Hoping to squeeze into Canoe this Winterlicious? You’re out of luck (Image: Jen Chan from the Torontolife.com Flickr pool)
With the end of Winterlicious in sight, we got curious about how this year’s prix fixe madness was going. “Stronger than last year,” said Pangaea owner Peter Geary, who credits social networking with driving last-minute reservations throughout the festival. “Even last night, you could see people taking photographs of their meals and tweeting,” he told us (apparently phones at the dinner table are no longer a faux pas). The folks over at Canoe also noticed the impact of word of mouth, saying, “As soon as we change our voice message to say we have some availability, the phones go crazy.” While quick-fingered foodies have snapped up all of Canoe’s remaining tables, there’s still hope—the people at Scarpetta, Biff’s and Jump all advised diners to call last-minute, since no-shows are still very much a Winterlicious tradition. We also talked to the 10 restaurants whose menus got the most hits from our list of the 61 best bets to find out whether and when tables are still available.
From a customer’s perspective, 
This past Sunday marked the 20th anniversary of Toronto Taste, the annual event that unites Toronto’s food lovers and food makers for a day of innovative cooking, tasking and fundraising for Second Harvest. 60 of Toronto’s top chefs—including Jason Bangerter, Donna Dooher, Chris McDonald, Mark McEwan, Anthony Walsh and Anne Yarymowich—doled out top-notch cuisine to an estimated 1,600 guests at the ROM. We caught up with the chefs and asked them what’s in store for them and their restaurants this summer.
Today is the biggest pre-festival day for Winterlicious: reservations are now being taken at the 150 participating restaurants. Tables at the most renowned spots always go quickly, but there is more to this event than 
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