Read the rest of this entry »
It’s 4 p.m. on Friday, and you don’t have a dinner reservation. Still, there’s no need to fret (or waste your night waiting for a table). We just called some of the city’s hottest restaurants and found three that can squeeze in two for dinner tonight. Now it’s up to you to get dialing and snag a table before they’re all gone. Today: One, Auberge du Pommier, and Pizzeria Libretto.
All stories relating to Pizzeria Libretto
Friday Night Bites: tables for two at One, Auberge du Pommier and Pizzeria Libretto
Trend We Hate: lineups
Read the rest of this entry »
Ever since the late aughts, when Pizzeria Libretto, The Black Hoof and Guu opened with strict no-reservations policies, lineups have become a normal part of eating out. In a new restaurant’s buzzy first weeks, waits can last three hours (see Electric Mud BBQ). Whether it’s the dead of winter or the dog days of summer, we loathe lining up.
Slurp Noodlefest moves to 99 Sudbury for its second—and final—edition
(Image: Igor Yu)
After a sold-out run at The Great Hall in March, Slurp Noodlefest is returning for a sequel on April 2o at 99 Sudbury. This time, ramen powerhouses Momofuku and Kinton will be serving their novel noodle dishes alongside the likes of Nota Bene, Yours Truly and, oddly, Pizzeria Libretto. Double Trouble Brewery and Chateau Des Charmes are joining Slurp vets Tromba Tequila and Dillon’s Distillery to provide libations. Once again, dishes will run $5–$10, and there’s a $10 entry fee. Ramen fanatics should move fast—the first Slurp sold out, and organizer Suresh Doss has pledged that after this, he’ll be “putting this ramen thing to rest.” Find out more »
Gallery: 30 top Toronto chefs at FoodShare’s annual Recipe for Change fundraiser
The north building at St. Lawrence Market was filled to near-bursting on Thursday as food-loving philanthropists gathered to support FoodShare, a non-profit organization that endeavours bring healthy eating to all Torontonians. Recipe for Change, now in its fourth year, has become one of the city’s pre-eminent foodie fundraisers, with 400 patrons paying $125 to nibble on plates that tended to follow FoodShare’s devoutly seasonal philosophy (root vegetables were everywhere). Among the big name chefs supplying those plates were Aaron Joseph Bear Robe of Keriwa Cafe, Brad Long of Café BeLong, Pizzeria Libretto’s Rocco Agostino and Momofuku Toronto’s Sam Gelman and Hans Vogels. Between the ticket sales and the silent auction, FoodShare raised $42,000 to support its food literacy initiatives—educating Toronto students about not just nutrition but the entire food system, from seedlings to table to compost and back again.
Read the rest of this entry »
The Dish Power Rankings: buzzing diners and taco insurgents
Toronto Life’s weekly assessment of the restaurants with the biggest buzz, the longest lineups and the toughest tables to snag.
The Hoof Raw Bar steals the top spot this week, now that Jen Agg has revived the mega-popular Hoof Café brunch (see last week’s rankings). Over in Parkdale, a new southern Italian restaurant is gaining ground and in The Junction, there’s a new contender for Toronto’s top taco.
Read the rest of this entry »
Trend We Love: wait list–only restaurants that are now taking reservations
The County General now takes lunch reservations (Image: Laurent Hilaire)
No one likes spending hours in the cold waiting for a table at a hot new restaurant. But ever since The Black Hoof opened in 2008, it’s become de rigueur for new spots to spurn reservations in favour of buzz-building lineups out the door. Thankfully, there are signs of change, and some of those very restaurants have now recanted from their earlier ways. We’ve rounded up the most recent places to make the switch below:
Read the rest of this entry »
Pizza wars update: Terroni to open a new bakery
It’s no secret that Toronto’s Neapolitan-style pizza wars have been raging these past few months (and years). Terroni has remained conspicuously silent while Queen Margherita Pizza and Pizzeria Libretto announced multiple new locations and a raft of smaller thin-crust joints opened, but now it’s finally firing back. It’s not opening a new restaurant, however; it’s opening Il Forno del Sud, a bakery adjacent to its original Queen West location. Details are scarce (management declined to comment when we called), but The Grid recently posted the shaky 22-second video embedded above, which shows off the first run of panettone, a Milanese sweet bread. Expect Il Forno to open next spring.
The Month That Was: the Toronto restaurants and bars that opened and closed in November
Santouka Ramen was one of the many ramen shops to open this month (Image: Karolyne Ellacott)
Opening
- Skin and Bones—Daniel Clarke and Harry Wareham, both formerly of Enoteca Sociale and Pizzeria Libretto, have opened the doors to Leslieville’s newest wine bar with chef-nomad Matthew Sullivan (Boxed, Maléna) in the kitchen. Read our Introducing post »
- A-OK Foods—Yes, it’s another spot serving ramen, but this Queen West snack bar is owned by the trio behind Yours Truly and serves house-made ramen noodles. Read our Introducing post »
- Rose and Sons—The first of Anthony Rose’s promised trio of restaurants opened with little fanfare and no liquor licence last week on Dupont. Rose is still tinkering with the menu, offering only brunch and lunch, but he’s launching a full dinner service on December 6. Read our Dish post »
GALLERY: The Stop’s annual What’s on the Table fundraiser brought out Toronto’s top chefs—and their biggest fans
(Image: Jenna Marie Wakani)
For philanthropists with a gourmet bent, What’s on the Table, the big annual fundraiser for The Stop, is kind of a big deal. Every year, a slew of the city’s top chefs come out to support the community food centre and hobnob with some of their biggest fans. The 2012 edition, which took place on Wednesday at the Artscape Wychwood Bars, featured chefs from Beast, Cava, George, GwaiLo, Hooked, Nadège, Noce, Parts and Labour, Paulette’s, Pizzeria Libretto and The Harbord Room, among many others. We spied former mayor David Miller enthusing with Cava’s Chris McDonald over their shared love of Spanish cuisine, and GwaiLo’s Nick Liu politely fending off nosy questions about where his still-not-yet-open restaurant will be located. In the end, after two auctions (one live and one silent), The Stop came away with $270,000 to support their mission of increasing everyone’s access to good, healthy food. The 500-odd donors, meanwhile, left with full bellies and rosy cheeks, having kibitzed with their chef-idols for a few hours.
Read the rest of this entry »
Flavour of the Month: Toronto’s 10 best meatballs
Toronto chefs are making meatballs in every variation known to humankind. Here, 10 spectacular, sloppy spheres. Read the rest of this entry »
Pizzeria Libretto is rumoured to be opening three new locations
Outside Pizzeria Libretto’s Danforth location (Image: Gizelle Lau)
Pizzeria Libretto owner Max Rimaldi recently took to Twitter to stake an even larger claim to Toronto’s ever-growing Neapolitan-style pizza market. Though he came off cagey when we pressed him for details, he did confirm he has plans for three new locations: one in midtown, one in the financial core and another in the west end. (Rimaldi wouldn’t commit to when the new joints were scheduled to open, citing ongoing negotiations.) Queen Margherita Pizza announced in September that it’s opening two new locations of its own, which would give the Libretto rival an edge in terms of sheer quantity of pie shops (three to two!). Rimaldi’s three theoretical joints, plus his existing locations on Ossington and the Danforth, however, put him back on top. Of course, Libretto’s other main competitor, Toronto institution Terroni, is the current bricks-and-mortar champ with three actual restaurants—but no word yet of plans for expansion.
Gallery: Susur Lee, Michael Stadtländer and other notable Toronto chefs prepare soups of all kinds at Soupstock 2012
(Image: Renée Suen)
An estimated 40,000 soup-seeking revellers and 200 chefs traveled to Woodbine Park last weekend to attend Soupstock 2012, the one-day culinary protest festival designed to raise awareness for the fight against the proposed mega-quarry in the Township of Melancthon. Building on the momentum generated from last year’s Foodstock, the Canadian Chef’s Congress and the David Suzuki Foundation convened the weekend’s festivities. Regardless of political affiliation, the sheer magnitude of the event was impressive: it’s a rare occasion that offers that many big-name city chefs (and, for that matter, that much soup).
The latest entrant in the upscale pizza wars: Pizza Pizza?
(Image: Pizza Pizza)
Trends probably shouldn’t cycle this quickly. Only four years after Pizzeria Libretto first opened its doors, setting off a thin-crust craze, Toronto is now awash in Neapolitan-style pizza, with opening after opening after opening (yes, Terroni was there first, and of course there were isolated other places serving the stuff around town). But now things are getting absurd: in a press release, Pizza Pizza just announced it’s launching its own line of thin-crust pizzas. The chain appears to be attempting to punch above its weight, promising them to be “as artisanal and gourmet as what you would find in a high-end dine-in pizza restaurant.” Twelve varieties of pizza have been rolled out, including a conventional Primavera and the somewhat out-there Sweet Chilli Thai, using ingredients that actually sound pretty good: cipolline onions, smoked provolone and roma tomatoes, to name a few. We keenly await the judgement of this city’s pizza-philes.
Queen Margherita Pizza announces a third location—on Dundas West
In what’s amounting to a blitz of Toronto’s Neapolitan pizza scene, Queen Margherita Pizza’s John Chetti has leased a space for yet another new location west of Yonge. This one is at 772 Dundas Street West, just across the street from the recently opened Bent, bringing the total number of open or upcoming QMPs to three (the other west-end location, at Baby Point, was announced last week and is expected to open in October). The new location is only 10 to 15 minutes away from the original locations of the other big Neapolitan chains in the city, Pizzeria Libretto and Terroni, and just west of Pizzeria Via Mercanti, opened earlier this year by QMP exiles. QMP3’s oven may not even be built yet, but the pizza wars are clearly heating up. Expect the new spot to open its doors after the Baby Point location does, as soon as this fall.
West-enders rejoice: Queen Margherita Pizza to open a new Baby Point location soon
(Image: notpeppermint from the Torontolife.com Flickr pool)
John Chetti, co-owner of Leslieville’s Queen Margherita Pizza, has found a west end spot without easy access to Neapolitan pies—and it’s an absence he plans to address when he opens a second QMP restaurant there in October. The new location will be at 785 Annette Street, just east of Jane, and will largely echo its sister location: a high-ceilinged vintage space—a former bank in this case—seating 100-ish people, serving up traditional Neapolitan pizza cooked in a wood-fired oven. Chetti tells us he sees parallels between Baby Point and Leslieville, both up-and-coming neighbourhoods in need of a good restaurant or two. He’s also apparently working on bringing in a chef he describes as “a huge name in the industry”—which will surely set off the next round of thin-crust wars in Toronto. After all, Pizzeria Libretto made a mirror-image west-to-east move last fall.
.JPG){kind=link}