BERNARDA GOSPIC / THE VARSITY
ACTINOLITE
Who: Claudia Bianchi and Justin Cournoyer, co-owners of Actinolite.
What: Actinolite is a cozy, 30-seat restaurant inspired by European cooking, specializing in fresh ingredients with a seasonally rotating menu.
Claim to fame: Certain items (such as the pavlova) get reintroduced by popular demand, but the menu is probably best known for its novelty — it changes frequently to accommodate what’s fresh and in season, so it’s rare to see the same item twice.
Where:
View Larger Map
Foodspeak: For Bianchi and Cournoyer, it’s all about communication and collaboration. As head chef, Cournoyer often tries to open up the dialogue about food to people who don’t work in the industry. As Cournoyer says: “You can learn from anyone. That’s my biggest thing.” Recently, he asked his Sicilian neighbours whether they’d eaten bottarga (a dried, cured fish roe), and how it was prepared. They told him about being served bottarga “with grapes and bread when we were working in the fields,” so he developed a menu based on that response.
Bianchi tells me how much she and Cournoyer enjoy using their food expertise to collaborate with other industries. For example, they recently worked with Fuze Reps (a Toronto-based agency representing photographers and other artists) to host a ‘Bang’ themed event at the event space Metropolis Factory. “We had to work with Metropolis and the decor of this warehouse, and we had to then collaborate with the photographers and all of their works so that the food worked for all of their pieces,” she says. “‘Bang’ and ‘Rock’ were, I think, the two themes, so the food had to ‘bang’ as well. We did some things with pop rocks.”
Thanks to Bianchi’s experience with the Top Chef television series, she was able to create a pop-up kitchen in a couple of days that included satellite ovens and refrigerators. She describes the experience as “an amazing collaboration of an agency, reps, photographers, interior designers — it was a lot of fun!”
971 Ossington Ave. 416-962-8943. Tuesday–Saturday 6–10 pm
BERNARDA GOSPIC / THE VARSITY
DISGRACELAND
Who: Shawn Macdonald, owner of Disgraceland.
What: Disgraceland is a music-based bar that offers, in addition to the usual meat-based pub fare, a bevy of vegetarian and vegan options.
Where:
View Larger Map
Claim to Fame: The “accommodating comfort food,” which includes extensive options for both vegetarians and vegans, and the $14 pitchers of PBR.
Foodspeak: As a vegan, Macdonald knows how difficult it can be to find hearty vegan and vegetarian meals in Toronto. “You know when you go to a restaurant with a group of people and there’s always somebody who can’t [eat meat], so they only get to eat appetizers all night? Well they don’t have to worry about that here. We have lots of vegan options, vegetarian, and meat.”
Macdonald maintains a healthy scepticism about the food scene that’s been emerging in Toronto over the last few years. “I think there’s maybe too much of a [discussion] going on,” he says. “Because you get all of the Food Network followers and it turns everyone into a ‘foodie.’ Everyone thinks they’re one of those guys who critiques food, that they know more because they take whatever they see on TV and use it as their own vocabulary and their own sensibility or their own experience.”
“So they talk about things ‘finishing well’ or ‘pairing with this’ and about 10 years ago — no, two years ago — ask anyone what that was about and they wouldn’t have a clue.”
He says this with a laugh, though, and adds that one advantage is that more than ever people are starting to consider what’s going into their food. “I think people are talking about fresh ingredients when they want to ‘eat better,’ so I think it’s maybe teaching people to watch what they eat or to at least investigate what the ingredients are maybe, and I think that’s good.”
965 Bloor St. W. 647-347-5263. Monday–Friday 4 pm–2 am; Saturday–Sunday 11am–2 am
BAKERBOTS
Who: Rosanne Pezzelli and Christopher Stopa, co-owners of Bakerbots Baking.
What: Bakerbots Baking began as a specialty cake shop that grew into the local go-to spot for quality homestyle baked goods and ice cream.
Where:
View Larger Map
Claim to Fame: Special-order custom sculpted cakes, and their ice cream sandwiches, which are made from their homemade cookies and ice cream, and are available year-round.
Foodspeak: Pezzelli and Stopa love that people in Toronto are talking about food — especially if the food is theirs. “We haven’t spent one penny on advertising,” Pezzelli says. “We don’t even have a business card, but word about what we do, and the quality of our product has spread rapidly, in a very organic way.”
Both owners credit their customers for the fact that pictures of their food, a few of their recipes, and numerous reviews of their store exist on the Internet. Pezzelli adds: “People know we care very much about what we offer. They aren’t afraid to ask questions, or to push us on an issue, or to share their own personal experiences. I have a sacred collection of recipes that I’ve built up through customers who wanted us to re-create their grandma’s walnut cake, sugar pie, butter tarts — stuff that made them giggle growing up.”
When asked about her collaborations with Sam James Coffee Bar, Bellwoods Brewery, and her brother Arthur (who creates the ice creams), Pezzelli says: “When you admire and respect what someone else has created, and you know they’ve put themselves into what they’re sharing, you want to get involved. We’re all similar in that we depend on word-of-mouth and the quality of our products to sustain and grow our businesses. It’s always great to sit with Sam and Luke [from Bellwoods Brewery] and dream up food ideas, to get excited about what will get people talking.”
205 Delaware Ave. 416-901-3500. Tuesday-Thursday, 6–10 pm; Friday: 4–11 pm; Saturday, 11 am–11 pm.; Sunday 11 am–10 pm
