Carman's Dining Club, 1959-2009 (Photo courtesy of Google)

Arthur Carman’s storied and troubled steak house on Alexander Street went into hibernation this summer, never to wake up. This makes the restaurant—credited with introducing Toronto to garlic bread—the latest Village establishment to disappear in recent months (the list also includes Crews and Tango, Bigliardi’s, Il Fornello and Zelda’s).

When we called the restaurant this week, we were greeted with this voice mail message:

This year, Carman celebrated his 50th anniversary in the one and same location. He has decided he will not be reopening after 50 years and thought it was time to say goodbye and to say thank you this fantastically beautiful country of Canada. What he accomplished here he could not have accomplished in the country of his birth at that time. Thank you to the countless number of people who made this possible. Peace begins at home, Carman.

It is a truly sad day those loyal to the landmark restaurant. Toronto Life food writer James Chatto documents eating at the 19th-century mansion in his 2000 memoir The Man Who Ate Toronto, which includes a brief bio of Carman (born Athanasios Karamanos), who immigrated from Greece in the ’50s. Although Chatto describes the restaurant as one of the best in Toronto, recent on-line reviews suggest that the sizzle had gone from the steak house: “Sad to see this formerly packed spot deteriorate so dramatically,” wrote a Chowhounder in 2008. “Once the notoriously garlicky purveyor of hospitality, now it is insipid, unsophisticated and expensive.”

The celebrity clientele once featured on the restaurant’s menu and Web site (no longer functional) included Al Green, Nat King Cole, Lorne Greene and Sammy Davis Jr., a sign that this was a boys’ club hangout for the real Don Drapers, not his modern-day fans. (Sara Waxman once wrote about being the only woman in the place.) The decor, as most people described it, was dark, medieval and, as another amateur reviewer writes, “something out of a vampire movie.”

In the end, 50 years is many lifetimes in the restaurant industry—especially in Toronto. We hope that Carman’s will be remembered as the joyful, high-end steak house with the perpetual aroma of garlic, rather than the relic that was left behind during its neighbourhood’s gentrification.

Putting up the Ritz: the new hotel and residence building is going up on Wellington Street (Photo courtesy of Ritz-Carlton.com)

We’ve been giddily watching the new Ritz-Carlton climb into the sky over downtown (with that lion-printed cover wrapped around it like a five-star Snuggie, it’s hard to miss), but last week we had the chance to experience what the thing would be like on the inside. The unveiling of the Munge-Leung-designed model suite showed off how the hotel and its 15 floors of luxe residences will look when they open next summer at Wellington and Simcoe Streets. The event was swarming with notable locals, including Teatro Verde’s Shawn Gibson, foodie Sara Waxman and out-and-abouter Catherine Nugent. Strategically positioned violinists (sadly not included in room service—we asked) strung us along the immaculately staged rooms while maître cuisinier Xavier Salomon (of the Half Moon Bay Ritz-Carlton) gave us a taste of the gastronomic future of the hotel.

Check out the photo gallery, after the jump.

Chef Salomon’s meaty seared scallops took a touch of earthiness from pea purée and chanterelle emulsion. Shots of pumpkin soup with cardamom cream hit the spot—and the season—while foie gras lollipops with gingerbread crumbs were adorably decadent. While scallop-searing, the super-chef gabbed with us about Toronto. “It’s a city that’s full of life and very European, though I’ve never seen it in the winter.”  We pressed, but he couldn’t tell us who will be manning the stoves at Toronto’s Ritz.  “I tried to find out who the chef will be, but no one will tell me! It’s a secret!”

What is known is that the luxury tower will have three eating and drinking spots. On the mezzanine level, the culinary mainstage: a 120-seat open-design restaurant complete with a cheese case and a 720-bottle wine cellar. The concept is a grab-bag of buzzy menu nomenclature—Canadian, local, organic and sustainable—and appears to be less rigid and stuffy than other luxury hotel restaurants (“Truffles was an example of what not to do,” said general manager Tim Terceira). Instead, the Ritz will indulge a more casual craving, with bistro-style dishes and prices for mains in the $24 to $28 range. The hotel is still tiptoeing around the name for this restaurant, as well as its other dining rooms: a lobby-level raw bar and a lounge with light bites.

After our snack, designer Alessandro Munge gave us a private tour of the luxurious digs. His favourite piece was an eye-catching Jeff Goodman chandelier in the great hall, but we were drawn to the Carrie Bradshaw–worthy walk-in closet. Munge showed us the bedroom (a softer space with calming, unfussy lines) and the spa-inspired bathroom (though it’s no competition for the hotel’s 23,000-square-foot “urban sanctuary”). Said Munge of the bidet-flanked toilet encased in frosted glass: “How many times do you get a shitter that looks like that?” Not very many, we say, noting that the loo also abuts a not-so-frosted glass shower.  “Nobody wants to see someone on the shitter, but everybody wants to see someone naked in the shower.”

A design tip to live by.