Category: Around Town

  • Food Day Canada, 2018

    Food Day Canada, 2018

    “Shop like a Canadian. Cook like a Canadian. Eat (& drink) like a Canadian.” As the brilliant Canadian, Anita Stewart, of Food Day Canada, extols us to do: here’s an Invitation to ALL Canadians- Help Put CANADA on the Menu this weekend! Fifteen years ago in 2003, our borders were closed to Canadian beef. It […]

  • Good stuff…

    Good stuff…

    Mark your calendars for a collaborative pop-up at the Jazz Festival. June 27th. Chefs Pat Garland (Absinthe), Joe Thottungal (Coconut Lagoon), Tim Stock (Thyme & Again) and their teams. Ticket gets you into festival VIP Lounge and to the funky, spring-in-your-step music of the Heavyweights. Details below.

  • A Coming Home

    A Coming Home

    “Welcome home” is how restaurateur Steve Beckta announced Chef Katie Brown Ardington‘s new position as Executive Chef of the Beckta trio of restaurants. For the past 15 months, Brown Ardington has been a member — and, for a time, the only woman — of the elite CCC, Le Club des Chefs des Chefs, those who […]

  • Get booking…

    Get booking…

      For the fifth year running, the good people of the Parkdale Food Centre are putting on the ritz in support of the fine work they do for the community they serve. Wonderful lineup of restaurants and breweries, stepping up for the cause: just take a look beneath the apples at the star list! Date: […]

  • Goût de France 2018

    Goût de France 2018

      Two months after the world lost the giant of French cuisine — Chef Paul Bocuse — I was treated to a meal he would have been proud of. Hosted by Madame Kareen Rispal, Ambassador of France in Canada, at the French embassy, the evening was part of a celebration called  “Goût de France,” a […]

  • Subodh Mathur, 1955-2018

    Subodh Mathur, 1955-2018

    Subodh Mathur’s first Roses Café menu was timid. Lentil soup, samosas, batata vada, served with a trio of sauces, but also a “Canadian” section that featured chicken nuggets and club sandwiches. My approach to reviewing the Roses Café Restaurant on Gladstone, was timid too. I didn’t know much. We had maybe an afternoon learning la […]

  • A new chapter for Thyme & Again

    A new chapter for Thyme & Again

    “You guys are two peas in a pod. You should work together!” That quote was a bit of wisdom aimed at Sheila Whyte (from husband and business partner Clayton Kennedy).  Whyte, you may know, is the owner of Thyme & Again Creative Catering and Take Home Food Shop. The other “pea in the pod” is […]

  • Colours of Curry: Vij & Thottungal paint the town

    Colours of Curry: Vij & Thottungal paint the town

    “Twenty years ago, who would ever have thought,” said Vancouver chef Vikram Vij to the full house at Ottawa’s Coconut Lagoon, “…that a Canadian crowd would pay more than a hundred bucks each to eat Indian food prepared by a couple of Indian guys.” That got a laugh. Probably because it’s pretty accurate: Indian food […]

  • Lucky Winner of Poor Chefs 2018

    Lucky Winner of Poor Chefs 2018

    Kris Kshonze, newly-minted head chef of Soif bar a vin, has been crowned champion of the 2018 Poor Chefs Competition. His will be third name added to the trophy, behind those of Harriet Clunie, last year’s winner, and Stephen LaSalle, whose Scotch egg took top honours in 2016. Just as those who won before him, […]