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(Image: Caroline Aksich)
Name: Switch
Neighbourhood: Downtown Core
Contact Info: 55 Colborne St., 416-901-9990, switchtoronto.com
Owners: Hanif Harji (Patria, Weslodge)
The Food: A pan-global menu of sharing plates. Dishes range from finger snacks (cheesy truffle popcorn and spiced, smoked marcona almonds) to more substantial nosh (scotch eggs and haute dogs). The kitchen is open from 5-10 p.m. and reopens at midnight with a curated selection of snacks.
(Image: Megan Leahy)
Name: Woods
Neighbourhood: St. Lawrence Market
Contact info: 45 Colborne Street, 416-214-9918, woodsrestaurant.ca
Owners: Bruce Woods and Robin Singh
Chef: Executive Chef Bruce Woods (Modus, Brasaii, Centro) and Chef de Cuisine Anthony Davis (Sidecar, Cowbell, The Roosevelt Room)
The Food: An eclectic menu with a farm-to-table ethos, including appetizers like wild Digby scallops and seared Quebec foie gras and mains from spaghetti and meatballs to roasted Muscovy duck breast with dried cherries and duck egg béarnaise. There’s also a bar menu (dishes are in the $10-15 range) for the after-work cocktail crowd.
Name: Enzo Pizza Bar
Neighbourhood: Queen West
Contact Info: 646 Queen St W., 416-366-0009, getenzo.com, @enzopizzabar
Owner: Ryan Menchella
The Food: Customizable personal pizzas. Diners choose a sauce (white or red) and toppings (cheese, meat and veggies). There’s also a list of nine ready-to-order ‘zas, including the classic margherita and the more exotic filomena topped with würstel.
Although Gotstyle’s new two-storey store in the Distillery District is still a work-in-progress, the stunning space—originally a stable building—already has the elements of a retail destination. Currently in soft launch mode, Gotstyle Distillery breaks from the menswear-only catalogue of the Bathurst and Wellington location with a range of fashion-forward women’s brands like Cuchara, Sashin and Babi and Rebecca Minkoff. The prices reflect the diversity of the wares, with some button-ups just clearing $100 and outerwear breaking the $1,000 mark.
Ted Baker London is one of five reputed international brands to open its first Canadian store at the newly renovated Yorkdale Shopping Centre in Toronto (the others are Loft, Kate Spade New York, Microsoft and Tesla Motors). The label started as a men’s shirt specialist in Glasgow in the late 80s, but has since expanded into accessories, shoes and women’s apparel. The collections for both genders—as well as the store’s Canadian-wilderness-meets-British-countryside decor—show a fondness for colour and pattern, subtle British-inspired details and a sharp sense of humour.
Loft originally started out as a more affordable extension of the career women’s brand Ann Taylor, but a revamp in 2009 saw the label drop the “Ann Taylor” from its name. The move towards establishing a distinct identity is also apparent in the merchandise, which is much more casual and seems geared to a younger, hipper consumer than the typical Ann Taylor shopper. The price points at the Yorkdale location—the brand’s first store outside the U.S.—are also friendly to a younger buyer, with the overwhelming majority of the clothing and accessories priced at under $100.
Kate Spade New York opened its first-ever Canadian location in the new wing at Yorkdale Mall last month, and it’s a candy box of a store that showcases the brand’s sweet and colourful approach to American prep. As befits a company that started out in purses (Spade is a former accessories editor at Mademoiselle), much of the real estate is given over to handbags and totes, though the label’s forays into clothing, jewellery, shoes and eyewear are all represented.
Gravity Pope, a trend-focused shoe store much beloved in Western Canada, opened its first Toronto location on Friday at Queen and Ossington. Although the soaring two-level space has good-sized clothing sections for men and women, the main draw is the rows upon rows of shoes dominating the main floor. With a wide-ranging portfolio of brands—including a reasonably priced house label as well as Converse, Repetto, Camper, Cacharel and Marni—the footwear selection caters to everyone from the hipster set to fashion-conscious moms and dads and glamour girls looking for night-out heels.
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Yorkdale Shopping Centre’s swanky 145,000-square-foot expansion opens today, marking the next phase in the North Toronto mega-mall’s quest to corner the upscale market (a fancy food court already opened in June). Among the 30-odd new or expanded stores are the first Canadian installations of Loft (the younger, hipper label from Ann Taylor), Ted Baker London and Kate Spade New York, as well as Microsoft’s first-ever retail location outside the U.S. The suburban mall’s ability to draw buzzy retailers from abroad suggests its upmarket strategy is working.
Swiss menswear manufacturer Strellson built its first North American store on the northwest corner of Avenue and Bloor, on the fringe of the strip boasting heavyweights Hermes, Louis Vuitton and Holt Renfrew. The location is probably appropriate, given that the brand positions itself just short of high-end luxury—think Zara on a really good day, or Hugo Boss taking it easy.
Women’s office-wear retailers are battling it out on the third floor of the Eaton Centre: international chains J.Crew and Massimo Dutti both recently opened outposts there, and U.S. retailer Ann Taylor launched its first international store along the same corridor early last month (that’s in addition to the existing Club Monaco and Banana Republic locations). Ann Taylor is generally thought to be stodgier than the other two new brands, which probably compete more directly with its more casual spinoff, Ann Taylor Loft. However, the the well-constructed suits, separates, accessories and shoes are hipper—and the clientele younger—than its reputation would suggest.
Toronto’s male preppy set was dismayed when J.Crew opted to sell only womenswear at its Yorkdale Mall store, meaning they’d still have to to go online (or trek to Buffalo) for Cape Cod-style basics. Happily, the retailer’s second Toronto location, which opened yesterday in the Eaton Centre, has enough room for a substantial menswear section with a separate entrance. All told, the new store occupies nearly 9,000 square feet, compared to Yorkdale’s 5,000. (Don’t expect the controversial pricing to change, though—the Canadian prices are still marked up over their American counterparts.)
Fresh off the success of his pop-up shop on Ossington (extended three months past its expected close date) and celebrating five years of being in business, designer Philip Sparks is opening his first standalone retail space in an airy former garage just off Ossington on Foxley. Though it looks tiny from the exterior, the space is deceptively large—there’s a hidden downstairs level almost twice the size of the main floor. The shop is replete with the requisite knick-knacks of many new store (and restaurant) openings, like vintage roller skates and typewriters, but these curios actually have some backstory: Sparks has owned one of the typewriters for years (it was actually used to fashion a modified version of his logo signage) and picked up the others over years of visiting flea markets with his partner, Now magazine’s Andrew Sardone. The official opening is this Saturday, with more merchandise for men and women coming in daily (Sparks says it should be fully stocked by the end of March), but the entire collection is not yet in store.
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Of A Kind, 1037 College St. W. (Images: Fraser Abe)
The place: Of A Kind is the latest in a string of openings on College (Virginia Johnson is opening her stand-alone store nearby in the spring and Rob Rossi’s new restaurant, Bestellen, is slated to open soon), and this shop combines vintage clothes with new and vintage vinyl (it’s an upmarket Black Market). It’s the brainchild of Robert Moseley, Storm Luu, Kyle Turner and Tamara Salpeter, all of whom have worked retail across the city. With the requisite exposed brick wall, hand-made display cases (indeed, the only thing in the store not handcrafted are the rolling display racks) and vintage accessories (jewellery displayed on an old sewing machine and a heavy typewriter sitting among the shelves), the decor hits all the notes required of a new store in Toronto. There’s a listening station for the vinyl to try before you buy, but our favourite feature is the adorable store mascot, Turner’s dog Raiden.
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Ben Sherman has many shirts (Image: Fraser Abe)
The place: Near some of Queen Street’s best menswear shops, like Sydney’s and the former location of Klaxon Howl, the brand new Ben Sherman at 734 Queen St. W. is Canada’s first standalone location. Modelled after its Carnaby Street location in London, the 1,780-square-foot shop is decked in subway tile meant to look like a turn-of-the-century London tube station—the space is outfitted with more than 40,000 reclaimed tiles in all, all shipped from England. It’s a refreshing change from the exposed brick and rough hardwood floors found at most other Queen Street stores, and for a bit of fun, the front window features an interactive-display pneumatic rack with an outdoor touch screen that passersby can fiddle with to display their favourite outfit (like Cher Horowitz, but for men with a more heritage bent).
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