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Chris Nuttall-Smith on the craft-brewing movement that’s taking over Toronto

Bar Volo is the spiritual home to many of Ontario’s best beer makers (Image: Igor Yu)

In a dingy former office at the back of Great Lakes Brewery in Etobicoke, nine waist-high, 50-litre fermenters gently burble with what might be some of the most interesting beers ever brewed in Ontario, spitting out carbon dioxide and foam through clear plastic tubes as the yeast in the liquid does its work. There’s a ginger-goosed Belgian saison in the canister marked Ginga Ninja, while the sweet, fragrant, whitish brew in the one called Bag ’O Mango is feeding on a couple of kilograms of chopped fresh fruit. Mike Lackey, Great Lakes’ ball-capped and goateed experimental brewer, has also got a couple of wheat beers going (one of which is marked Miami Weiss), plus four hop-addled, bitter-edged, high-alcohol India Pale Ales (including RoboHop, My Bitter Wife and The Etobichoker) and a cloudy, oaky, slightly cheesy and intensely sour beer—one of the first of its kind in Canada—that’s made with lactobacillus yogurt bacteria and a finicky wild yeast called brettanomyces. (That one is named Heavy Bretting.)

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The Dish

From the Print Edition

July 5, 2011 | 9:01 am

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David Lawrason offers nine reasons why garnacha makes for great barbecue wine

(Illustration: Jack Dylan)

Backyard sommeliers bored with the usual summer reds (merlot, shiraz, zinfandel) should try fruity garnacha. It is more commonly known by its French name, grenache, but it originated in Spain and thrives in the hot, arid Mediterranean. Despite once being the world’s most widely planted red grape, it was usually considered unfit for fine wine on its own. Its tannin and acidity are low and its alcohol quite high, so it’s most often blended with syrah, mourvèdre and carignan, or torn out of the ground altogether to make way for merlot and cabernet vines. In recent years, however, such leading winemakers as Alvaro Palacios, Hugh Ryman and Norrel Robertson are reviving derelict garnacha vineyards in Spain. The old, gnarled, low-yielding vines make richly fruity, even creamy reds that are dense enough to match red meat textures, smooth enough to drink without aging, and ripe and peppery enough to handle any barbecue sauce yet invented. If you crave something light, garnacha is the base for dry Spanish and French rosés, and there is even a handful of whites made with garnacha blanca. It’s also affordable, so you can mix a case of different styles to keep your deck and dock guests happy all summer long.

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The Dish

Aprons & Icons

May 26, 2011 | 4:35 pm

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Q&A with Hemant Bhagwani: the Amaya co-owner on building his Indian restaurant empire

Although the recession is officially over, its effects—shuttered doors and restaurants offering humbler, more comfort-driven cuisine—can still be seen on Toronto’s culinary landscape. So we were a bit surprised when we heard the news that the Amaya Group is set to open yet another outpost next month, this time on Ossington. With even further expansion ahead, we asked Amaya co-owner Hemant Bhagwani about the secrets to his success and the future of the empire.

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The Dish

From the Print Edition

April 20, 2011 | 9:11 am

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The sipper club: meet the city’s competitive cabal of top sommeliers

Will Predhomme belongs to a competitive cabal of top sommeliers who sniff, sip and spit their way through hundreds of bottles a week. They do this to help you decide what to drink with your dinner, while making you think it was your idea all along
By Jason McBride | Photography by Sandy Nicholson

One hundred and fifty-one people have reservations at Canoe tonight. Among these are many Bay Streeters, a couple celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary, dozens of people on dates, including the bar manager from Crush, and a young woman who plans to propose to her boyfriend over dinner. The two private dining rooms are fully booked.

Canoe, part of the ever-expanding Oliver and Bonacini empire, is routinely considered one of the finest restaurants in the city. Last summer, in a rigorous competition held by the Canadian Association of Professional Sommeliers, known as CAPS, Canoe’s head sommelier, Will Predhomme, was proclaimed Ontario’s best. Predhomme has devoted a third of his life—he’s 29—to wine scholarship. He now knows more about wine than almost anyone in Toronto.

Just after 5 p.m., the bar area begins to fill up with commuters sipping cocktails as they wait for the traffic on the clogged Gardiner, 54 floors below, to dissipate. One of the restaurant’s first guests, a retired trial lawyer, arrives. As a young female host escorts him to his large corner table, he puts an arm around her shoulder. “I don’t like to pay bills,” he says. “I want a fucking account. Last time I was here, I offered those ladies”—referring to the hosts who greeted him at his last visit—“$300 and told them to set up an account for me. And I still don’t have one.” He and his three dining companions, Canoe regulars, have brought in several bottles of their own wine, including a cabernet franc from the ex-lawyer’s private vineyard in Tuscany. When Predhomme arrives at the table to discuss the wine, the ex-lawyer, captivatingly bratty in a way that only the rich and sort-of-powerful can be, repeats his complaint. “Look, I spend about $50,000 a year at Bymark, and I’d do the same here if I had a fucking account.” Predhomme is unmoved, but gracious. “If you give me your contact information,” he says, “I’ll make sure that it gets to the right people.”

“You’ll get me an account?”

“I’ll look into it.”

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The Dish

Bottoms Up

January 5, 2011 | 4:44 pm

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New wine bottle eliminates need for decanting; lovers of fancy glassware unhappy

Old wine in new bottles

Many wine lovers see the act of decanting a bottle as part of a beautiful age-old ritual and an art form (yes, there’s even a coffee table book about it). But a Spanish Michelin three-star chef has developed a new kind of wine bottle that he claims will revolutionize the world of wine by rendering decanting unnecessary. Red wines often form gritty sediment as part of the aging process, and carefully pouring the wine into a decanter keeps that sediment out of your glass. Martín Berasategui’s new invention traps the unwanted grit before it leaves the bottle.

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The Dish

From the Print Edition

December 6, 2010 | 9:39 am

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Of Great Import: The best wines from British Columbia

Finally, more of British Columbia’s premium bottles are available in Ontario. Here, the best of the west By David Lawrason

(Image: Jack Dylan)

It’s boom time in B.C. There are now nearly 200 wineries, and the quality just keeps getting better. In fact, with the recent influx of showcase wineries and new restaurants, the Okanagan Valley is being called Napa North. Winemakers have perfected techniques to harness the arid valley’s impossibly short but scorching growing season. The sheer diversity of wine is stunning: floral aromatic rieslings and gewürztraminers from cooler sites north of Kelowna; sophisticated pinot gris, chardonnays and pinot noirs from the Naramata Bench; and powerful cabernets and syrahs from the hot south near Oliver and Osoyoos. Until recently, however, it’s been hard to taste the western renaissance in Ontario. Supply is limited (B.C.’s output is two-thirds of Ontario’s), and the wine is still treated as an import here due to archaic interprovincial alcohol regulations. (For starters, it’s illegal for wineries to take orders from Ontario and ship directly to their customers.) Thankfully, more good B.C. wine is now trickling into Vintages stores and wine agencies. The selection below includes some of the best cutting-edge wines now available.

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The Hype

To-Do List

November 10, 2010 | 11:38 am

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The Weekender: Equus, Voice-Box, Robyn and more on our to-do list

Editor’s note: Robyn’s concert has been cancelled due to an illness.

1. BRUCE MAU: 25 YEARS OF BIG THINKING (FREE!)
An international design star, Toronto’s Bruce Mau has a roster of clients that looks like a who’s who of pop culture; he’s worked with Frank Gehry, MTV, MoMA and Coca-Cola. The Design Exchange’s Mau retrospective, which closes this weekend, looks at his corporate work, architecture and books. To Nov. 14. Design Exchange, 234 Bay St., 416-363-6121, dx.org.

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The Dish

Bottoms Up

July 14, 2010 | 9:44 am

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Should sommeliers sip wine before serving it? A debate is rekindled

Sip or sniff? Should sommeliers be pre-tasting wine? (Image: Eduardo Pavon)

Once upon a time, sommeliers would graciously pre-taste the wine of kings and queens in order to foil potential poisoning attempts. That tradition has stuck around over the centuries, morphing into something less dramatic: in some restaurants, the sommelier will take a small sip from a bottle before serving it to a customer—usually without the customer knowing—in order to ensure the wine isn’t flawed. It’s a practice that Eric Asimov of the New York Times is seeing more and more often—and it’s coming with more and more controversy.

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The Dish

From the Print Edition

April 8, 2010 | 4:00 am

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Best New Restaurants 2010

This time last year, the future looked awfully grim. We braced for restaurant closures and recessionary menus, but 2009 was surprising. Though we lost some good places (Perigee, Truffles, Alice’s and Gamelle, in particular), and mac-and-cheese quickly wore out its welcome, it was an exciting time to dine out. Anxious restaurateurs dropped corkage fees and slashed wine markups, while chefs cooked up imaginative prix fixe menus. It suited our mood as well as our wallets: these days, Torontonians want informality. We’re still hungry for local produce and nose-to-tail dining, chefs are once again finding inspiration in Italy and Japan, and the city is finally beginning to develop a serious cocktail culture. Most encouraging of all is the number of new restaurants opening. Here, the best of the vintage.

By James Chatto, Photographs by Brendan Meadows and Ryan Szulc, Illustrations by Jack Dylan

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The Dish

Restauran-TO

January 28, 2010 | 11:45 am

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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.

1. Less Is More
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.”

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The Dish

Bottoms Up

October 20, 2009 | 12:17 pm

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Myth-busting study reveals that western wine can actually taste good with Chinese food

Cast pearls before wine: how to pair up when it comes to Chinese cuisine (Photo by Simon Law)

Drinking wine with Chinese food has always been a bit like wearing Kanye West shutter shades: more about fashion than function, yet still somehow missing the mark. That’s all about to change, though, thanks to a new study put together by Toronto wine expert Tony Aspler and New York master sommelier Roger Dagorn. The pair methodically paired up Cantonese dishes with western vino and delivered a thorough and objective (there was no sponsorship from wine producers) pairing guide that offers more than a few surprises.

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The Dish

Rumours & Rumblings

September 21, 2009 | 3:18 pm

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Closing in on the sale of the Jamie Kennedy Wine Bar

Bar none: Jamie Kennedy's sale of his Wine Bar appears to be near completion (Photo by Kate Allen)

The much-anticipated sale of the Jamie Kennedy Wine Bar, which has been in the works for several weeks, is slated to close mid-October. Two foodie power couples are poised to take over the hot spot, which is not expected to retain Jamie Kennedy’s name. Former Joy Bistro owners Ted Koutsogiannopoulos and his wife, Mary, have teamed up with newlyweds Scott Vivian and Rachelle Caldwell (former executive chef and pastry chef of Jamie Kennedy at the Gardiner, respectively) to breathe new life into the downtown classic.

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Wine

April 17, 2008 | 4:57 pm

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Nova Scotia’s New Eden

Nova Scotia might soon be a remarkable source of high-quality, expensive sparkling wine—the Champagne of North America.

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Wine

June 27, 2007 | 10:00 am

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1,000 Wines of the Week

I’ve tasted so many wines this past week that I can’t pick one to feature. Furthermore I don’t have tasting notes (yet) on any single one of them, because I don’t know exactly which wines I tasted.

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Wine

May 29, 2007 | 3:13 pm

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Top Tuscans

Wine of the WeekGualdo del Ray 2003 Frederico Primo ($41.95, 92 points, www.vinvino.ca, 416-636-3534), Val di Cornia Suvereto IGT, TuscanyMade by rising star oenologist Barbara Tamburini (see below), this 100% cabernet sauvignon comes from Tuscany’s coast, home to legendary bordeaux-styled wines like Sassicaia and Ornellaia. It is as fine, rich and delicious as many high end Napa cabernets and modern Bordeaux, with very deep colour, lifted clove, cedar and mocha from new French oak, and ripe, almost floral, blackberry. Full bodied, plush yet still elegant with fine tannin and some Tuscan minerality on the finish. Excellent length.

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