Toronto is undergoing an oyster renaissance thanks to a gaggle of new seafood spots. Here, the top five tastes on the half-shell.
All stories relating to Susur Lee
Susur Lee splits with his restaurant in Washington, D.C.
The bar at Zentan (Image: John Taylor)
Toronto celeb chef Susur Lee is parting with Zentan, his modern Asian restaurant in Washington, D.C.’s Donovan House hotel, only two-and-a-half years after it opened. Kimpton Hotels took over the property last year and decided to shift the restaurant’s focus from Lee’s signature fusion cuisine to sushi and yakitori (both sides emphasize the split is a “mutual agreement”). The move comes over a year after Lee closed Shang, his restaurant in the Thompson Hotel on New York’s Lower East Side (before it shut he complained New Yorkers were insufficiently adventurous diners). That leaves Lee, Bent and Singapore’s Chinois as the extent of his culinary empire.
The scraps, stunts and multi-million-dollar investments behind Charles Khabouth’s empire of cool
Life is one never-ending, exclusive party in Charles Khabouth’s 17 faddish restaurants and nightclubs.
It costs $750 (i.e., a three-bottle minimum) to sit down in Khabouth’s new Adelaide West nightclub, Uniun
For those of you who have never been to Uniun, the latest addition to Toronto’s dance club scene, here are some of the things you will notice should you go. Though Uniun’s address is nominally 473 Adelaide West, if you actually stand at the corner of Adelaide and Portland you will not see the entrance: to find it, you have to cut through a small parking lot and then walk up a dark alley, at which point you will find a pair of bouncers manning a black velvet cordon.
Alternalicious: a roundup of Winterlicious 2013’s prix fix rebels
Bent’s braised spiced short ribs, one of the critic-endorsed picks on their Susurlicious menu (Image: Karolyne Ellacott)
Winterlicious can be a double-edged sword for diners. Yes, there’s the prospect of great deals that you’d never get otherwise—except during Summerlicious—but the crowds are thick, the servers are frazzled and the ’licious menu doesn’t always measure up to the usual fare. For years, some restaurants have opted to keep the deals but skip the chaos, responding to Winterlicious with prix fixes of their own. We’ve rounded up the best of them below.
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Year in Review: 2012’s biggest food trends, from the shadow return of fusion to the reign of ramen
Taste moves in waves: one year tall food is on every menu in town, and the next year, it’s a half-forgotten embarrassment. Sometimes, though, those embarrassments come back in a new guise. This year saw the quiet return of certain tendencies that we thought were long-buried, like fusion cuisine and wine bars, as well as the full-blown emergence of others that were bubbling away just below the surface, like tacos and, of course, ramen. Below, a roundup of what was hot in 2012.
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The insider dish on Soho House: who made the cut and who didn’t at the city’s new, exclusive private club
Soho House, the exclusive London-based members’ club, has gambled $8 million on a Simcoe Street outpost that’s the surest place in Toronto to bump into celebs
On Wednesday, July 25, a group of 30 people gathered for a secret meeting in the boardroom of a nondescript office building on Adelaide West. Among them were the heiress Trinity Jackman, indie record exec Jeff Remedios, TIFF artistic director Cameron Bailey, interior designer Anwar Mukhayesh, Sony Music president Shane Carter and the society queen bee Ashleigh Dempster. Together they represented a cross-section of the city’s new establishment—a group that had been carefully corralled by the organizers of the London-based Soho House to help decide who deserved to be a founding member of the private club’s new Toronto outpost.
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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 Weekender: Soupstock, Cat Power and six other events on our to-do list
The Normal Heart returns to Buddies in Bad Times this week (Image: John Karastamatis)
1. SOUPSTOCK
In the wake of last year’s wildly successful Foodstock, over 200 chefs from across Canada—among them, Susur Lee, Anthony Walsh, J.P. Challet and Jamie Kennedy, Aaron Joseph Bear Robe and just about every other famous Toronto chef you’ve ever heard of—are gathering, spoon held high, at Woodbine Park to protest the Melancthon Mega-Quarry. The event is BYOBAS (bring your own bowl and spoon) and will take place rain or shine, so come prepared—though a poncho might be a good idea anyway if you’re prone to spills. All funds go to the Canadian Chefs’ Congress and the David Suzuki Foundation. October 21. $10 for 3 servings. Woodbine Park, Lake Shore Blvd. E. and Coxwell Ave., soupstock.ca
Susur Lee goes all Jamie Oliver with new TDSB cafeteria initiative
Lee’s own sons went to public school, and were thus exposed to the wonders of TDSB cafeterias (Image: Karoylne Ellacott)
Last year, the Toronto District School Board closed 32 of its cafeterias after the province set stricter guidelines about serving healthy food in schools, sending unimpressed students scurrying off-campus for lunch. Now the board has brought in Susur Lee, fresh off the opening of Bent, to help “spice up” the cafeteria’s menus, as the Toronto Star puts it. “Back in Asia, it’s all about variety,” Lee, who never had the pleasure of eating his way through a Canadian education, told Here and Now. “A lot of vegetables, great seasonal stuff. What I see [here] is very stale. People don’t have creativity.” The hope is that Lee’s celeb-chef status and television fame will help get students engaged with more creative menus (which will also be more healthy than the pizza and french fries that are part of a balanced teenaged diet). The board has begun a student consultation process on students’ home turf (i.e., Facebook and Twitter) to determine what they’d like to eat. (We’re not sure that this Skittles burger will make the cut, but it’s pretty neat, regardless.) [Toronto Star]
The Month That Was: The Toronto restaurants and bars that opened and closed in August
Bent, the new restaurant from Susur Lee and his sons (Image: Karolyne Ellacott)
Openings
- Bent—Susur Lee’s sons Kai and Levi Bent-Lee take a stab at the restaurant business as they helm Bent, but the rest of the family isn’t too far away: Susur runs the kitchen, while their mother, Brenda Bent-Lee, is responsible for the restaurant’s design. Read our Introducing post »
- The Food Dudes’ Food Truck—Adrian Niman (of The Food Dudes catering company, and formerly of North 44) ventures out into the world of food trucks to bring “food-driven entertainment” to dudes and, uh, everyone else too. Read our Introducing post »
- Museum Tavern—An incredibly well-stocked ode to the great American bar has opened up across from the ROM. Read our Introducing post »
- Sanagan’s Meat Locker—One deli replaces another in Kensington Market, as Sanagan’s takes over the old locale of European Quality Meats and Sausages (Hooked will be moving into the recently vacated Sanagan’s space). Read our Introducing post »
Introducing: Bent, the new Dundas West restaurant from Susur Lee’s sons Kai and Levi Bent-Lee
(Image: Karolyne Ellacott)
After a long wait and swirling rumours, Bent, the new Dundas West restaurant from the Bent-Lee clan, has finally—and quietly—opened. While we originally reported that the spot was due to open last December, in a tale as old as restaurant-industry time itself, things didn’t happen quite as swiftly as originally envisioned. Kai and Levi Bent-Lee have taken the restaurant’s reins, though the place remains a family affair, with Susur Lee in charge of the kitchen and Brenda Bent-Lee behind the space’s unique design.
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Q&A: Levi Bent-Lee, the man behind Bent and the son of super-chef Susur Lee
Levi Bent-Lee is opening his first restaurant, Bent, at Dundas and Bathurst. His dad will run the kitchen. Things could get complicated
(Image: Mark Peckmezian)
You’re 22. What qualifies you to open a restaurant?
I essentially grew up in a restaurant, and my father has taught me so much. I’ve travelled to Japan, Bali, Hong Kong, mainland China, Macau and Singapore, and all over Europe and the U.S. I’ve eaten some crazy stuff: turtle, pig snout, fish sperm. That one was gross. You eat it with soy sauce.
I assume it won’t be on the menu at your restaurant. What will be?
There will be a raw bar in the front for ceviche and Japanese crudo, and a hot kitchen in the back. I’ll run operations, my younger brother Kai will run the bar, and my dad will run the kitchen.
Your dad is famously untamable. If he’s late for work, will you give him hell? Read the rest of this entry »
My dad is late all the time, but somehow, he always has a good excuse for it. Even if he’s just been sleeping, it’s because he works so friggin’ hard and deserves that sleep.
These Booths Were Made for Gawking: who sits where at La Société
The cuisine is supremely so-so, but the glitzy atmosphere and A-plus people-watching at La Société—the crown jewel of Toronto’s see-and-be-seen scene—more than make up for it. Here, the inside scoop on who sits where.
Rawlicious to open new location in…Soho?
Rawlicious’ clever culinary masquerade is heading south to New York later this month. Thanks to an enthusiastic vegan father-son duo visiting from New York, co-owners of Rawlicious Chelsea Clark and Angus Crawford were convinced to set up a branch in NYC’s Soho, which according to Grub Street will be a 60-seat café open from 11 to 11 daily. The last time a Toronto restaurant set foot in the Big Apple, of course, the results were not so positive. In an interview with the Sun after his failed attempt at expansion there, Susur Lee warned: “New York is always difficult….They are more traditional than we think.” And while Rawlicious’ lack of gluten, dairy and sugar might not appeal to all tastes, we figure that in such a trendy, body-conscious neighbourhood, the health factor will probably go over well. [Grub Street]
Some of the tastes—and sights—at last weekend’s 1,000 Tastes of Toronto
The crowds came out in force for this year’s 1,000 Tastes of Toronto (Image: Igor Yu)
Luminato’s always-popular 1,000 Tastes of Toronto food festival returned to the Distillery over the weekend, heading back to its original location after stints along Queen’s Quay and John Street. Meant to be a celebration of the diversity of Toronto’s food scene, it featured 33 restaurants and shops whose offerings ranged from shrimp po’ boys to brick-oven pizza, all redeemable for $5 tickets. We stopped by on Sunday to check out the action.
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