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Top Chef Canada season two contestants announced; here are your six Toronto chefs

(Images: Food Network Canada/Insight Productions)

With the sophomore season of Top Chef Canada set to premiere on March 12, Food Network Canada has finally introduced the 16 chefs hoping to cook their way to $100,000 (and, lest we forget, a GE Monogram kitchen). The group (which, perhaps responding to feedback about season one, is a tad more multicultural) once again contains six Torontonians, among them Marben’s Carl Heinrich and Ruby Watchco’s Ryan Gallagher. Tasting the food will be new host Lisa Ray, alongside head judge Mark McEwan and resident judge Shereen Arazm and a spate of guests that includes culinary personalities (Top Chef Masters winner Marcus Samuelsson) and sundry celebrities (handyman Mike Holmes, actor Alan Thicke, Kenny vs. Spenny’s Spencer Rice). We round up the Toronto contestants, starting with Victor’s David Chrystian »

The Dish

De-licious

January 9, 2012 | 3:15 pm

1 Comment

Winterlicious 2012: Toronto Life’s picks west of Bathurst

WINTERLICIOUS 2012 | WEST

The Winterlicious restaurants west of Bathurst are a mixed bag, from authentic Mexican at Frida to hipster institutions like The Drake. Here, our nine best bets for the west end.

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The Dish

Opening

December 5, 2011 | 3:12 pm

4 Comments

Introducing: Stasis Local Foods, the new Roncesvalles emporium for all things pickled and jarred (and preferably local)

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 Dish

From the Print Edition

October 28, 2011 | 12:30 pm

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Toronto’s five best house-made pickles

Lovingly brined, jarred and served by the city’s star chefs, these pickles are the best of the puckery pack

Best House-made Pickles

The Drake chef Anthony Rose ferments bushels of cherry bomb peppers, the little Jewish deli–style fireballs, and sends them out with a variety of dishes. 1150 Queen St. W., 416-531-5042.

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The Informer

From the Print Edition

October 7, 2011 | 10:22 am

88 Comments

Michelle Dean: I ♥ N.Y. (Not T.O.)

(Jack Dylan)

Dear Toronto: I’d like to say that it’s me, not you, but I’d be lying. It is you. You have no passion, no ambition. You elected Rob Ford! I’m leaving you for another city

About a year ago, in what felt like defeat, I moved to Toronto. I was looking to overhaul (some might say “ditch”) my career. I’d spent five years in New York as a corporate attorney, warring with myself from the get-go over whether I could stay in a city that I loved on employment terms I despised. When I was finally laid off and I decided to leave practice altogether, Toronto was the obvious choice for a crash landing. Though I’d never lived there, I had a lot of friends in the city, there were cultural events aplenty, and rents seemed shockingly cheap after Brooklyn and Manhattan. Maybe, I thought, I’d been crazy to stay away.

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The Dish

Restauran-TO

September 2, 2011 | 1:35 pm

4 Comments

VIDEO: The Drake releases a puzzling trailer for the next iteration of its Dining Roadshow series

In what’s probably a Toronto first, The Drake has released a trailer for the next iteration of its Dining Roadshow series of in situ pop-up restaurants. The series began with a cheeky tribute to summer school and is moving on to L.A.’s Chinatown circa 1940 this coming Thursday, just in time for TIFF. Some of the things that happen in the puzzling, surrealistic trailer:

a young woman goes running through some woods and meadows;
she declares that she hates exercise;
some birds in a tree tell her about a burger, which, naturally, materializes immediately, but only in a ghostly, translucent way;
she concedes to her mom (on the phone) that yes, she mostly eats noodles;
she daydreams about a cupcake in the clouds;
an opulent picnic appears before her;
the picnic items start flying toward her, and she eats them, enraptured;
she then rolls down a grassy hill.

No, we have no idea what any of it means, nor can we figure out why none of the food is Chinese. But we are excited to see what chef Anthony Rose and the Drake team come up with for round two of their roadshow.

The Dish

Opening

August 4, 2011 | 2:56 pm

5 Comments

Introducing: Café Belong, Brad Long’s new restaurant at the Brick Works

Brad Long’s new restaurant at the Brick Works is called Café Belong—get it? (Image: Gizelle Lau)

After almost half a year of delays, Brad Long’s Café Belong finally opened at the Evergreen Brick Works on Saturday morning, to throngs of farmers’ market shoppers. Long is well established in the Toronto food scene, as a co-owner of Veritas and a previous executive chef for Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment and the CN Tower’s 360 restaurant (he’s of course also familiar from Food Network Canada’s Restaurant Makeover). “We were looking for someone who would be able to create and cater to a community fostering local food,” Brick Works programming director Arlene Stein told us. “Brad was a perfect fit.”

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The Dish

Opening

July 25, 2011 | 12:42 pm

6 Comments

Introducing: Hammersmith’s, Riverdale’s newest spot for scones and other breakfast favourites

Inside Riverdale’s newest brunch spot (Image: Karolyne Ellacott)

Hammersmith’s, the brainchild of boyfriend-girlfriend duo Brittany Peglar and Colin Reed, is a new brunch spot in brunch-laden Riverdale, housed in a space previously occupied by a diner for 50-odd years. The couple does both sweet (Peglar) and savoury (Reed), keeping the focus on breakfast. They’ve already managed to draw a loyal clientele, with regulars popping in just after 9 a.m. for either a quick coffee or a full-on brekkie.

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The Dish

De-licious

July 8, 2011 | 11:47 am

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It’s on: Summerlicious 2011 starts today, and we’ve got you covered

The Drake, gussied up in time for Summerlicious, is one of Chris Nuttall-Smith’s 11 best bets for the annual prix fixe extravaganza. (Image: Gizelle Lau)

You’ve been fighting for reservations for the last 15 days, and finally, it’s here. That’s right, Summerlicious 2011 officially starts today. Check out our complete guide to the festival, divided up by region, as well as our chief critic Chris Nuttall-Smith’s 11 best bets.

Summerlicious 2011 runs from July 8 to 24 at 150 participating restaurants across Toronto.

The Dish

Opening

June 29, 2011 | 12:00 pm

3 Comments

Introducing: The Drake Summer School Dining Hall, the first in the boutique hotel’s Dining Roadshow series

The Drake’s dining room was transformed into summer-school kitsch in the space of one weekend. (Image: Gizelle Lau)

The Drake Hotel has never been afraid of a little shtick, and pop-up and quasi pop-up operations have long been a part of that. There’s the Drake General Store (and its two sister locations across the city), the now-defunct Scoops and Tees and its successor the Drake BBQ, a pop-up shop that, in true pop-up fashion, will serve its last pulled pork sandwiches and whoopie pies this Saturday. This summer, the Drake is launching the Dining Roadshow, a sort of in situ pop-up program that GM Bill Simpson told us is “meant to be an exploration over the next year as we plan to expand The Drake.” The roadshow will feature a series of thematically changing restaurant concepts that will be highly theatrical, whimsical and, yes, pretty darn kitschy. The first stop: Summer School Dining Hall.

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The Dish

De-licious

June 23, 2011 | 1:08 pm

10 Comments

11 best bets for Summerlicious 2011: our chief critic Chris Nuttall-Smith makes his picks

The imported Neapolitan pizza oven at Fabbrica (Image: Karon Liu)

Now in its ninth season, the city-run ’Licious phenomenon (there are both summer and winter incarnations, in case you’ve been living under a pizza stone all this time) shows no signs of tiring, even if every year it seems to enrage more and more curmudgeonly downtown diners who don’t much like sharing their favorite restaurants with the plebes. Summerlicious succeeds precisely because it makes inaccessible restaurants accessible, even if it’s only for two weeks each July. The big list (there are 150 participating restaurants this year) will never include the hottest, newest, most interesting restaurants in the city—those places don’t typically need the help. It typically does include more than its share of dogs. But there are plenty of places in between: proven, well-run, inviting rooms with committed kitchens. We’ve picked a few of the best.

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The Hype

To-Do List

May 4, 2011 | 2:06 pm

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The Weekender: Jane’s Walk, Toronto Comic Arts Festival and six other can’t-miss events

CCTV, DJ Woody and Abel Boulineau

1. JANE’S WALK (FREE!)

Inspired by urban writer/activist Jane Jacobs, this festival of walking tours, led by Toronto-loving volunteers, is all about seeing the city with new eyes. With over 170 walks to choose from, we’ve narrowed our selection down to three: (Video) Eyes on the Street, U of T prof Andrew Clement’s exploration of the downtown core’s CCTV cameras; a gentrification-focused tour of Cherry Beach; and the cultural studies pick, A Hipster’s Guide to Ossington. May 7 and 8. Various locations, janeswalk.net.

2. KARDINAL OFFISHALL (FREE!)
Kardi’s made some headway south of the border, signing with Akon’s Konvict label and recording with chart toppers like Estelle and David Guetta, but he’s still a hometown boy. Proof? This free concert in Yonge-Dundas Square, part of Coke’s 125th anniversary celebrations. And last year’s “The Anthem” of course. May 7. Yonge-Dundas Square, icoke.ca.

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The Hype

To-Do List

April 27, 2011 | 1:49 pm

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The Weekender: Drake Spring Market, Hot Docs and six other events on our to-do list

Saint Hollywood by Uta Bekaia, Kate and Will and Buca chef Rob Gentile

1. DRAKE SPRING MARKET (FREE!)
By some miracle, this Saturday’s forecast promises a one-day respite from the non-stop April showers we’ve been seeing. Which means we won’t need to don our winter jacket at The Drake’s spring market this weekend. The one-day-only market, right at the corner of Queen and Beaconsfield, offers up jewellery, cards and artwork by local artisans, as well as amazing discounts on The Drake General Store’s cute and quirky merchandise. April 30. Queen St. W. and Beaconsfield Ave., 416-531-5042, thedrakehotel.ca/market.

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The Dish

TV Diner

April 11, 2011 | 4:10 pm

3 Comments

Grace restaurant, home kitchen of Dustin Gallagher, to host Top Chef Canada viewing parties. Is this a sign?

Just why is Dustin smiling so broadly? (Image: Food Network Canada)

In case you hadn’t noticed, Top Chef Canada premieres tonight on Food Network Canada. If you don’t have your viewing plans all sorted out, Grace, the College Street home of contestant Dustin Gallagher, is hosting a viewing party tonight in its upstairs lounge, starting around 8 p.m. Grace was closed on Mondays during the winter but is now open Monday through Saturday, just in time for Gallagher’s small-screen debut. Apparently the viewing parties will last for at least the first five weeks of the program and may continue after that. Could this kind of celebration hint at Gallagher’s success on the show? Guess we’ll just have to watch and find out.

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