Table Talk

September 2006

Off the Rails

If a Susur restaurant leaves Summerhill station at 9 p.m.… By Steven Dam

Track record: Lee puts new-resto rumours to rest Track record: Lee puts new-resto rumours to rest
Image credit: Mimi Cabell

Diners excited by the news of a Susur Lee restaurant at the Summer­hill LCBO shouldn’t get their hopes up. Though the National Post and the Globe have reported Lee’s involvement in the project, the chef says he’s planning no such thing, and he’s more than a tad annoyed that his name is being used. According to the articles, which cited unnamed sources, Lee had signed on with developer Woodcliffe Corp. to build a restaurant on the railway bridge spanning Yonge at Summerhill. Woodcliffe CEO Paul Oberman, who is also hoping to erect a controversial high-rise condo near the site, hasn’t made it easy to puzzle out the truth. Contacted this summer, at first he wouldn’t comment on Lee’s involvement; later, he said he’d been trying to arrange a meeting with the chef. “It’s a very long process,” Oberman said, “but Susur and I effectively agreed.” Whereupon he shifted tack. “You know what? We don’t have a definite agreement, and I can’t say.” For his part, Lee insists he hasn’t met with Oberman in two years. And it looks like the developer won’t get another meeting. “There’s nothing to talk about,” Lee says. Perhaps Oberman can eat his words.


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