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Name: Carmen
Neighbourhood: Trinity-Bellwoods
Contact info: 922 Queen St. W., 416-535-0404, carmensayz.com, @carmensayz
Owners: Veronica Carmen Laudes and Luis Valenzuela, both of Kensington Market’s Torito
Chef: Luis Valenzuela
The food: Traditional Spanish tapas like patatas bravas ($7) as well as more modern creations like little bites of puréed avocado wrapped in jicama ($6).
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(Image: Megan Leahy)
Last weekend, Richard Andino, a chef with 22 years experience in Toronto’s restaurant scene, opened Dyne in Maléna’s old space at Av and Dav. His menu draws from the cuisine of Spain, Portugal and the Philippines, but the item that’s gotten the most attention to date is the over-the-top Chef’s Last Meal ($325), which comes with a 34-ounce bone-in rib-eye, fingerling and bone marrow mash, chili-garlic egg rice, butter poached lobster and two pieces of foie gras, an ingredient Andino heartily endorses.
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(Image: Gizelle Lau)
Patria is the latest collaboration between Hanif Harji and Charles Khabouth, the pair who opened Weslodge this summer (Patria is located just down the alleyway). The concept: authentic Spanish food—a cuisine they point out is notably underrepresented in Toronto—with plenty of imported products and wine. While the food may be rustic, the Commute Home–designed room is anything but, with three edgy portraits of a Spanish woman at the entrance and, along a wall, a row of stamped meat cleavers that spell out “full stomach, happy heart” in Spanish. Most eye-catching of all is the giant rose-and-diamond cross-stitch art installation covering an image of a flamenco dancer, which took 485 hours and 17,109 stitches to make (all documented in this time-lapse video).
I recently spent an evening with my cousin pouring over-the-hill wine down the sink, about 10 bottles in all. We tasted each one first. The New World reds were cooked into a raisiny, composty glop. The higher-acid Euro and Canadian wines, including a cheap 1981 Bordeaux, were dried out. I pronounced them all deceased. The cull cleared my cousin’s wine rack of special occasion bottles she’d been given over the years. Being sentimental, she couldn’t bear to drink them, even though most were under $20 and never meant to age. There is no sure-fire formula for selecting age-worthy wines. However, buying more expensive and concentrated wines will help—the more full bodied a wine, the longer it will keep. That means cabernet sauvignon and its Bordeaux-style blends, syrah and its Rhône family and many native varieties from Italy, Spain and Portugal are good bets. Your job is to be adventurous and willing to open them. Wine is made to be enjoyed, not hoarded.
Hispanic Fiesta Spanish-speaking Toronto’s big, dance-filled blast comes complete with food, arts and crafts, and more than 300 performers channelling some 20 countries in Europe and the Americas. Find out more »
A look from the brand’s fall 2012 campaign (Image: Massimo Dutti)
Ladies and gents looking for urban professional attire can now add Spanish retailer Massimo Dutti (owned by the same parent company as fast-fashion clothier Zara) to their list. The brand has stores in over 50 countries and is set to launch a trio of North American outposts this fall, including a store in the Eaton Centre that will open August 30 (the other two stores will be located in New York and Washington D.C.). Massimo Dutti produces men’s, women’s and children’s attire at a price point a bit higher than Zara (women’s jackets start at around $155, men’s shirts around $85), and it’s known for its tailored garments and made-to-order shoes.
Farmer’s market season has arrived (Image: Kevin Ho)
Monday, July 2
Andoni Luis Aduriz (Image: Renée Suen)
Widely hailed as one of Ferran Adrià’s most talented protégés, Andoni Luis Aduriz, chef and owner of Mugaritz, on the southern outskirts of San Sebastián, Spain, is at the forefront of some of the culinary world’s most innovative techniques and dishes. He also runs the third-best restaurant in the world. Mugaritz serves avant-garde cuisine that often upends traditional understandings of food, and is heralded by chefs and culinary enthusiasts worldwide. Diners are told to expect the unexpected—from edible stones to chocolate nails—and interact with ingredients sourced from varied and unusual suppliers in an unfamiliar way. Aduriz stopped by Toronto recently to promote his new cookbook, Mugaritz: A Natural Science of Cooking, which was released last month. We had a chance to speak with the chef about the cost of being original, his inspirations and motivations and the impact that awards and recognition have had on his success.
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This is what the Storys building looked like as Soho House (Image: Gizelle Lau)
Last fall, Charles Khabouth (La Société, Cube) and Hanif Harji (ex-Kultura, Nyood) promised to combine their restaurateuring powers and start up a new culinary venture or three. One place, Storys, housed in the four-level complex on Duncan Street which hosted Grey Goose Soho House during TIFF, is something of a blank slate at the moment, but will eventually include a restaurant and cocktail bar, along with copious event space. For the next three days, however, Khabouth and Harji, along with chef Stuart Cameron, are hosting a three-day pop-up in the building, where they’ll be serving “an exquisite selection of innovative dishes that expand on Spain’s uncomplicated approach to fresh, seasonal, savoury food.” The tapas menu will include jamón ibérico, and there will be plenty of wine and cocktails as well. Seating is first-come, first-served, and we’d expect lineups. The pair’s other new ventures—Spanish restaurant Patria and “modern saloon” Weslodge, both on King West—are slated to open this summer. [Storysbuilding.com]
The triumphant Noma crew, with bearded chef René Redzepi in the middle (Image: World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2012 sponsored by S.Pellegrino and Acqua Panna)
Let the ritual speculation and recrimination commence. Once again, no restaurants from Canada made it to the list of the world’s 50 best restaurants, as compiled by Restaurant magazine (and sponsored, conspicuously, by S. Pellegrino). And just like last year—but unlike 2010—no Canadian restaurants made it to the consolation prize list of numbers 51-100. Is it because Canadian cooking is insufficiently ambitious? Perhaps there’s too much plaid and reclaimed wood in our dining rooms. Or maybe the 800+ judges just aren’t familiar enough with this country’s food? Or perhaps—to get all conspiracy-theory on this—the top end Canadian restaurants don’t serve enough S. Pellegrino (yes, some Canadian chefs offer this as a reason for this country’s absence on the annual list).
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Charles Khabouth at his newest restaurant, La Société (Image: Gizelle Lau)
A few months back, we reported that restaurateur and nightlife impresario Charles Khabouth was planning to open two new restaurants on King Street West. Over the weekend, we found out that Khabouth has partnered with Hanif Harji to make a run on the neighbourhood with a handful of projects.
Milagro’s ceviche de pulpo (Image: Renée Suen)
Sushi, the star of a previous edition of our Food Porn series, is far from the only raw fish game in town. Ceviche, the Latin American standby that relies on acid from citrus fruits to cure fresh fish, bivalves or cephalopods, is also well represented. While some Toronto chefs stick to tried-and-true preparations for “cooking” their catch, others transform the already magical dish—believed to have originated in Peru—with surprising inventions. Either way, we recommend enjoying with a cold beer. Here, 10 of the city’s most delicious and alluring ceviche dishes.
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SPARKLING
Langa Hermanos Reyes De Aragón 2007 Brut Reserva Cava $13.95
This classic Spanish cava, with a complex nose of almond, green olive, cedar and chalk minerality, is priced to make cork-popping a daily habit.
Vintages. LCBO 194803
WHITE
RED
Take a culinary world tour during lunch. Point of departure: Claudio Aprile’s latest restaurant
Wokked and fried calamari with caramelized chili-peanut sauce
The place: Claudio Aprile’s three-month-old hot spot is just around the corner from his first establishment, Colborne Lane, but in terms of approach and price, the two restaurants are worlds apart. Origin’s small-plates menu spans the globe, taking inspiration from Asia, Europe and South America. An industrial chic aesthetic with a touch of whimsy dominates the interior (check out the elaborate monster toy light fixture above one table), but the sizable patio offers a bright, panoramic view of King and Church as the clock tower at St. James Cathedral counts down what’s left of the lunch hour.
The crowd: Amped-up financial talk swirls around the tables as Bay Streeters decompress, but that all stops once the food arrives—it’s that good.
The deal: Sure, there’s a combo (beef burger, Spanish fries, cream soda float, $29), but we recommend rounding up a large number of co-workers and sharing as many of the small dishes as possible.
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