Toronto the Good

 fig. a:  Tonto prays for poor Toronto

Poor Toronto.  It's spent decades trying to shake its reputation as "Toronto the Good," a city whose identity was primarily perceived as being strait-laced, upright, and, frankly, uptight--the capital of those dreaded "têtes carrées."  For ages, it's also endured the resentment of the rest of Canada over its wealth, power, and success, and has been ridiculed mercilessly for having the nerve to consider itself the economic and/or cultural capital of the nation.  It's home to an Original Six hockey team that's made its fans suffer since the end of the Original Six era (in spite of the city's wealth and power).  And then there's all that ongoing nonsense with the Mayor's Office.

But, you know what?  I've always thought Toronto is a pretty funky town, with some truly impressive architecture.

 fig. b:  Toronto the Great

And, regardless of all the haters with their darts and arrows, Toronto just keeps steaming along.  In fact, in many areas (but certainly not all) things have never been better.

Take the city's food culture, for instance.  In this department, from restaurants to bars, to microbreweries, markets, and purveyors of all sorts, the city seems more and more like "Toronto the Great" to me every time I visit.

Tastemakers like David Chang lament the fact that Toronto has "yet to produce any truly world-class restaurants," but I couldn't care less about any of that San Pellegrino business, and what I see is a city that has become remarkably assertive when it comes to food and drink in a very short period of time, a city that's become a true contender.

A recent trip turned up these observations:

Kensington Market

 fig. c:  Kensington Market

Seven Lives serves excellent San Diego-style tacos and refreshing agua frescas out of a tiny storefront on Kensington Avenue.  Their signature taco is their Gobernador, and it boldly goes places no taco I've ever had before has gone, combining shrimp, smoked marlin, and cheese into an experience that's both mind-bending and mouth-watering.  It's something about the sweet juiciness of the shrimp, the almost meaty smokiness of the marlin, and the loving caress of the cheese.  If it sounds strange to you, get over it.  The Gobernador is the only taco that Seven Lives has immortalized in paint on their front window, and you can understand why--they know it's a hit.

(Note:  Seven Lives' tacos are overstuffed and an excellent value for the money.  Just one makes for a pretty decent (small) meal.)

Sanagan's Meat Locker, on Baldwin Street, is the best butcher shop/charcuterie I've encountered in Hogtown Canada.  The SML experience is comparable to Fleisher's, and that's high praise in my book.  Their meat is carefully sourced, clearly labeled, and very fairly priced, and their staff is knowledgeable, enthusiastic, and friendly.  Their selection of charcuterie is impressive.  And their kitchen is turning out fantastic sandwiches, salads, and other meals-to-go.  They also stock a great selection of locally manufactured fine food products (breads, condiments, etc.).  I picked up a honking, beautifully marbled 12-lb skin-on, bone-in Mennonite pork shoulder for just over $40 on my last day in town and turned it into some divine barbecue the next day, back in Montreal.

Fika is a tastefully appointed Swedish café on Kensington Avenue.  They make a delicious iced coffee with cardamom and mint leaves.

Queen Street West


 fig. d:  Grand Electric

Grand Electric is another new-school Toronto taco joint that's more of a restaurant (a lot more) and less of a stand than Seven Lives, and that also features a full bar with a stunning selection of bourbons and some pretty great beers (like Negra Modelo).  All my tacos (crispy cauliflower, spicy chicken) were great (they're smaller here than at Seven Lives, so I ordered three), but my absolute favourite was the Baja fish, which was both generous (featuring a large piece of flaky, beautifully deep-fried fish) and ridiculously delicious.

The same folks also run a BBQ joint called Electric Mud, right around the corner on Brock Avenue, but I ran out of time and never made it there.  Next time!

Oyster Boy has been a Toronto institution for over 20 years--first as a supplier/caterer and then as a bricks-and-mortar restaurant (since 2001).  The oysters are plentiful, they come from some of the top oyster producers in Canada and the States, and they're expertly shucked and served with all the condiments one might want.  The rest of the menu is exactly what you're looking for in an oyster shack, and all you could dream of in a seafood restaurant that's so far from the ocean.  Our party split a selection of oysters on the half shell, and I had a salad and an oyster po' boy and I was thrilled.

Chantecler is another Parkdale restaurant (just a couple doors down from Grand Electric) that specializes in Asian lettuce wraps.  I really liked my Pork Special Wrap, with dried oysters, toasty seaweed, and puffed rice, but I absolutely loved my Fancy Wings, which came with fried garlic and shallots, and my Kale Salad, which featured the unlikely combination of oyster mushrooms, apples, and seaweed, but was truly fantastic--the best kale salad I've ever tasted.

I've heard rumours that Chantecler runs a tasting menu operation somewhere behind the scenes of their restaurant--Roberta's-style--but I didn't find out about it until I'd gotten back to Montreal.  Definitely sounds intriguing...

Ossington Avenue

Bar Isabel on College Street, just a block and a half from Ossington, is a highly rated Spanish restaurant that specializes in tapas, wine, and cocktails.  We placed our focus on tapas and bar snacks, and everything we had was exceptional, including the sardines, the boquerones, the patatas bravas, and the grilled asparagus.  I highly recommend eating at the bar, if you're dining solo or if you're a party of two--the staff there were friendly and highly attentive, and it's fun to watch them mix their expertly crafted cocktails.

(Note:  It can be very hard to get a reservation at Bar Isabel because of its reputation and its popularity, but if you show up just before they open, at 6:00 p.m., and there are just one or two of you, you can usually get a seat at the bar.)

If the idea of opening a "Paris, 1900"-style butcher shop* on a gentrified stretch of Ossington in 21st-century Toronto sounds absurd to you, you might scoff at Côte de Boeuf, but it would be a shame if you did, because you'd miss out on some of the city's best meat, cheese, eggs, milk, and other fine foods.  They also make some pretty impressive sandwiches.

Libretto wasn't new to me, and perhaps because of that, I found utterly impossible to miss out on one of their Neapolitan pizza pies.  In fact, I'd just eaten about an hour before and I wasn't even hungry, but it was after 9:00 p.m., and I could see that things had died down inside the restaurant, so I popped in and ordered a pizza-to-go "for later."  Who was I kidding?  I ducked down a side street seconds after picking up my order, and ate half the pizza right there, standing up, pizza box resting on someone's fence.  The other half I saved for later.  One quarter ended up being a midnight snack.  The last quarter was eaten for breakfast.

I guess I just had to make sure their pizzas were as good as I remembered them being.  Don't miss out on their homemade spicy chile oil.

411:

Seven Lives, 69 Kensington Avenue (Kensington Market), (416) 666-6666

Sanagan's Meat Locker, 176 Baldwin Avenue (Kensington Market), (416) 593-9747

Fika, 28 Kensington Avenue (Kensington Market)

Grand Electric, 1330 Queen Street West (Parkdale), (416) 627-3459

Oyster Boy, 872 Queen Street West (Trinity-Bellwoods), (416) 534-3432

Chantecler, 1320 Queen Street West (Parkdale), (416) 628-3586

Bar Isabel, 797 College Street (Little Italy/Ossington), (416) 532-2222

Côte de Boeuf, 130 Ossington Avenue (Little Portugal/Ossington), (416) 532-BEEF

Libretto, 221 Ossington Avenue (Little Portugal/Ossington), (416) 532-8000

aj

*  Actually, I take it back.  Their tagline on their website reads:  "A butcher shop right out of Paris in the 90s.  The 1890s."  I was off by a few years.

Toronto Notebook

For the most part I was there to hunker down in the archive of a library

fig. a: Space: 2009

so that I could do some research on some pioneering figures from the early history of Canadian cinema,

fig. b: les glâneuses et les glâneurs

but I was there for five days and four nights, so I also had a chance to do a little snooping around.

fig. c: mobile home

Libretto

I'd been reading great things about Pizzeria Libretto for a while, and I'm pretty much always in the mood for a good pizza, so when I found out my host hadn't been yet and was intrigued (if highly skeptical), it seemed like a natural.

Man, has Ossington ever changed. I remember staying out there with friends in the mid-1990s and things were pretty quiet--mostly just the odd Portuguese and Vietnamese establishments and a bunch of garages. Well, those days are gone. Ossington is lined with hip bars, restaurants, and boutiques, it's a full-on mob scene on Saturday nights (of course, the fact that it was NXNE at the time probably contributed to the mayhem), and the garage that sat next door to where my friends used to live is now some kind of post-industrial nightclub. Pizzeria Libretto is equally emblematic of the new Ossington. It's young, it's happening, it's packed to the gills, and house music throbs throughout the premises. There was a healthy line-up when we got there, but we were a party of two, so 45 minutes later (after we'd slipped out to kill a couple of beers at The Communist's Daughter, a great little neighborhood watering hole) we were seated at one of their communal tables, menus in hand.

It's not 100% clear that the crowd is there for the pizza or for the ideology*--it seemed to me like the clientele was more scenester than pizza connoisseur--but that's too bad because Libretto's pizzas really are great.

fig. d: the people have spoken 1

They've got a lovely crust, they're perfectly baked and blistered, and their toppings are well balanced and of premium quality. We both loved the House-made fennel sausage with caramelized onions and Ontario fior di latte, but the prize-winner might very well have been the basic Marinara D.O.P. with a bright San Marzano sauce, garlic, oregano, and a few basil leaves. That was certainly the one K. liked the most.

Think local, eat Universal

fig. e: Universal Oriental

The next evening I found myself attending Saloon Sundays (so called because they have a BYOB policy in effect on Sundays with no corkage fees to boot) at Universal Grill, a friendly, low-key neighborhood joint that's situated in a beautiful old diner space, one that dates back to the first half of the 20th century. M. ran (nay, speed-walked) back to her place to pick up a bottle from her cellar so that we could take full advantage of the free corkage, and we sank our teeth into Universal's tasty assortment of comfort food classics and neo-classics (crab cakes, jerk chicken, blackened snapper, finger-lickin' dry baby back ribs, and Key Lime pie).

Manic

Some of you may recall that Michelle once had the following to say about Manic Coffee: "The best coffee ever! The best! Ever!" Well, I wasn't about to pass that up, so I went and had a Manic macchiato.

fig. f: Manic macchiato

"The best coffee ever!" is a helluva claim, but after sampling the goods, I could understand Michelle's fervor. Later that night, 12 hours after what turned into an afternoon threepeat, I could still understand understand Michelle's fervor.

Enter Sandman

One afternoon I found myself wandering around Chinatown,

fig. g: since 1943

admiring the contrasts,

fig. h: since 1961

when I suddenly felt the lure of Kensington Market. Actually, more than anything, I was jonesing for another coffee and I remembered that I'd once had a pretty fine brew at Ideal Coffee. So there I was, heading down Nassau towards Ideal, when who should I run into but our good friend Sandy.

He invited me into his pad to hang out for a while, and while we got caught up, I sat there and admired the collection of wall-mounted pizza crusts he had on display in his well-appointed kitchen.

fig. i: better homes & kitchens

Then I picked poor Sandy's brain about local food & beverage finds. There are at least 2.7 million stories in Hogtown, and Sandy didn't want to overwhelm me, so he limited himself to two choice tips.

Dark Horse

Sandy mentioned that the crowd at Dark Horse might be interesting because of the fact that it's located in the Robertson Building, an historic Spadina Avenue building whose current mantra is "innovation, sustainability, community," and whose premises are something of a hub for Toronto's arts, design, and progressive politics communities. I didn't notice anything special about Dark Horse's patrons, but I did notice the Robertson Building's impressive Biowall,

fig. j: better buildings & gardens

and it was hard not to miss their gleaming white espresso machine.

fig. k: white heat

Even better: they knew how to use it.

fig. l: Dark Horse macchiato

Another day, another fine macchiato. Although, this time, fearing another night of involuntary jitterbugging, I limited myself to just one.

Mother's

Mother's Dumplings is a 21st-Century Chinatown classic, Sandy told me, a small, underground establishment that's used the power of the handmade dumpling to build a fanatical following since they opened their doors in 2005.

fig. m: The Shadow knows

Just one taste of my first pork & chives steamed dumpling was all it took for me to join their ranks.

fig. n: the people have spoken 2

A real handmade dumpling can those of us who love them a little crazy, and Mother's Dumplings' walls were testament to this particularly pleasurable affliction.

AGO

With all the buzz surrounding the newly Gehry-fied Art Gallery of Ontario, I had to go and take a look, but Frankly it wasn't the new entrance, the glass & wood facade, the sculptural staircase, or south wing that impressed me,

fig. o: self-portrait

it was the elevators.

Balm on Gilead

Years ago now, Michelle and I had a superlative meal at Jamie Kennedy Wine Bar that we wrote about in some detail in these very pages. When someone suggested that I visit Jamie Kennedy's Gilead Café, his café-cum-production kitchen in Corktown, I was only too happy to comply.

I loved the look of the place from the moment we entered.

fig. p: someone's been canning

I loved the atmosphere too. The counter staff was warm and knowledgeable, the setting had that no-nonsense vibe you get when you're in close proximity to a working kitchen. It was hot out that day, and just outside there was a loud, dusty construction site, but inside, things at Gilead Café were calm and welcoming, and I instantly felt at home.

fig. q: JK burger

Gilead Café's menu is all about the comfort food, but here the comfort comes not only from familiar favorites, but from the flavors of the very best locally grown produce, locally raised meats, and locally produced artisanal cheeses. Take their house hamburger: the beef is pasture-fed, the cheese is Ontario artisanal, the greens are local and organic, and the mayonnaise, the ketchup, and the bun are all homemade. In other words, this ain't your typical diner burger, but more importantly it tastes just as divine as a real burger ought to.

K. took the pulled pork sandwich, and while it came with the kind of thick, tomato-based sauce that is less to my liking, the pork itself had been masterfully smoked in the big rig they have out back.

fig. r: JK desserts

Dessert was great too: a homey coconut bar, an organic Ontario apple (the best one I'd had in about 8 months), and another excellent macchiato.

Plus, how many cafés can you think of where you can pick up a 2.5-kg bag of organic, stone-ground Red Fife flour for the road?

Libretto, 221 Ossington, (416) 532-8000, www.pizzerialibretto.com

The Communist's Daughter, 1149 Dundas St W, (647) 435-0103

Universal Grill, 1071 Shaw Street, (416) 588-5928, www.universalgrill.ca

Manic Coffee, 426 College Street, (416) 966-3888, www.maniccoffee.com

Dark Horse Espresso Bar, 215 Spadina Avenue, (416) 979-1200

Mother's Dumplings, 79 Huron Street, (416) 217-2008, www.mothersdumplings.com

Art Gallery of Ontario, 317 Dundas Street W., (416) 979 6648, www.ago.net

Gilead Café, 4 Gilead Place, (647) 288 0680, www.gileadcafe.ca

aj

* In this regard, as well as others, Pizzeria Libretto appears to have been inspired by NYC's Una Pizzeria Napoletana (who can blame them?), although UPN's pizza manifesto is an outright smackdown by comparison.