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The comprehensive index of every blog post, magazine story and restaurant review that appears on Torontolife.com
A traditional ’50s diner, reborn
For almost two decades, the Ace Chinese Restaurant on Roncesvalles has been shuttered. This spring, however, Maggie Ruhl (co-owner of the Dakota Tavern) and her partner, Greg Boggs, took possession of the space. The pair renamed it simply The Ace and have preserved the vintage 1950s aesthetic, but updated the menu with homestyle comfort food and French classics.
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Inside Stasis Local Foods, looking out onto Roncesvalles (Image: Caroline Aksich)
Up at the northern tip of Roncesvalles, just south of Dundas, sits the neighbourhood’s newest gourmet food shop, Stasis Local Foods. The store carries a tightly curated selection of local and seasonal gems, but the focus is on the made-in-house jams and preserves prepared by the shop’s young owner, Julian Katz. Katz has cooked his way across the Toronto dining landscape (C5, The Drake, Lucien, Ruby Watchco), but when not preparing $30 mains, he would pickle in-season produce and whip up scrumptious jams. One day, he had a revelation: “I looked around and saw that I had 30 or 40 cases of jam in my house, and I was like, ‘This is ridiculous! I can only give away jam as Christmas gifts for so long!’ ” Katz left his gig with Lynn Crawford in January to brave the city’s farmers’ markets, and then founded his company, Stasis Preserves. After a year of pestering his chef friends for access to their kitchens, Katz decided it was time to get his own.
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The Place: While travelling around Australia and Nepal, Scout shop owner Leah Eyles had an epiphany: she wanted to open up a gift shop on Roncy. On her days off—she used to work at Red Pegasus on College—she’d trek west to seek out the the real estate gems not listed on MLS. This ex-Cashmax needed a serious facelift; Eyles chucked the carpet, raised the drop ceiling, ripped out a wall and filled the space with beautiful antiques that could be repurposed as displays (a number of the pieces were bought at an estate sale around the corner). Right now the walls are fairly sparse, but Eyles is currently considering trying her hand at art dealing. Artists Jacqui Gardner and Craig Hopgood designed Scout’s window display, and the two oversized maps—one of eastern Canada, and the other of western Canada—are marked with little buttons, which denote the Canadian towns where Eyles sources her products.
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ADDRESS: 1 Columbus Avenue, Unit 302
NEIGHBOURHOOD: Roncesvalles
AGENT: Robin Pope, Brad J. Lamb Realty Inc.
PRICE: $1,295,000
THE PLACE: Roncesvalles may be overrun with arty cafes and doggie daycares now, but back in the day it was home to all kinds of industrial endeavors. Built in 1902, this five-storey building was once a factory that churned out baseball gloves and was converted into ten condo lofts 15 years ago by Jackson Goad Architects.
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There’s nothing sacrilegious about this city’s appetite for loft conversions, even when the raw space is a deconsecrated church
By Alex Bozikovic | Photography by Michael Graydon
1| A 1906 building formerly home to the Centennial Japanese United Church
2| A 1941 building, once home to a Slovenian Catholic congregation
3| A 1921 addition to the Riverdale Presbyterian Church
4| A 1911 Methodist church, used by an Italian evangelical congregation since 2003
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Thin-crust lust in Roncey, impeccable seafood in Scarborough and double-digit cocktails on Dundas West
PIZZERIA DEFINA 
321 Roncesvalles Ave., 416-534-4414
The newest pizza parlour on the Roncesvalles strip isn’t world changing, but it’s a welcome addition to a neighbourhood brimming with families looking for quick, crowd-pleasing food. There are plenty of oddities on the menu: pizza salads and even a lasagna pizza (a margherita with ground beef and fior di latte). The baked pies, flash-cooked in a wood-fired brick oven, are tasty, though not Libretto, Queen Margherita or Terroni calibre. The crusts one night were a touch underdone, where they should have been blistered black. The tomato sauce is fine but doesn’t have the zip of a great San Marzano. The caesar salad is phoned in: the lettuce is still damp from washing, the dressing lacks punch, and the croutons are AWOL. Green bean “fritti” are tasty from lots of salt and pepper but floppy from deep-frying. Friendly service and a perfunctory wine list.
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ADDRESS: 1 Macklem Avenue
NEIGHBOURHOOD: Little Portugal
AGENT: Lease from owner (Mariana Grezova)
PRICE: $750 per month
OFFICE SPACE: A small studio on a quiet side street near Dufferin Grove, the office is shared with Collectivity, a communications firm. The open-concept space on the main floor of a three-storey building features exposed brick walls, polished concrete floors and plenty of natural light (all four walls are lined with windows). The current owners plan to inject a little more green in the property by putting in a yard at the side of the building this fall.
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Rakim, the Queen West Art Crawl and Private Lives
1. PRIVATE LIVES
This 1930s comedy by Noël Coward is responsible for about three quarters of romantic comedies today. Just look at the plot: divorced couple Elyot and Amanda and their respective new partners find themselves on vacation at the same hotel on (wait for it) the French Riviera. Campy, banter-laden shenanigans ensue, naturally. Kim Cattrall and Paul Gross star as the lovely ex-couple, which sounds just about perfect. Sept. 16 to Oct. 30. $35–$175. Royal Alexandra Theatre, 260 King St. W., 416-872-1212, mirvish.com.
2. STIFFED! FILM FESTIVAL Read the rest of this entry »
TIFF wraps up this weekend but that won’t stop this indie film fest from trying to steal its thunder just a little. The filmmakers featured at this one-day event have three things in common: they’re all Canadian, they’ve all recently directed a short film and they were all passed over for a screening at TIFF. Sept. 18. $15. The Annex Wreck Room, 794 Bathurst St., stiffedfilmfest.com.
Inside Roksolana Curkowskyj’s new Roncesvalles pizzeria (Image: Karolyne Ellacott)
Pizzeria Defina, the latest spot to open on Roncesvalles, was for a long time home to take-out joint Cosa Pizza. When Roksolana Curkowskyj, a graduate of Ryerson’s fashion design program, purchased the property, she was planning to turn it into a bridal studio. But after exploring the space’s potential (including the giant pizza oven that came with it), Roksolana decided to apply her less-is-more design philosophy to pizzas rather than wedding gowns.
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The street can now return to more idyllic times (Image: Double Feature)
Up until this past weekend, the word “Roncesvalles” had basically been synonymous with “road construction,” or perhaps even “for the love of God, somebody help us.” Luckily for local residents, the seemingly everlasting roadwork came to a formal end on Saturday as the neighbourhood celebrated the closing of two years of construction and the opening of the renewed strip.
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A shot of the bay in Burlington (Image: Brie79)
Standing proof that mismanaged construction projects that drag on for years aren’t just the stuff of the 4-1-6, more than eight years and millions upon millions of dollars later Burlington residents are still waiting for what was supposed to be a landmark waterfront attraction to be complete. The Brant Street pier, an extension of Burlington’s main drag designed to curve outwards more than 130 metres into Lake Ontario, has seen its construction marred with unexpected costs, huge delays and freak accidents, including an incident where—seriously—a crane toppled over back in 2008.
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Attention pastry nerds: you might want to consider cancelling your evening plans, because tonight The Revue on Roncesvalles is showing Kings of Pastry, D. A. Pennebaker’s documentary about Chicago-based pastry chef Jacquy Pfeiffer and the gruelling Meilleur Ouvrier de France (MOF) competition as part of its food-themed series, The Epicure’s Revue. Every four years, 16 of the world’s finest pastry chefs meet in Lyon to duel it out over three intensive days for the right to wear the coveted red-, white- and blue-striped collar, one of the highest honours in French cooking. Chefs work around the clock, perfecting dozens of unique creations before a verdict is handed down by a group of master judges, themselves all MOFs. Think Ace of Cakes meets Top Chef, but a lot more complicated and with a wicked French accent. After the show, some restaurants and food shops from the area will be offering film-appropriate dishes, including Barque’s popular pecan pie, The Local’s Irish truffle and The Chocolateria’s Nanaimo bars and house-made ice cream.
Union Station is set for a $640-million makeover (Image: Ihourahane)
One of the main reasons we like Porter Air and the Toronto Island Airport—aside from, of course, its proximity to downtown—is the passenger lounge. Waiting for takeoff is far more palatable with a free espresso in hand, even when flights are delayed. Apparently, VIA Rail has finally taken note, building a new swanky lounge of its own as part of a larger—and much-needed—overhaul of Union Station.
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The city’s latest southern-inspired restaurants are serving up smoky, tender, chin-dribbling barbecue. Who cares if it’s not authentic? It’s good
(Image: Jess Baumung)
After two long and selfless weeks of debilitating meat sweats and overconsumption-related shortness of breath, a host of minor but nonetheless traumatic flossing injuries and at least three grossly inopportune bouts of smoky, tangy, disconcertingly succulent belching, the one thing I know for certain is that the GTA, once lamented for its lack of good southern-style barbecue restaurants, has plenty of excellent choices now.
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