TORONTO IS COOKING
WITH HER NEW BOOK, AMY ROSEN has wrapped the city’s food scene in a very readable package. Toronto Cooks: 100 Signature Recipes from the City’s
Best Restaurants is part chef biographies and part ode to what has put this city on the foodie map. Rosen, an award-winning journalist, food editor and cookbook author, has compiled what she considers the city’s best recipes “from 50 great chefs who are multicultural – unabashedly Canadian – but, more specifically, uniquely Torontonian,” she writes.
We asked Rosen to choose a few recipes especial-- ly for our readers. Her picks? Mistura’s Bigoli with Lobster, Porzia’s Citrus Salad and Ruby Watchco’s Short Ribs.
Mistura is a longstanding favourite with the discerning (read older) crowd, says Rosen, “for Massimo Capra and his crew’s hospitality, wine list and for their incredible roster of homemade pastas and authentic Italian dishes. The bigoli is a great, doable dish to have in your back pocket for your next dinner party.”
According to Rosen, Porzia is the new face of Toronto in the emerging restaurant row along
Queen Street West in Parkdale. “The restaurant dishes out small plates of Italian with a twist, with flavour profiles that spark the tastebuds and imagination,” she says as to why it should be on a Toronto diner’s radar. “This healthy citrus salad is one such recipe.”
And then, there’s the multi-generational aspect of just sitting down to dinner with family and friends. “Meals at the east end’s Ruby Watchco are served family style; always generous and delicious, and there’s no dish more warming than their tender braised short ribs. When you don’t feel like cooking, gather the family around the table here,” advises Rosen.
East end, west end – the fact that there is delicious food in every corner of Toronto is her raison d’etre. “Always has been,” she notes. The book’s photography, by Ryan Szulc, is as mouth watering-inducing as the recipes are. But Rosen takes it a step further, using her editor’s eye, with a D.I.Y. point of view. “With the reader in mind,” she writes, “this cookbook is designed to make fan-favourite dishes from restaurants achievable for the eager home chef.” So, whether you stay in or go out (in Toronto), it’s a win-win.