TORONTO, THE FOOD
At last, Michelin Guide highlights some of the city's great eats
Food lovers bound for Toronto have a new and discerning resource to help them choose which of the city's 7,500 or so restaurants they should visit.
The Michelin Guide's inaugural survey of Toronto's dining scene, released in mid-september, whittles the field down to 74 restaurants, ranging from a stunning, two-star sushi splurge to enthusiastically recommended purveyors of tacos, Thai barbecue and smoked meat sandwiches.
The work of an unspecified number of inspectors who arrived at restaurant assessments by consensus, the global taste-making brand's survey singled out 13 starred restaurants, 17 Bib Gourmands, which are more affordable restaurants of notable quality, and made more than 40 other recommendations.
“Food lovers have a lot to discover in this amazing city,” said Gwendal Poullennec, international director of the Michelin Guides, at a lavish unveiling gala in Toronto.
The Michelin Guide is to give Toronto restaurants ongoing scrutiny through the years, fulfilling its end of a so-called “marketing partnership” with tourism organizations for Toronto, Ontario and Canada, Poullennec confirmed in an interview.
At the same event, Toronto Mayor John Tory spoke for many when he called Michelin's arrival in his city “a big deal” that would drive its growth and international renown, not unlike the Toronto International Film Festival.
Both Poullennec and Tory called the diversity of Toronto's culinary scene one of its defining features. The Michelin Guide survey, which can be accessed through its website and app, celebrates 74 restaurants spanning 27 types of cuisine. Contemporary Canadian, Japanese, Italian and Mexican restaurants garnered stars.
During my few days in Toronto, I visited just a few of Michelin's picks, which were quickly inundated with reservations as a result of their instant fame.
Quetzal, a buzzworthy downtown restaurant lauded with a freshly minted Michelin star, served us thrilling, modern, Mexican-inspired dishes such as dryaged amberjack aguachile with watermelon. Quetzal's chef, Steven Molnar, said that within a day of the announcement, his 120-seat restaurant was booked solid for the next month.
Molnar, a Hungarian-japanese Canadian who cooked in France and Montreal before ultimately returning to Toronto to cook modern Mexican food, may exemplify the diversity of Toronto all by himself.
“My main goal is to showcase Mexican food in a way Toronto hasn't seen and Canada hasn't seen,” said Molnar, who has made multiple research trips to Mexico.
“My father is Hungarian and my mother is Japanese. What am I supposed to cook?” he added.
Puerto Bravo, a more modest eatery in Toronto's east end, dazzled with top-notch and distinctive octopus and shrimp tacos. No wonder the tiny restaurant, which reflects the cooking of Mexico's northeast coast, garnered a Michelin Bib Gourmand nod.
Even if you can't get into Michelin's top-tier selections, you can still eat very well in Toronto. For example, you can dine happily at more casual restaurants that are once removed from their higher-end, starred siblings.
If you can't get into Alo or Alobar Yorkville, I can vouch for the more relaxed yet distinguished fare at Aloette, the famed restaurant group's neighbourhood bistro. Similarly, there's Giulletta, the trattoria spinoff of the Michelin-starred Osteria Giulia.
While the rarefied temple of raw fish called Sushi Masaki Saito, the only Toronto restaurant to receive two Michelin stars, will be beyond many budgets, you can eat at its more casual sibling, Tachi, a vendor in the upscale Chef's Hall food court for a fraction of the price.
Tachi is a standing-room-only sushi bar where chefs deliver an omakase meal of a dozen outstanding sushi items in 30 minutes. Tachi received a Michelin recommendation, if not a star.
We were able to eat lunch at Bar Raval, a cosy haunt for lovers of Spanish small bites that received Bib Gourmand kudos. It whetted our appetites for the slightly larger menu at its slightly pricier sister venue, Bar Isabel, which received a Michelin recommendation.
Michelin is not all-knowing when it comes to Toronto eateries. You may well find places and attractions that Michelin ought to take notice of in years ahead. For example, no Toronto restaurant was awarded the new Michelin green star, which inspectors give to restaurants with exceptional commitments to sustainability.
I'll submit for your consideration Avling Brewery in the up-andcoming east-side neighbourhood Leslieville, where a 4,000-squarefoot rooftop garden is responsible for everything from the salad on the Nordic-asian menu to the marigolds that find their way into the brewery's Orpheus Farmhouse Ale.
Even if the Cheese Boutique in Toronto's west end never gets a Michelin nod, it deserves a visit. The epicurean grocery store is now in its sixth decade of business, and it is not only a destination for buying the world's finest cheeses. The private guided tours of its store and cheese vault, which include tastings, should please any foodie, barring lactose intolerances.
That's especially true if your host is the store's ebullient maitre fromager Afrim Pristine, the star of Food Network Canada's Cheese: A Love Story.
Pristine was one of the Toronto culinary champions who helped entice Michelin to come to town. Naturally, he was at the gala that was the result of a half-decade of effort by both Michelin inspectors and Toronto's culinary boosters.
“What a great moment in Toronto's culinary history,” Pristine wrote on Instagram, beneath a photo showing smiling and suddenly famous chefs.
Michelin will continue its scrutiny of restaurants when it unveils its picks for Vancouver this fall.