Remember last year when Chris Cosentino, one of the pioneers of the offal revival, visited Toronto for undisclosed reasons and claimed he could smell Chinatown from three blocks away? Or when Richard Blais, the molecularly inclined winner of Top Chef All-Stars, tweeted about the interesting tasting menu he’d just lunched on in Toronto? Or when Italian food legend Lidia Bastianich dropped in at All the Best Fine Foods? Turns out they weren’t here just because they love us—they’re all guest judges on season two of Top Chef Canada. Other notable judges and tasters include—and let us be clear, this is a bit of a spoiler for those who really like to keep their Top Chef Canada viewing pure—east-coast chef Michael Smith, season one host Thea Andrews (no hard feelings, we guess!), chef-about-town Matty Matheson of Parts and Labour, Leafs assistant captain Colby Armstrong, Susur Lee and his soon-to-be restaurateur sons Kai and Jet Bent-Lee, Toca’s Tom Brodi, Roger Mooking, Top Chef Masters winner Marcus Samuelson, last season’s winner Dale MacKay and his adorable son Ayden, Keisha Chante, Rick the Temp Campanelli, Lorenzo Loseto of George, Charlie’s Burgers mastermind Franco Stalteri, husband-and-wife dynamos Marc Thuet and Biana Zorich, Odd Bits author Jennifer McLagan, Vancouver Indian restaurateur and chef Vikram Vij and assorted competitors from last season, not to mention the somewhat bizarro guests we already told you about, like Alan Thicke and Mike Holmes. (Whew!) Not bad.

Lee at his last opening, Lee Lounge (Image: Renée Suen)

The comings and goings at 777 Dundas Street West sure have been attracting a lot of attention of late. The one-time home of Le Corner has now been scooped up by none other than Susur Lee. This time, however, there’s a catch: according to Now magazine it’s Lee’s sons, Levi and Kai Bent-Lee, who will be the faces of the joint, with their celebu-dad popping in and out of the kitchen.

While there has already been much speculation, we spoke to Lee’s better half, Brenda Bent (of Restaurant Makeover fame), while checking out Hrvati Bar, which she designed. Bent told us the place aims to have a more youthful slant than some of Lee’s other places, and that the boys hope to open before Christmas, though nothing is certain in the restaurant business. Whatever comes of the still-unnamed spot, it’s already in good company on the foodie strip, which includes the likes of the Black Hoof and its cocktail bar, Porchetta and Co., Campagnolo and most recently, L’Ouvrier.

• Susur does Dundas [Now]
• Susur and sons headed to Dundas West [BlogTO]
• Susur Lee to open new restaurant with sons on Dundas Street in Toronto [National Post]

Every food festival worth its weight in foie gras has its dissenters, and this year’s Summerlicious is no exception. While the citywide summer food-fest can be a great way to promote a restaurant (check out our top 63 picks here), the stingy tippers and city-mandated restrictions can be a major-league deterrent for others. And so notable chefs, including Susur Lee, are exercising their inner rebel by offering an (unofficial) alternative to the prix fixe madness taking over the city. After the jump, a roundup of prix fixe and alternative summer menus we’ve unearthed:

• Pizzeria Libretto is offering two prix fixe options: a $15 three-course lunch, including a salad, pizza and gelato, and a $25 four-course dinner, with antipasti, a primo, a pizza and a choice of dessert. The dinner menu is available until the end of July, and the lunch will continue indefinitely.

• The dressed-up Elm Street Italian restaurant Oro has a special $60 summer prix fixe menu at dinnertime with four courses: one of three appetizers, a strozzapreti puttanesca, a mackerel or beef tenderloin main and a basil panna cotta.

• The popular Mount Pleasant Indian restaurant Debu’s launched its Summer Debulicious menu last week, and will continue offering it until July 24. The $15 lunch menu and the $25 dinner menu consist of a choice of appetizers, mains and desserts, and both include pilaf rice and naan.

• Susur Lee will be reviving his Susurlicious à la carte menu this year at Lee until July 24. Highlights include smoky gazpacho ($10), watermelon salad ($15), Asian-style confit chicken with chestnuts and shiitake mushroom ($22), clack pepper–crusted tuna sashimi ($24) and braised beef ravioli with Hong Kong–style XO sauce ($24).

• Finally, for diners looking to splurge while everyone else is scrimping, Splendido is offering a special $99 five-course dinner: chilled English pea soup; English pea, fava bean and green asparagus fricassee; smoked chicken thigh with spinach ricotta and pea agnolotti; roast pork belly and soft-shell crab with English peas, carrots and baby romaine; and strawberry crème mousseline with Grand Marnier and orange meringue.

DOWNTOWN NORTH | DOWNTOWN SOUTH | EAST | WEST | UPTOWN

Got restaurant news, tips or rumours? Send them to thedish@torontolife.com.

In the space four years you’ve opened Amaya, Amaya Bread Bar and six Amaya Express locations. Just how big would you like to get?

I never planned it in such a way when we first opened the restaurant, but slowly, with time, the goal and ambition have grown. My goal is to have a hundred [restaurants], with an Amaya Express in every neighbourhood in Toronto. We’ll start in the core because our brand is recognized in Toronto (we’ve got sauces and other items in Longos, Metro and Loblaw’s). We’ll slowly move into other areas in the GTA and Ontario in the next few years. These are all corporate stores, and I’m not trying to franchise so it’s slow and steady.

What is the motivation behind such an ambitious plan?
When I came to the country 10 years ago, there wasn’t much happening. I kept going to Indian restaurants in the city and I felt that we, as Indians, had not presented our food well. Everyone wanted to play it safe. We were all doing buffets or greasy foods. I basically wanted to take it to the next level and bring what I had been eating at home, or even food from other parts of the world—I had four restaurants in Australia.

How is it that other restaurants are struggling to survive coming out of the recession but you are able to expand?
It’s good when you’ve got a good cash flow to keep investing back into the company and make it larger. When the recession hit, I sat down and wrote a business plan about how I would like to see these locations. It was a good time to buy restaurants that were closing and turn them around; landlords were giving three or six months rent-free. I also started streamlining the company, which gave this company a little growth. Once I got these locations going, the banks and landlords started to see that our company was expanding, and I kept getting phone calls to open in bigger malls.

Can you tell us what the new Amayas are going to be like?
Most are Amaya Expresses—quick service restaurants that’ll be in the food courts of almost every mall in the city. We’re also putting in 30 seats and a liquor licence in some locations so that we can do more dine-in business. I don’t know how it’s going to turn out—we’ve got a lot of locations being offered to us right now. The malls are even asking us for a 2,000-square-foot restaurant instead a food court shop.

I have been thinking of a flagship store with Indian street food that’s all sharing plates. Yes, it’s tapas. Yes, it’s passé or whatever, but I’ve been fascinated with what Susur Lee has done at Lee Lounge or Claudio Aprile at Origin. Derek [Valleau, Amaya’s other co-owner] and I have been sommeliers, and I’ve always thought that there’s a scope of Indian food that can be done similar to Terroni’s Bar Centrale, with people coming in to have a samosa or a kebab with wine. I’m thinking of calling it Chutney Bar by Amaya. The location has been tentatively selected, but I’m sorry I can’t say where. It’ll be revealed before the end of the year.

Given the impending growth of Amaya Group, how will you ensure consistency?
The quality and service have always been there, but we’ve now set up a small call centre in Toronto that’s taking all the calls for all the restaurants and reservations. It was something we felt was needed when we decided it was time to streamline. It’s eight restaurants now—what happens when it’s 15? Or when we open up Ossington? It was natural to get this and our reservation system going.

Any fears of over-saturating the market?
No, I don’t think so. Amaya Indian Room is pretty unique—it’s got a good wine list, it’s a nice place to go. The fine dining will stand on its own legs. The express locations have been very popular for people who can’t come to the restaurant. So I don’t think there’s any crossover. I also realized that there’s a scope to putting an Amaya Express every three to four kilometres. When we opened at Yonge and Lawrence, sales at Bayview didn’t drop. We don’t know about the future, but right now it hasn’t affected anything.

The judges get their serious faces on as the losing teams walk out (Image: Food Network Canada/Insight Productions)

TOP CHEF CANADA
Season 1 | Episode 4

First off, a confession: focusing on Top Chef Canada last night, as the ground-shaking results from the election poured in, was a little tough (we bet this episode’s ratings will agree). But fear not, election junkies–cum–Top Chef fans—we stuck it out so you didn’t have to (and then promptly switched to the CBC to find the Tory win had already been projected). Still, episode four—which featured Susur Lee, Toronto’s ethnic cuisines and, yes, more chefs in their underwear (hi, Dale!)—turned out to be pretty entertaining. After the jump, our recap of the Top Chef Canada episode you were too patriotic to watch.

Quickfire

Dusty Gallagher’s quickfire winning beet carpaccio (Image: Food Network Canada/Insight Productions)

The quickfire judge this week was Toronto’s one-time king of Asian fine dining, Susur Lee (whose five restaurants were rhymed off more than once during the show). As Lee strolled onto the set, Grace’s Dustin Gallagher (a.k.a. the Smiley One) admitted to the camera that he was “a little bit floored” to have his former boss judging him (Gallagher cooked at Susur for six years). The challenge? To make a salad inspired by Lee’s famous, 19-ingredient Singapore slaw. At the bottom of the heap were François Gagnon, whose cabbage and enoki mushroom salad was too mayo-heavy; Todd Perrin, who misguidedly mixed raw, julienne veggies with chunks of dried fish; and Mercato’s Rob Rossi, whom Lee ranked last for a poorly executed and unfocused endive salad.

Lee named his former line cook (whom he adorably calls “Dusty”) the winner for a beautiful beet carpaccio with wasabi mustard, pickled onions and shaved apples (we spied something similar on Grace’s menu last week). He also praised Andrea Nicholson of Great Cooks on Eight for her 18-ingredient slaw with a tea-lemon vinaigrette.

Elimination

This week’s elimination challenge was the multi-culti spectacular we knew had to come up sooner or later. Split into teams of two, the chefs were charged with creating a pair of dishes, one hot and one cold, inspired by a given ethnic cuisine. One member of each pair was sent to Loblaws and the other got 15 minutes to shop at an ethnically appropriate grocer in Toronto.

Toronto dream team Rossi and Nicholson took on their Japanese menu with some trepidation (“I’m a white girl from Toronto who hasn’t really travelled much through Japan,” Nicholson confessed). Chris Kanka and Darryl Crumb, meanwhile, tried to figure their way through Korean food (props to Kanka for actually impressing Lee with his bi bim bop). But the toughest challenge was faced by Perrin and Connie DeSousa, who drew Ethiopian cuisine, which they had tasted about once between them. Gallagher and Derek Bocking (who worked in a Mexican restaurant in Dublin) had it comparatively easy with Mexican food. Rounding out the teams, Patrick Wiese and Gagnon tackled Jamaican (with Wiese dropping the occasional patois), while Dale MacKay and Jamie Hertz took on Portuguese, which neither of them knew much about.

Connie DeSousa and Todd Perrin’s winning Ethiopian meal, including reverse-engineered injera (Image: Food Network Canada/Insight Productions)

At the judge’s table, we finally got to see the much-anticipated Lee-McEwan matchup, which turned out fairly amiable (we had speculated about whether the studio could contain two such chef egos). At the top: the Ethiopian team, who successfully reverse-engineered injera—a soft, fermented flatbread—which they served alongside a lamb key wat and lentil salad; and the Portuguese team, who managed to turn out excellent pseudo-Portuguese food (MacKay’s hake with salted cod mousse, smoked paprika and potato confit looked delicious, if a little Spanish). But it was DeSousa and Perrin who took home the win—for their daring execution in the face of an exceedingly difficult challenge.

At the bottom end were Team Japan and Team Mexico. Both Rossi and Nicholson made some rookie errors: Rossi’s hamachi sashimi arrived warm and with the blood line left in, while Nicholson’s soba noodles, seared kobe beef, daikon, turnip and carrots in a light miso broth lacked focus and refinement. Down Mexico way, Gallagher made the mistake of turning avocado into a mousse (garnering a tut-tut from Lee), and Bocking put out beer-braised pork ribs glazed with chocolate barbecue sauce with a spicy corn salsa, which McEwan called straight-up “terrible.”

In the end, Bocking, the competition’s only self-taught chef, was kicked off the show. As he said goodbye to his fellow chefs, he doffed his signature beret to reveal a fantastic head of hockey hair. He’ll be missed.

Now, call us crazy, but it almost seemed as though the judges were able to read the national mood months in advance (when the program was taped). Bocking, from Montreal, was sent packing just like Gilles Duceppe was last night. Rossi and Nicholson, representing arrogant Toronto Liberals, were beaten back to within an inch of their lives. And DeSousa, from Calgary, rode a wave of quiet competence and stability—not to mention some “very ethnic” cuisine—to take home the big win.

Next Week on Top Chef Canada

The chefs have to butcher a whole pig, then make a meal from the ensuing cuts of meat. Given that in episode one she boasted that she butchered all her own meat, we predict another Tory DeSousa majority.

Our weekly Top Chef Canada leader board:

Guest judge Dan Aykroyd flanked by his blues sisters, Thea Andrews and Shereen Arazm (Image: Food Network Canada/Insight Productions)

TOP CHEF CANADA
Season 1 | Episode 3

Was it just us, or was the level of cooking on last night’s episode of Top Chef Canada miles ahead of the safe, bland fare from the first two weeks? Maybe the chefs have gotten over their first time jitters. Or maybe it was the presence of actor, restaurateur, winemaker, illicit vodka purveyor and guest judge Dan Aykroyd that (ghost-)busted them into shape. Whatever it was, the contestants stepped up their game—without sacrificing the all-important smack talk and clowning around in their under things (this time Origin’s Steve Gonzalez did the honours). Here, our recap of the best dishes, trash talk and product placements.

Quickfire

The blind taste test platter (Image: Food Network Canada/Insight Productions)

This week’s quickfire challenge was a Top Chef food nerd classic: the blind taste test, familiar to anyone who took the Pepsi Challenge way back when. Each blindfolded contestant had five minutes to identify the 20 sweet, salty, sour and bitter ingredients head judge Mark McEwan selected. François Gagnon totally choked, and was only able to pick out one item. As punishment, the show’s producers accompanied his comments with the requisite I’m-a-Frenchie accordion music, marking the first of many queasy ethnic stereotype moments. Gonzalez also faltered, but wins our award for the funniest misidentification for calling a piece of eggplant a “dry-ass cucumber.”

Chris Kanka and Dale MacKay both powered through the challenge, picking out sea asparagus, fermented black bean, cacao nib and miso paste with ease. In the end, Kanka won immunity by correctly identifying 13 ingredients. MacKay shrugged off the loss, pointing out that Kanka’s Asian cooking experience gave him an edge—“plus he’s an older guy.” Way to keep it classy, Dale.

Elimination

We totally called this on our last recap: this week’s elimination challenge was structured around Aykroyd’s notorious Crystal Head Vodka, which is sold in bottles shaped like skulls. The chefs were split into two teams, each charged with creating a traditional Russian zakuski meal—a sort of refined tapas featuring staples like pickled onion and kielbasa—which McEwan assured the chefs is traditionally “enjoyed while sipping copious amounts of vodka.” Naturally, the teams were decided by having contestants open up matryoshka dolls to reveal a blue or green coating inside. No, we’re not making this up.

Connie DeSousa’s winning dish (Image: Food Network Canada/Insight Productions)

On the blue team, sparks flew from the get go. The immune-from-elimination Kanka refused to take one for the team by making dessert (countless Top Chef contestants have been sent home for lousy desserts), despite pleading from the increasingly bossy MacKay. The unassuming Todd Perrin, whose sweet Newfie accent seems to get more pronounced with each episode, stepped forward in the end.

Over on the green team, Andrea Nicholson (of Great Cooks on Eight) made the best of what she admitted was the weaker team, by constantly correcting her teammates’ funny ideas about Russian food (“no offence, they don’t eat yogurt”; “Stop thinking about the Czech Republic, they’re two totally different countries”). We also learned at this point that Connie DeSousa was a ballerina for 18 years, which explains her intense focus and petite figure. (In reality TV land, of course, learning the back story means that she is either going to win or go home.)

After 90 minutes of frenzied cooking and kvetching, the chefs repaired to their too-cozy condo (complete with bunk beds) for some R’n’R, and a chance to get better acquainted with the sponsored vodka (one chef called it “the coolest bottle of vodka I’ve ever seen,” totally unprompted by the producers, we’re sure). Adorably, Gagnon was heard practicing some of the English slang Gonzalez and Grace’s Dustin Gallagher had taken it upon themselves to teach him (“‘Sick’, ‘gangster,’ I am working on the next one”).

Despite their shaky starts, by the time the two zakuski spreads made it to the judges (joined by a disappointingly sedate Aykroyd and Frank chef Anne Yarymowich), both teams managed to turn out some surprisingly complex and elegant plates. The green team’s DeSousa won with a cold dish of smoked garlic sausages on hand-made kasha and barley lavash, which the judges praised for its maturity. Also impressive was runner-up Nicholson’s plate of sauerkraut, smoked speck, pork loin and ribs, with a veal-and-rye bread meatball.

On the losing end, the judges had to decide between Gonzalez, whose mini-potato salad was insipid despite its bacon foam; Patrick Wiese, whose steelhead with vodka citrus crème fraîche was tasty but ugly (although Aykroyd did praise the “gourmet tater tot” that came with it); and MacKay, who put out a too-fishy cured salmon with white sturgeon caviar, and generally did a lousy job leading his team. Perrin, meanwhile, created a delightful parsnip blini for his dessert and got away scot-free.

Conclusion

In the end, Gonzalez got the axe, ridding the show of by far its most entertaining contestant. Although we’re despairing for watchability of future episodes, we fully expect Gagnon to step in and fill the role of the most ethnic funny one.

Next Week on Top Chef Canada

The contestants cook a meal inspired by a randomly assigned country and are judged by none other than Gallagher’s former boss, Susur Lee. Will the Asian-fusion pioneer play favourites? Is the Top Chef Canada set big enough to hold Lee and McEwan’segos at the same time? We’ll be watching.

Our weekly Top Chef Canada leader board:

By Chris Nuttall-Smith

In the year following the announcement of Susur Lee’s new project in the storied room that once was Susur restaurant, it was tempting to believe that the chef was planning a triumphant return to Toronto. Speaking on his behalf, Brenda Bent, his wife and the designer of his Toronto restaurants, sounded keen to have her peripatetic husband back in the city more often. She even went so far as to enumerate the days Lee is contractually obliged to spend at his restaurants in New York, D.C. and Singapore (a total of 58 per year), adding that her husband wanted to “offer a more intense level of cooking” here at home.

This was great news for diners craving something more ambitious than Lee, the casual, cash-spinning and comparatively low-maintenance restaurant he has run, albeit often from a distance, since 2004, or Madeline’s, which stood for a couple years in the former Susur space but never came close to being as good as its predecessor.

Could diners dare to dream that the chef might give it his all in a Toronto kitchen again? When the new place, Lee Lounge, opened on Valentine’s Day, after eight months of delays, the first thing you saw inside the door was a black and white picture of Lee as a child with his family in Hong Kong, and the words “Re-Entry Permit” written above the photo on the wall. “Re-Entry Permit” was the theme of the Lee Lounge launch. What else were we supposed to think? Susur Lee was back.

Yet now that the room is open, all the hype feels cheap in retrospect, like an elaborately stage-managed bait and switch. Lee Lounge is not new, and it’s not a real restaurant, and it doesn’t particularly matter if he’s back or not—you hardly need a super-chef to run a place as ambitionless as this. The space, now connected to Lee next door, is more of a holding area for its bigger sibling than a restaurant in its own right. One half of the room has been made into the lounge, with low black lacquered tables and leather couches, plus a long bar (left over from Madeline’s) that’s fronted with pink vintage stools. The other half, closest to Lee, is restaurant overflow, set with full-size dining tables and chairs, so that if you’re hunching over one of the little tables in the lounge (which was deserted when I went), the overflow people (of whom there were many; Lee is always jammed) are sitting much higher than you.

It’s all quite pretty, of course: Bent has hung Mao-era propaganda prints of ruddy-cheeked peasants and marching children in the recessed light boxes along the back wall. The tables have paintings of peonies lacquered into their tops, and there’s an impressive taxidermic blowfish that turns, in full, glorious bloat, on a wire in a mirrored box; it shudders a little whenever one of the servers breezes by too fast. The lounge area’s short, pan-Asian, cocktail-friendly menu, with its Chinese doughnut fritters and whipped chickpea dip, is composed mostly of retreads from Lee’s other restaurants around the globe.

Susur Lee once helped to invent the field of cooking now known as modern Chinese. Little more than a decade ago, Food and Wine magazine named him one of its top 10 chefs of the millennium. At a time when much of Toronto, and the world, still thought of Chinese food as sweet-and-sour chicken balls and greasy chow mein, he was serving tuna with wasabi-parsnip mousse, cucumber jelly and crispy squid ink noodles. At the height of his legendary eight-year run at Susur, the room made Restaurant Magazine’s list of the world’s 50 best restaurants. Food writers, editors and high-end eaters from around the globe knew they’d not yet lived if they hadn’t had his lobster with black truffles, Qianpang Xie–style egg white and uni sauces and crispy dried scallops. When Susur Lee was a cook and an innovator instead of just another celebrity chef, the world used to troop to Toronto for a taste of his genius.

(Image: Jess Baumung)

TOP CHEF CANADA
Season 1 | Episode 1

Like most fans of the original, American Top Chef, we came to last night’s premiere of Top Chef Canada with some pretty serious expectations. Would the level of competition be as fierce? Would Thea Andrews be credible as the host? Could we blindly trust head judge Mark McEwan the way we do Tom Colicchio? Would the producers be able to cram in as many egregious product placements?

We needn’t have worried. Top Chef Canada is eerily similar to the original—same structure, same music, same sound effects, same stock phrases—but with an extra dash of Canadian hokeyness added in. Here, our recap of the best dishes, quips and insidious sponsorship.

After the obligatory shot of a Porter airplane soaring above Toronto’s skyline, the show opened with the usual introductions of the contestants and their respective story lines. Todd Perrin, the lone East Coaster, got to play the Old Guy (“It’s gonna be interesting for me to get next to the young bucks and see if I still got the chops”) while Origin’s Steve Gonzalez is this season’s resident Badass (“I’m gonna win this competition, and if you get in my way, I just might stab you”) and François Gagnon fulfills the French Guy quotient (first words: “Bon soir”). Our favourite moment came when Mercatto’s Rob Rossi delivered the obligatory “Oh my God!” after walking into what looked like a generic, barely-decorated Toronto condo.

Quickfire

Mad scramble for artichokes (Image: Food Network Canada/Insight Productions)

The inaugural quickfire challenge consisted of four heats (but not before Rebekah Pearse took one for the team by marvelling over the Le Creuset cookware in the GE Monogram kitchen). First, the chefs were given a whole red snapper, and the first eight to fillet it without beating it up too badly (like Grace‘s Dustin Gallagher did) advanced to the next round. The remaining eight chefs were given a boatload of artichokes and told to peel as many as they could in five minutes (Gonzalez, whose reaction was “What the fuck, I don’t remember the last time I peeled an artichoke,” failed to move on). Round three challenged the final four make a perfect hollandaise, with Rossi and Gagnon both disqualified for inexplicably adding tarragon to the mix (didn’t your moms ever teach you the difference between a béarnaise and a hollandaise?). The final two, Connie DeSousa and Dale MacKay, were given 20 minutes to prepare a dish using the ingredients from the previous round. MacKay’s pan-roasted snapper with black garlic potatoes beat out DeSousa’s poached fish with parsley salad, netting him mad props all around and the coveted immunity from elimination. He also got to indulge in some Top Chef–standard hubris—“I’m gonna try to win every challenge. I’m not looking to sit back. There’s no way!”—proving that all reality television is actually based on Sophocles.

Elimination

Top Chef Canada’s first elimination challenge asked the chefs to cook a dish that would show the judges just who they were. After 30 minutes at Loblaws (the Jarvis and Queen’s Quay location, we think), the 16 chefs got down to business. The most daring dish: Perrin’s braised seal flipper. The most perplexing: Clayton Beadle’s roasted lamb loin with a blueberry rub. In an ingenious bit of sponsorship, right before time ran out, Gonzalez cut himself and we were treated to a cutaway shot of a first-aid kit full of Band-Aids and Polysporin. Andrea Nicholson of Great Cooks on Eight wrapped up the challenge with a glorious F-bomb after she cut into her roast to discover undercooked, ruby-red lamb.

At the judging, we got the first real look at the hosts. Like Padma Lakshmi on the original show, Andrews joined in with the tasting and judging. Mercifully, she managed to tamp down her Entertainment Tonight bubbliness, although she didn’t quite manage Lakshmi’s breathy languor. Shereen Arazm was feisty like her Top Chef counterpart Gail Simmons (she even managed the immensely Simmons-like quip “I’m a chicken-and-waffles girl” in response to Derek Bocking’s homey maple-glazed salmon and buckwheat pancakes). Thank goodness head judge McEwan was in full-out crabby mode, serving as something of an antidote to all the cheerleading. This week’s guest judge was Vikram Vij of Vancouver’s celebrated Indian restaurant Vij’s, who won the “Did he just say that?” award when he likened Chris Kanka’s dish to “going on a date with a beautiful woman but not going anywhere further.”

At the top of this week’s heap: Gagnon, Bocking, Nicholson and Rossi, who ended up with the win for his seared B.C. halibut and butter-poached lobster with crème fraîche and tarragon foam (a sly nod to the tarragon-spiked hollandaise that got him booted from the quickfire round). In addition to earning the first win on Top Chef Canada, Rob took home $2,500 worth of Le Creuset loot. The four chefs with the worst dishes this time around were Michael Stauffer, Beadle, Jamie Hertz and an ashen-faced Kanka. Stauffer, who inexplicably served his roasted lamb on top of a congealed chèvre-infused consommé, suffered the indignity of being the first Canadian chef to be told, “Please pack your knives and go,” but not before McEwan described his dish as “well-intentioned, very confusing and really unappetizing.” Arazm noted that it “could be vomit.” Ouch.

At the beginning and end of the episode, we got some tantalizing hints about the what to expect for the rest of the season. Shouting! Running around! Guest spots by Simmons, Susur Lee and Daniel Boulud (whose two Vancouver restos both shuttered shortly after taping)! Oh, and it looks like next week’s challenge centres on Canadian cheeses and takes place at a cocktail party in some kind of art gallery. You better believe we’ll be watching.

Check out our recap of episode 2 »

We learned recently that the Real Housewives franchise is officially looking into a Canadian spinoff. No word for sure on which major city will get the nod, but Toronto seems like an obvious choice. According to the Post’s Shinan Govani, our top duelling divas Stacey Kimmel and Suzanne Rogers have already declined offers to participate. Meanwhile, the city’s original glitter girl Catherine Nugent told ET Canada that she “wouldn’t even consider” an offer.

Luckily, not all Toronto socialites have such resolve. Govani reported that Jessica Mulroney, wife to Ben and new mom to the couple’s new chinny-chin twins, is “in talks” (though her hubby later recanted on her behalf). Ainsley Kerr, the best local example of the famous-for-being-famous phenomenon, played coy when asked about her involvement. We thought you had to be married or divorced to be qualify as a Housewife, but maybe not.

Depending on your feelings about trash television, this is either the best news since So You Think You Can Dance Canada, or a sign of the cultural apocalypse. Personally, we think a show like this would be must-see TV. Torontonians are so stiff and serious—a little mudslinging might do us some good. And so—with our fingers crossed and our PVRs primed—we set about coming up with the ultimate cast list for The Real Housewives of Toronto. Our picks, after the jump.

(Image: clock tower, loozrboy)

Chef Chuck Hughes (Image: Cooking Channel)

Chuck Hughes, chef at Montreal restaurant Garde Manger, won Iron Chef America this past weekend, succeeding where few competitors have: Hughes beat culinary master Bobby Flay in the kitchen stadium battle, which featured a secret ingredient of Canadian lobster. Included in Hughes’s winning menu: lobster poutine. Hughes, 34, is the youngest Canadian and second Canuck to win the series, after Vancouver’s Rob Feenie defeated Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto in 2005 (Susur Lee tied with Flay in 2006). Hughes is also the first Quebec chef to compete on the show.

Hughes’s luck may have been in the shellfish. He is such a fan of lobster that he has a tattoo of one on his arm, alongside shrimp, pie and bacon. “It’s my favourite food. It was almost too much. It was like: ‘If I don’t win, then do I need to cut my arm off? What happens if I don’t win? I’m a sham!” Hughes joked to the Canadian Press.

Sunday’s finale episode in Canada proved no amputation was necessary. Hughes admitted to the CBC, “I actually kind of knew exactly where we were going to go with it, so it was kind of a perfect-case scenario.” The rest of Hughes’s multi-course menu consisted of lobster roll with a bloody caesar cocktail, lobster and onion ring salad with carrot butter and avocado, lobster-mushroom risotto and jerked-spiced lobster. Cooking alongside Hughes were his sous chefs from Garde Manger, Jean-Francois Methot and James Baran.

• Chuck Hughes beats out Bobby Flay on ‘Iron Chef America’ [Canadian Press]
• Quebec chef wins Iron Chef with lobster poutine [CBC News]

Momofuku chef David Chang (Image: David Shankbone)

Last week saw a flurry of excitement over the rumours and then confirmation that David Chang, chef and owner of New York’s Momofuku empire, would be setting up shop here in Toronto. But the e-mail Chang’s PR chief sent out was pretty short on specifics about the two new restaurants. Yesterday, the Toronto Star ran a piece by food editor Jennifer Bain with some additional details, straight from the horse’s mouth. After the jump, six things we learned:

1. We’re getting first dibs
Chang revealed that he’s received numerous requests to expand, but his first choices have been Canada and Australia. While Sydney’s Seiobo is slated for October, the two Toronto projects will open in late summer of 2012.

2. It’s not two restaurants. It’s two restaurants and a bar.
As we reported late last Friday, Chang’s two restaurants will be in a building beside the Shangri-La hotel and condos at University and Adelaide. Expect to find “some type of rendition of Noodle Bar” on the first floor; however, Chang is quick to note that he doesn’t want to “make anything a facsimile, and I think Toronto deserves more than just throwing something there.” On the second floor will be a bar, and on the third, a restaurant called Momofuku Daishō.

3. Daishō is samurai related, sort of
Although daishō is the Japanese term referring to the pair of swords that samurais wear in Japan, Chang picked it for its literal meaning: “Big and small.”

4. Chang was attracted to Toronto because of space.
“In New York, we’re always confined with spaces,” he told Bain. “Our restaurants are difficult to navigate as cooks and to operate. We fight against the buildings we run in New York.” So Chang jumped on the opportunity when Vancouver’s Westbank and Peterson Group, which will manage the Shangri-La, offered Momofuku free reign and generous space. Chang is not sure of the exact square footage or the layouts, but apparently the third floor will be much more spacious than the first. In total, the two restaurants will offer 150 to 160 seats.

5. Momofuku’s pork buns and fried chicken are coming
All those wondering if Momofuku’s famous pork belly buns and fried chicken will appear on Toronto’s menu can relax—they will. However, Chang states that he isn’t interested in simply assimilating Toronto palates to those in New York. Instead, he wants “to be very respectful to the food community that’s already there.” He also showed he knows how to flatter: “You guys already have a sophisticated dining scene.”

6. Susur’s not scared
In the Star piece, Bains went on to interview Susur Lee, who said that he feels no pressure by the potential rivalry, and welcomes Chang’s impending arrival. “I really wish him all the best and hope Toronto makes him a great success. Our city is such a great international city. I think it’s great to make the city bigger.” And tastier, we’d say.

• Momofuku chef reveals details of Toronto expansion [Toronto Star]

Susur Lee presides over his new Lee Lounge (Image: Renée Suen)

After teasing a hungry public for over half a year, Susur Lee, arguably the city’s most internationally recognized chef, opened his newest venture Lee Lounge last week. Formerly Susur, and then Madeline’s, the room has undergone a striking transformation at the hands of Brenda Bent (Lee’s wife and business partner) and Karen Gable—the duo responsible for many of Lee’s spaces, including the neighbouring Lee.

As the star chef explained to us last week, Lee Lounge is not quite a new restaurant, but an extension of the flagship, serving as a holding space for Lee patrons or diners just looking to graze and hang out. Compared to its predecessors, the lounge is more welcoming: the wall between both dining rooms has been opened up, and a long glass window now flanks King Street. Upholstered banquettes and chairs surrounding tightly packed tables encourage interaction, while a set of leather couches at the centre of the room offer a choice spot to people-watch.

Feminine features dominate the room. A pair of fuchsia light boxes at the rear are filled with wall mobiles made from 1940s propaganda posters. Among the treasures curated by Lee himself are a series of vintage Shanghainese cigarette girl posters lining the west wall and the chrysanthemum images embossed on the new menu covers. There are also personal touches, such as a black and white family portrait adorning the lounge’s entrance (Lee’s the tiny lad sitting between his father and mother in the front row). “I look at all this stuff and it reminds me of my trips to Hong Kong,” Lee explains. “It’s all the places that I’ve been—not just something from a store. It adds sentimental value.”

The menu is focused on shareable small bites, like a char siu–marinated duck wrap with a crisp tofu skin and foie gras mousse ($22), spicy Hunan chicken wings ($11) served with a Hainanese chicken rice dip and an Asian-style salmon ceviche ($11) dressed with smoky dashi and sweet black beans. Cocktails ($13.50–14.50) made at Lee Lounge’s backlit bar, meanwhile, boast tropical fruits, or receive a salted plum powder kick.

Although Lee admits to having more surprises up his sleeve—the the Top Chef Masters runner-up already has restaurants in New York, Singapore and Washington, DC—he promises he’s planning to stay in Toronto for “a long, long time.” Our fingers are crossed.

Lee Lounge, 601 King St. W. (at Portland), 416-603-2205, susur.com/lee.

Lee lounging before the opening of Lee Lounge (Image: Renée Suen)

On Monday night, we found ourselves at the highly anticipated Valentine’s Day opening of Lee Lounge, the new restaurant from Susur Lee. The room was buzzing, with all hands on deck working to the beat of the floor manager’s Iron Chef-like calls. A bartender was making frantic last-minute adjustments to one of the new cocktails, the very dirty ume plum martini. Amid this chaos, Susur Lee was the eye of the storm. He spoke with us at length, excusing himself with only thirty minutes to go before the service started. Our conversation, below

What exactly is Lee Lounge? Is it Susur Lee’s latest establishment or is it an extension of Lee?
Lee Lounge is considered a part of Lee—it’s just that Lee has a lounge now. People waiting for their table have a place to sit for a drink, have some small bites. It’s a bit more modern, a little more relaxed and with less feeling of commitment.

Was your decision to move toward a more casual feel influenced by dining trends or demands from a certain dining demographic?
No, it’s not because of a trend. I just feel that all my life I’ve been doing fine cuisine, and now I’m going with the times. It’s not about me—it’s about cooking for people. I don’t have a prejudice about the crowd I’m catering to. I’ve welcomed everyone who’s been a customer from Lotus to Susur to Madeline’s.

What about the price point?
Sometimes with restaurants you make so little money, it is all about the labour and love. And the prices we are charging are so inexpensive—$40-45 per person. Susur used to be $125. The idea was to make something modern with interesting food. Things don’t always have to have foie gras. Although I do have foie gras, I’m just not charging people $30 for it.

What are some of the new dishes at Lee Lounge that you’re particularly proud of?
I have the Peking duck roll, served with foie gras at $22. It’s a cross between char xiu duck and Peking duck. I took the skin off, then wrapped it in tofu skin to make it crispy. Another dish is the spicy Hunan chicken wings ($11); it’s my recipe using red fermented tofu and Hainanese chicken rice dip. I want to give people the chance to have some very nice flavours, not something boring.

Lee preps his team before opening service (Image: Renée Suen)

Are diners receptive to trying new flavours?
Oh yes. Being Asian, the restaurant has a wide variety of flavours and also the umami taste, which is important in my cooking. It’s based on really concrete things, not an “oh my God, I don’t understand” with bubbles, or those scientific cooking things which I never liked myself. My intention is to cook like a Chinese person living in North America, but combine it with something a little abstract.

What’s in store for customers coming here on your opening night?
The thing with opening tonight is that it’s Valentine’s, and with this restaurant opening, it’s double happiness. So I want people to enjoy tonight. I want to take care of people. Lots of love tonight.

Lee Lounge, 601 King St. W.,416-603-2205, susur.com.

2:45 a.m., Cobra

“Let’s get drunk and fuck! Let’s get drunk and fuck!”

I’m at Cobra, a King West club in a sprawling basement underneath a 19th-century warehouse. In this neighbourhood, the best parties are either deep underground or high above in a rooftop bar. Cobra is decorated like a gothic funhouse, with a wall of glowing skulls and lots of black. The get-drunk-and-fuck directive bleats from a techno remix as coloured lights, inducing a kind of electric synesthesia, pulsate on the basement ceiling. To my left, two girls make out and topple over, knocking down their bottle service glassware. Guys eagerly watch from the sidelines, plotting how to make their move. My teeth chatter from the vibrating bass. I down a shot that’s half Sour Puss and half vodka, proffered by a human Barbie doll bartender.

I’d arrived at 11:30 p.m., waited my turn to pass through the velvet rope, and carefully made my way down the steep staircase (a bitch to do when you’re wearing six-inch stilettos, like most women here, including me). At first the club was nearly empty, with men and women separated in groups as if it were a middle school dance. But as the night progressed, the room filled and the ladies began to pose and grind for an audience of ethnically diverse guys in shiny loafers. Every once in a while, a waitress walks by holding a tray laden with liquor bottles. When a patron orders a $650 bottle of Cristal, Cobra attaches a sparkler to it with an elastic, so it lights a pathway to the club’s very important patrons as the waitress carries it across the room.

One by one, the guys attack—placing clammy hands on trim waists, stubble on well-moisturized cheeks, come-ons on deaf ears. Conversation consists of “What’s up tonight?” and “I can’t hear you, the music’s too loud!” By 3 a.m., the club is nearly empty except for one or two defiant couples, courting the inevitability of what happens at the end of the night.

The opening event for the Thompson Hotel was the high point of cool for the neighbourhood and a warning of the coming deluge of weekend partiers

The entrances to many of the neighbourhood’s nightclubs are hidden in brick-paved alleys that were originally designed to ship products more efficiently to the street’s warehouses. Outside Cobra, three chicks from Western smoke on a striped chaise longue by a cluster of heat lamps, and giggle over the guys they rejected. They tell me they drove in for the weekend to celebrate a friend’s birthday. The prettiest of them, a fragile 20-year-old blonde with a passing resemblance to Kirsten Dunst, is wearing a black lace dress from Urban Behavior, rhinestone earrings from Ardene, $25 bejewelled satin pumps and no coat even though it’s zero degrees and dropping.

I turn my attention back to the street. It’s time I go home to Parkdale, but hailing a cab is a nightmare: King West is a tangle of stretch Hummers and lost packs of bachelorettes. My idea of a big night out used to consist of drinking PBR in a dingy bar in Little Portugal. But over the past few months, as I attempted to figure out why King West became one giant party, I spent nearly every weekend on the strip, dining on foie gras at Brassaii, getting my makeup retouched at C Lounge, avoiding groping guys at the Firkin. Throughout my travels, I met a concert promoter in his late 50s named Gerry, who invited me back to his multimillion-dollar house on Richmond, where we smoked pot and listened to Captain Beefheart; a cop who flashed me his badge and pretended to arrest me “for being so beautiful”; and a guy who swore he wasn’t a rapist as he begged me to join him in his limo. As I make my way home, it occurs to me that this is the only neighbourhood in Toronto where people make direct eye contact.

@susurlee: Lee lounge ready for a opening! Stay posted

The location has been under renovation since the short-lived Madeline’s closed its doors in April 2010.  The new expansion will offer more seating for Lee, next door, and create space for a new lounge with its own menu. Lee floated some thoughts on that menu, as well:

@susurlee: new menu for the expansion of lee @ 601 king west in the works…hmm, truffles? sweet corn? tomato soups? thoughts?

Still, we’re not holding our breath for the opening just yet. Last time we checked, the place was supposed to open back in August.