Where Chefs Eat is a new 633-page collection of answers to a very simple question: where to go for a good meal? Those answers are from some 400 of the world’s top chefs, including Ferran Adria, Daniel Boulud, David Chang, Fergus Henderson and Rene Redzepi, as well as Toronto chefs Michael Steh, formerly of Reds, and Claudio Aprile, chef and owner of Colborne Lane and Origin. The guidebook is edited by Guardian critic Joe Warwick, who also co-founded the World’s 50 Best Restaurants awards. It’s not only an inventory of the flashy big-name places in a city, but also of regular neighbourhood and cheap eats spots. There’s even a category for places the chefs wish they opened. We flipped through the tome to pull out the 15 restaurants in and around Toronto recommended by the world’s top chefs.
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The 15 Toronto restaurants recommended in Where Chefs Eat, a new culinary guidebook
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.
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.
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.
These are the top 10 most-Yelped restaurants in Toronto
The Stockyards ranked number two in the list of Toronto’s most-Yelped restaurants (Image: Evan Goldenberg)
Since 2004, Yelp, that great leveller of food criticism, has been empowering ordinary diners and frustrating professional critics and restaurateurs in equal measure. Earlier this week, they announced the results of a little data mining, which revealed that Vancouver was the city with the most Yelp check-ins (Toronto ranked second) and that Guu, on Church Street, was the most photographed spot in Toronto (Vancouverites, those outdoorsy types, preferred to shoot their oh-so-lovely Stanley Park). They also revealed that Ossington’s Pizzeria Libretto, with its ever-long lineups, is the most Yelped (i.e. most-reviewed) spot in town (it currently has 207 reviews and a four-star rating). We thought we’d ask what the next nine most Yelped places were, and the good people there were happy to oblige. Below, the full list of restaurants and bars, with more than a few surprises:
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SPOTTED: Jake Gyllenhaal at Terroni (again!)
Jake Gyllenhaal at Terroni (Image: Instagram)
We’re starting to think Jake Gyllenhaal really, really loves his Italian food, and it’s becoming quite clear that his favourite restaurant in Toronto is Terroni. He was there last night, on June 23, on a date with K’naan earlier this month and there have also been other reports that he’s been there during his month-long stay in the city while filming An Enemy. Molto bene!
Introducing: Ursa, a new Queen West restaurant serving modern Canadian cuisine (that’s secretly good for you too)
Inside the sleek space that used to house Bar One (Image: Meaghan Binstock)
Back in July, the owners of Trinity-Bellwoods staple Bar One announced they were shutting its doors after an 11-year run. Six months and one gut job later, the dramatically transformed space, complete with sleek burned wood panelling and constellations of bare hanging bulbs, has reopened as Ursa, with brothers and first-time owners Jacob and Lucas Sharkey-Pearce at the helm. Jacob, the executive chef, is no stranger to the industry, with a pedigree that includes Thuet Bistro, Centro and the Windsor Arms Hotel. And while Cosimo Mammoliti of Terroni fame is the restaurant’s third (and mostly silent) partner, the menu is almost the exact opposite of that chain’s carb-heavy Southern Italian comfort food (the brothers started off as teenage employees at the Queen Street location).
Introducing: The Combine Eatery, the new place for fish tacos on the Danforth
Outside the new southwestern restaurant (Image: Karolyne Ellacott)
The Combine Eatery, a new southwestern comfort food spot started by siblings Albert and Amy Chan, stands out from the slew of Greek eateries along the Danforth strip. Amy’s background in fashion frequently led her to San Diego, where she quickly took to gobbling up fish tacos during her downtime, which was the starting point for the restaurant.
The List: 10 things restaurateur and Top Chef Canada judge Shereen Arazm can’t live without
My ciccio fix
Terroni founder Cosimo Mammoliti invented the ciccio, the world’s best sandwich: prosciutto, bocconcini and arugula folded into pizza crust. When I opened my own Terroni in L.A., I made sure it was on the menu.
My shades
My eyes are sensitive to light, so I keep sunglasses everywhere. My favourites are polarized Ray-Bans with tortoiseshell frames. I think I had the same ones in the ’80s.
My ultimate comfort food
There’s nothing like my mom’s chocolate cake anywhere. She makes it for me every year on my birthday.
My dad’s rug Read the rest of this entry »
When he was 14, my dad left Iran to go to school in Europe. He rolled up this small rug and carried it on top of his backpack to bring a piece of home with him. Then he brought it to Canada and I brought it to the U.S. Right now it’s at the door to my daughter’s bedroom.
Q&A with Hemant Bhagwani: the Amaya co-owner on building his Indian restaurant empire
Although the recession is officially over, its effects—shuttered doors and restaurants offering humbler, more comfort-driven cuisine—can still be seen on Toronto’s culinary landscape. So we were a bit surprised when we heard the news that the Amaya Group is set to open yet another outpost next month, this time on Ossington. With even further expansion ahead, we asked Amaya co-owner Hemant Bhagwani about the secrets to his success and the future of the empire.
The sipper club: meet the city’s competitive cabal of top sommeliers
Will Predhomme belongs to a competitive cabal of top sommeliers who sniff, sip and spit their way through hundreds of bottles a week. They do this to help you decide what to drink with your dinner, while making you think it was your idea all along
One hundred and fifty-one people have reservations at Canoe tonight. Among these are many Bay Streeters, a couple celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary, dozens of people on dates, including the bar manager from Crush, and a young woman who plans to propose to her boyfriend over dinner. The two private dining rooms are fully booked.
Canoe, part of the ever-expanding Oliver and Bonacini empire, is routinely considered one of the finest restaurants in the city. Last summer, in a rigorous competition held by the Canadian Association of Professional Sommeliers, known as CAPS, Canoe’s head sommelier, Will Predhomme, was proclaimed Ontario’s best. Predhomme has devoted a third of his life—he’s 29—to wine scholarship. He now knows more about wine than almost anyone in Toronto.
Just after 5 p.m., the bar area begins to fill up with commuters sipping cocktails as they wait for the traffic on the clogged Gardiner, 54 floors below, to dissipate. One of the restaurant’s first guests, a retired trial lawyer, arrives. As a young female host escorts him to his large corner table, he puts an arm around her shoulder. “I don’t like to pay bills,” he says. “I want a fucking account. Last time I was here, I offered those ladies”—referring to the hosts who greeted him at his last visit—“$300 and told them to set up an account for me. And I still don’t have one.” He and his three dining companions, Canoe regulars, have brought in several bottles of their own wine, including a cabernet franc from the ex-lawyer’s private vineyard in Tuscany. When Predhomme arrives at the table to discuss the wine, the ex-lawyer, captivatingly bratty in a way that only the rich and sort-of-powerful can be, repeats his complaint. “Look, I spend about $50,000 a year at Bymark, and I’d do the same here if I had a fucking account.” Predhomme is unmoved, but gracious. “If you give me your contact information,” he says, “I’ll make sure that it gets to the right people.”
“You’ll get me an account?”
“I’ll look into it.”
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Introducing: Fanny Chadwick’s, a friendly new diner in a familiar Annex spot
Fanny Chadwick’s owners Leanne Martineau and Sarah Baxter (Image: Gizelle Lau)
For years, the house-turned-restaurant at the corner of Dupont and Howland has been something of a neighbourhood eyesore, a reminder to longtime Annex locals of the site’s heyday as Angelo’s Diner. When the most recent tenant, AAA Chinese, shut down, Leanne Martineau (Terroni, Senses) and Sarah Baxter (The Feathers), both Annex residents and 20-year food-industry veterans, decided to bring the old diner back to life. One year and half a million dollars in renovations later, this corner house has been transformed into Fanny Chadwick’s, a neighbourhood diner named after a 19th-century Annex playwright (the chapel at Royal St. George’s College features a stained glass window dedicated to her).
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Introducing Parkette: Italian comfort food, Trinity Bellwoods style
(Image: Davida Aronovitch)
Aptly named for its proximity to Trinity Bellwoods, Parkette is yet another new, rustic Italian outpost, this time only a couple blocks away from Terroni, which, arguably, launched the trend in Toronto. Cheery and warm, the 30-seat space features sandy blond woods, exposed brick, a playful park bench banquette in classic picnic green and a kitschy vintage Coca-Cola sign.
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Frisky Business: Chris Nuttall-Smith takes on Mark McEwan’s Fabbrica
Bling king Mark McEwan has abandoned his usual opulence with Fabbrica. It’s loud, lusty and the one thing elite chefs tend to forget: fun
(Image: Vanessa Heins)
After four hit restaurants, two television shows, one catering company, one high-end grocery emporium and 26 years as a hospitality magnate (plus another 10 as a mere chef before that), Mark McEwan has his formula down. The chef mixes knowing, professional service with French-Italian food that’s expertly prepared, exorbitantly priced and touched with just enough exoticisms (chipotle-yuzu aïoli, “laughing bird” shrimp, “illokai,” which lesser places just call passion fruit) to keep it all safely au courant. McEwan’s not a businessman; he’s a business, man—a consistent, constantly expanding luxury brand in a time when luxury was supposed to have been given up for dead. The feel of his places is exclusive and timeless, but in that late-’90s way, where the design is spare, the market is always rising, and Thievery Corporation—those turn-of-the-century masters of inoffensive and vaguely international electro-pop—plays in the background to keep things light. Read the rest of this entry »
