All stories relating to charcuterie
Monday Must-Try: Karelia Kitchen’s twist on the charcuterie plate
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The smokehouse platter at Karelia, the city’s only real Scandinavian restaurant, is a refreshing departure from the standard charcuterie board.
The Month that Was: the Toronto restaurants and bars that opened and closed in December
Sang Kim’s new Yakitori Bar (Image: Gizelle Lau)
Opening
- Yakitori Bar and Seoul Food Co.—Restauranteur Sang Kim (Ki, Blowfish) set an ambitious goal for himself: one restaurant, thirty days. It must’ve been too easy, because he ended up opening two, an izakaya and a Korean takeout joint. Read our Introducing post »
- Hawthorne Food and Drink—Chef Eric Wood (Fabarnak) finds inspiration for Hawthorne’s menu in Toronto’s wide array of ethnic cuisines. Bonus: he also runs a paid training program for newly graduated cooks. Read our Introducing post »
Introducing: Hogtown Charcuterie, Kensington Market’s new spot for prepared meats
(Image: Susan Keefe)
It’s no secret that pig is big right now. The aptly named Hogtown Charcuterie, in Kensington Market, offers a wide selection of hand-cured and smoked meats predominantly of the pork variety. Hogtown’s owner, Pawel Grezlikowski, began practising the art of charcuterie 10 years ago as a hobby. After a year of successfully selling his products at farmers’ markets in the Junction and Davisville, he decided to take the plunge and set up a standalone shop in the space that formerly held the short-lived Mr. Cream and Easton’s Charcuterie.
Bar Volo reopens today with double the taps and a refreshed menu by Guy Rawlings
(Images: Bar Volo)
The Yonge Street beer geek den Bar Volo closed for a snap renovation last Sunday and reopens today with some big changes. Most important: there’s an all-new draft system, which doubles the number of taps to 32 and has room for six casks (co-owner Tomas Morana likened the new, huge list, neatly written out on a chalkboard, to a “library of beer”). Morana told The Dish that the bar’s menu has been pared down and given a refresh by Guy Rawlings, and will include charcuterie from Grant van Gameren’s Crown Salumi and the new Hogtown Charcuterie, pretzels from Woodlot, a house-made mustard and a selection of cheeses, pâtés and terrines.
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Introducing: Richmond Station, the new downtown restaurant from Top Chef Canada champ Carl Heinrich
Ryan Donovan (head butcher, bookkeeper and partner), Julia Ayearst (front-of-house manager) and Carl Heinrich (executive chef and partner) (Image: Renée Suen)
Carl Heinrich and Ryan Donovan announced their departure from Marben to start a “new project” back in February, well before the former took first place in season two of Top Chef Canada (or rather, well before the season aired). Last week, the two first-time restaurateurs opened the doors of their new Richmond Station to the public, and Heinrich’s fans finally got to see how the young chef spent all that prize money.
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Gallery: the inaugural Dîner en Blanc Toronto, complete with drizzle, open flames and sparklers
(Image: Taku Kumabe)
Last Thursday, a sea of nearly 1,400 white-clad picnickers flooded Fort York for the first annual Dîner en Blanc. Although Toronto did host a test run of the all-white flash-mob picnic last year, this was the first official launch of the dinner, which originated in Paris over 20 years ago. The event was clearly billed as rain-or-shine, and attendees—who arrived by foot and chartered bus to the secret location—saw plenty of the former. Still, they came by the dozen, carrying baskets filled with food, white dinnerware, white tables and white chairs.
Prince Edward Bounty: a hedonist’s guide to eating and drinking in Ontario wine country
In Prince Edward County, $1.3 million buys a lot of real of estate—an entire 19th-century inn, to be precise. That’s how much Jeff Stober, the founder of Queen West’s artsy Drake Hotel, recently spent on Wellington’s historic Devonshire Inn, which he will convert into a high-end restaurant and boutique hotel next spring. He’s the latest in a string of urbanites turning the County into a wine country destination to rival Niagara—only smaller, scruffier and hipper. Since 2001, newbie vintners, dreaming of grape-stained feet and sleepy-town life, have set up more than 30 boutique wineries in the County, producing some brilliant wines from the area’s limestone-laced soils. The food scene, too, has rapidly evolved past pick-your-own-berry patches into eclectic farm-to-table dining with a distinctly Toronto edge (wood-burning pizza ovens, charcuterie, fancy-pants cocktails). City escapees—those who can’t ditch their corporate jobs to raise goats—now hightail it to Wellington, Bloomfield and Picton for a weekend’s worth of edenic vineyard tours, tipsy tastings and produce yanked fresh from the dirt. Here, we pick the best (and newest) places to eat, drink and sleep off the hangover, County style.
OUR GUIDE TO PRINCE EDWARD COUNTY
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Toronto’s newest raw food boutique, Belmonte Raw, proves dishes below 47° can still taste great
Belmonte Raw’s collard burrito with dehydrated ground-kernel corn chips
Outside Belmonte Raw, Leslieville’s new organic, vegan, sugar-free, gluten-free, dairy-free raw food restaurant, a trio of wiry-lean women with dignifiedly graying hair and yoga mats tucked under their arms examined the menu posted in the window: hulled hemp and kale salads, lucuma and camu camu smoothies, something called a sun burger made with pumpkin and clover sprouts. In their patchouli wake, I entered the restaurant while attempting (unsuccessfully) to conceal my huge leather purse under my trench coat.
The space is small—just 16 seats—and cute, with wood slab tables and motivational directives scrawled on the walls: “Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you imagine,” it says on the mirror across from me. While sipping my $9 Happiness juice out of a Mason jar, I overheard the owner, Carol Belmonte, chatting elatedly with another diner about juice detoxes. She offers a menu of home-delivered organic juice feasts (instead of fasts, because raw foodists prefer to emphasize abundance over abstinence) that start at $90 for one day and max out at $1,960 for a month.
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Toronto’s best five restaurants to go for a business lunch
The top five spots to break bread, dent the expense account and sign a deal while you’re at it
A $1 million facelift loosened the tie of Oliver and Bonacini’s flagship Canoe, while the breathtaking view from the 54th floor never fails to awe. It tops our chart for the expertly executed haute Canadiana and service that’s as polished as the silver. 66 Wellington St. W., 416-364-0054.
Grant van Gameren and Guy Rawlings take over the reins at Lucien
Grant van Gameren at the Black Hoof, the Dundas West charcuterie bar he co-founded (Image: Renée Suen from the Torontolife.com Flickr pool)
Six weeks or so after leaving the Black Hoof behind him, Grant van Gameren has found a new home. Alongside Brockton General’s Guy Rawlings, the charcuterie pioneer has moved on to Lucien, replacing chef Scot Woods, who left recently. “During his tenure here, Scot proved to be an extremely talented and creative chef and we wish him the very best in his future endeavours,” owner Simon Bower told us. “But I have decided the restaurant is going in a new direction.”
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Introducing: F’Amelia, Cabbagetown’s cozy new Italian restaurant (with a kitchen of ex-Splendido chefs)
Outside John Dawson and Todd Vestby’s new Cabbagetown Italian restaurant (Image: Renée Suen)
During the first week of operations for F’Amelia, a new Cabbagetown Italian restaurant owned by locals John Dawson (formerly of Table 17) and Todd Vestby, the house served over a 100 covers a night—without any press. With the restaurant’s grand opening slated for next week, we stopped by for a look at what has the neighbourhood abuzz.
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Introducing: Le Kensington, the new French bistro from the owners of Loire
(Image: Karolyne Ellacott)
Le Kensington Bistro, the second eatery from the owners of Harbord Street’s Loire (one of 2009’s best new restaurants), recently opened in the space that used to house La Palette, the market’s original French bistro (La Palette decamped to Queen Street last year). Owners Sylvain Brissonnet—who spent a decade as the sommelier of Langdon Hall—and Jean-Charles Dupoire—who put in hours at both The Savoy and The Berkeley in London—purchased the spot at the start of the year but were bogged down with lengthy renovations. Brissonnet tells us the pair “really wanted to do something very French” and are keeping the focus on their homeland’s cuisine.
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