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Latest Toronto Restaurant Blog Posts
Carter and Burns Plan Three-Night Party
Tue, 04/17/2012 - 09:14
A massive dining event looms large on the Toronto restaurant horizon, with the mystery surrounding its tantalizing details every bit as big as the anticipation.
Jay Carter and Daniel Burns are triple-A-list chefs whose professional backgrounds read like wish lists for mooning wannabes. Carter is fresh off a much-lauded executive chef stint at mega-restaurant Centro, and before that he was the lead guy in Susur Lee’s King St. tapas joint, Lee.
Burns’s recent gigs include cooking at Michelin-star-bedecked St. John and The Fat Duck, both regular recipients of best-of awards, internationally and in their native England. He also worked at Noma in Copenhagen — voted number-one in the world in 2010 on the prestigious San Pellegrino’s World’s 50 Best Restaurants list — and oversaw the Momofuku food lab in New York. ...more
Culinary Competition Discovers Finalists
Thu, 03/08/2012 - 10:33
The Discovered Culinary Competition is wending its way to the final runway, with the 12th-round winner being crowned this week, and the finals poised to take centre stage in early March.
The Discovered Culinary Competition is a four-month search for the best of Canada’s emerging culinary stars. The contest is a creative one that pits rival chefs against one another in a bid to earn bragging rights and the stunning opportunity to train at a two-Michelin-star restaurant in sunny Spain.
Sponsored by Discover, Nella Cucina and the CRFA (Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association) Show, the competition began on November 21 and has run every Monday since. The challenge revolves around a mystery box, the contents of which comprise the sole ingredients from which four competing chefs must devise an appetizer, entrée and dessert. And do so inside the constraints of a ticking clock and before the unnerving presence of a celebrity-studded judging panel....more
Sampler Platter
Wed, 02/15/2012 - 15:04
It’s been a spiced and steamy February in Toronto's restaurant scene so far, with several helpings of hearty happenings. A taste:
• With the looming closure of Bistro 990, Toronto is poised to lose another of its culinary institutions. For years after Bistro 990 opened in 1986, this trendsetter enjoyed a reputation as a see-and-be-seen Yorkville must-visit, where serious partiers gathered, particularly in and around TIFF. Among its list of regulars find Garth Drabinsky, Jeanne Beker and Conrad Black, but the guest list expanded often to accommodate both Hollywood luminaries and their ardent stargazers. Bistro 990 has been sold to make way for a 400-unit condo complex.
• The Fairmont Royal York has signed Collin Thornton to its executive chef post. Fresh from the same position at The Fairmont Orchid, located on the somewhat more exotic than TO Kohala Coast in Hawaii, Thornton will oversee a team of more than 100 culinary professionals in the largest hotel kitchen in Canada....more
The Real Jerk Granted a Reprieve
Thu, 02/02/2012 - 12:40
Considering what a right neighbourly joint The Real Jerk is, the treatment the place has received over the past month has been anything but. During this past Christmas break, merciless new landlords issued an eviction notice to the longstanding institution, demanding vacancy by the end of the month. The building has been sold, they told the stunned Toronto restaurateurs, and the new owners were keen to get started on converting the property into condos.
And so it is that February dawned without the reassuring knowledge that this Riverside establishment, a treasured part of the landscape for, lo, these past 29 years, would still be around. A last-minute victory, however, has secured its current-location existence for a bit longer. ...more