness the lineups snaking out the door). Co-owner Grant van Gameren and chef Geoff Hopgood combine the Hoof’s snout-to-tail philosophy with breakfast standards, creating a menu that is both playful and indulgent. Beautiful and inventive cocktails by co-owner and house mixologist Jen Agg round out meals that are satisfying to the eye as they are to the palate.
Here, our side show tour of the west end’s hottest brunch menu »
Where to eat lunch this week: Hemispheres
The restaurant at this downtown hotel goes all out for its weekly $27 prix fixe
Steak, poutine and slaw at Hemispheres
The place: The Metropolitan Hotel’s lobby-level restaurant offers classic hotel glitz and glamour. Surrounded by beech wall panels and large murals, diners may peer into the open kitchen for some culinary theatre or meditate on the white orchids that decorate every table.
The crowd: The kitchen acts quickly to cater to the strict schedules of busy lawyers, judges and city hall officials, including one ex–mayoral candidate. We’re told that plates generally take no longer than 15 minutes to arrive at tables, “unless it’s chicken.”
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Where to eat lunch this week: Pizzeria Libretto
In the evening, diners will wait for hours to eat at this Ossington pizza shop. At lunch, however, the food is just as spectacular but comes cheaper and faster
The place: Though the narrow front space opens into a surprisingly large wood-clad interior, lineups to (and out) the door are guaranteed most evenings. At lunch, however, Toronto’s oft-hyped “only certified Vera Pizza Napoletana” comes without the sound and fury.
The crowd: Full but not overflowing, Libretto is populated by young foodies on midday dates, family birthdays and wine-and-dining Bay Streeters hoping their clients think food acumen implies business savvy.
The deal: The daily prix fixe lunch ($15) is composed of three courses. On this weekday afternoon, options include beet caprese, folded pizza (“piadora”) and a vanilla affogato. We round the meal off with the day’s blood orange Campari aperitif.
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Where to eat lunch this week: Negroni
This Little Italy sandwich shop sets a new standard for Toronto panino makers
Five 2010 trends to watch: we ask Jamie Kennedy, Anthony Walsh, David Lee and other chefs what to look for in the coming year
Bespoke bread from Marc Thuet (Photo by Renée Suen)
It’s no secret that 2009 was rough for restaurants—“It’s a year a lot of restaurateurs are happy to see go,” says C5’s Ted Corrado—but with the new year almost a month old, optimism is back on the table. We talked to some of the city’s top chefs about five culinary trends for the coming year.
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Small, chef-run restaurants that are down-to-earth in both atmosphere and culinary style. Chef Jamie Kennedy, who’s focusing on the Gilead Bistro, a decidedly more casual restaurant than the Wine Bar he sold last fall, anticipates more “chef-driven” spots like J.P. Challet’s Ici Bistro and Grant van Gameren’s Black Hoof. Claudio Aprile, who’s working on his second restaurant, Origin, agrees: “I’m hoping that we see a lot more restaurants that are open kitchen, 30 seats, three line cooks.”
Just opened: Buca
Rob Gentile hangs with his meats (Photo by Karon Liu)
The brains behind Brassaii, Jacobs and Co. and soon-to-be-opened The Saint are adding yet another restaurant to their empire, this one tucked away in the alley beside Cheval on the ritzy King Street strip. The week-old Buca is serving Italian fare by executive chef Rob Gentile, a former sous-chef at One, Bymark and North 44°.
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Graydon Carter’s terrifying lunch, fruit fly infestation, DIY pizza ovens
Cure all: the story of Niagara prosciutto maker Mario Pingue appears in the Star (Photo by stu_spivack)
• Every Ontario gourmand who knows prosciutto from pancetta has heard of Niagara meat maestro Mario Pingue. Now the Star tells his whole story, from his cash-strapped early days to his meat’s near-omnipresence at Toronto restaurants. [Toronto Star]
• Home chefs shamed by clouds of flying insects in their kitchens will be relieved to know they’re not alone. Fruit flies have descended on Toronto this summer, and pest-control experts are blaming the garbage strike. Since city workers are being blamed for everything, can we pin the rainy summer on them, too? [Globe and Mail]
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Obamamania on the Danforth, Ontario’s teen super-chef, Maple Leaf’s $27-million payout
A whole new way to do proscutto (Photo by sniffette)
• We predicted Obamamania spawning “yes we can” ad campaigns and a surge in sales of political T-shirts, but we didn’t foresee it giving the restaurant industry a boost. The Obama Café is set to open its doors at Greenwood and Danforth this week. [National Post]
• It hurt at the time, but Torontonians can now consider themselves lucky to have lost Virgin Atlantic’s direct flight to London. The inflight meals are unpalatable, at least according to one passenger’s hilariously detailed letter of complaint to Richard Branson. [The Telegraph]
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