The Incredible Ingenuity of Toronto Restaurateurs
Skippa is one of my favourite Toronto restaurants. Tucked into an unassuming little storefront on Harbord near Ossington, it’s run by an obsessive sushi chef named Ian Robinson, who prepares multi-course Japanese meals with a constantly changing menu. Each dish is exquisitely prepared and presented to the customer with dramatic flair, often with minutely detailed instructions on how it ought to be consumed. Skippa was ranked number one in Toronto Life’s 2018 guide to the city’s best new restaurants.
Now, its future, like the futures of so many restaurants, is uncertain. Despite the glorification of food culture, the rise of celebrity chefs, the popularity of food photography on Instagram and the frenzy to book a table at the new hot place, most restaurants had tiny profit margins before the pandemic. This crisis has hit restaurants hard. As of early April, roughly 70,000 food service workers had been laid off in Toronto, and 30 per cent of Canadian restaurant owners say they will likely permanently shut down this summer.
The issue is rent. Astronomical commercial rent in Toronto made it tough for most restaurants to turn a profit in the before times. Now, with doors shut, they can’t make their payments. This spring, after restaurant owners shut down their businesses, gave away their perishables and laid off their employees, they turned their attention to the messy business of negotiating with their landlords. Some have temporarily frozen rent or agreed to deferred payment plans, but others have padlocked restaurant doors, preventing proprietors from entering. Landlords who aren’t receiving rent can now apply for support through the Canada Emergency Commercial Rent Assistance program. Many will take advantage of that. Others will attempt to kick their tenants out anyway.
In the meantime, restaurants have reinvented themselves to generate enough cash to pay their landlords something. In the process, they have shown astounding ingenuity. Restaurants are putting together grocery boxes, delivering meal kits, selling wine, packaging cocktail ingredients and
offering online cooking classes. Some have partnered with theatres and are offering dinner-and-a-livestreamed-show experiences. Restaurants have created their own delivery systems and are using locally developed software and apps to avoid paying Silicon Valley tech giants a 30 per cent cut of each order. Necessity has been the mother of incredible innovation.
At Skippa, Robinson now creates an elaborate takeout bento box for curbside pickup Thursday through Sunday, with a menu that changes weekly. One Saturday night in late May, I decided to give it a try. To make the meal a special occasion, I set the table at home with flowers and candles and forced my husband and kids to dress up for dinner. The meal came with a beautifully printed menu and detailed instructions on what to eat when. The unboxing process was a bit of an adventure, and it felt good to support a business I sincerely hope will survive.
Skippa is just one of many restaurants we feature in this month’s cover package (page 38). We conceived of the list as a road map to enjoying restaurant-quality meals in your own home, but it’s turned out to be a testament to the resilience and creativity of restaurateurs. I plan to be one of the first people back in restaurants when it’s safe to eat out again—they are such a big part of what makes Toronto an exciting place to live. In the meantime, I’ll be working my way through this list, one dinner at a time.
—Sarah Fulford Email: editor@torontolife.com Twitter: @sarah_ fulford