Restaurant Review: La Banane is Ossington’s dishy new bistro

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12:47 pm

Take a restaurant dream team, add a pinch of hipster, a soupçon of cream and a healthy dollop of impeccable seafood, season it à la française, and what have you got? The dishiest new resto to hit Toronto in a year!

La Banane is the marriage of the King Street Food Company (three Bucas, Jacobs and Co.) and chef Brandon Olsen (ex-chef at Bar Isabel and The Black Hoof). Add the fact that chef Olsen created the resto in the image of his own personal food passions, and you have a recipe for enchantment.

It’s where The Saint used to be, and the room, while renovated, feels very like its predecessor, which was wonderful. The space is still warm and welcoming, attractive without shouting its glamour,

Immediately upon entering you see the new marble raw bar, a long display of incredibly fresh seafood with several pretty cute shuckers at work. Très français. I like the front dining room, done in a suite of dark greens, but there’s something to be said for the insouciance of sitting at the raw bar, or the cosiness of the back dining room.

As for the taste of things, I was in New York last week, eating at Esca, the famous Mario Batali’s Italian seafood resto. I love it, but my raw marinated scallops at Esca were neither as sweet nor as sensitively sauced as La Banane’s freshly shucked raw scallops marinated with garlic-tinged buttermilk. Score for the home team! Similarly fab are the barely cooked marinated mussels with a touch of heat from espelette pepper vinaigrette.

Then cometh the magnificent: A European sea bass is presented tableside wrapped in a latticework of pastry. They take it back to the kitchen, remove the latticework on top and debone the fish, presenting its pristine white flesh with a pour of yuzu-scented beurre blanc. The fish is perfectly cooked, the sauce a francophile’s dream. Also impeccably French are the sweetbreads with hedgehog mushrooms. The sweetbreads are superbly tender with a hint of smoke, the mushrooms fresh and almost tangy, and as for sitting this confection on a pool of blanquette — white sauce built on veal stock — this is the kind of layered complex cooking that only the French understand.

Chef Olsen makes only two miscalculations: His pommes Aligot are mashed potatoes with so much comte cheese that it’s gone gummy. And his signature dessert, Ziggy Stardust Disco Egg (made at Olsen’s College Street chocolate shop) costs $50! — an ego trip and not worth it. A giant chocolate egg painted with many colours sits on the plate, to be cracked open. Inside are very good chocolate truffles, with chili-tinged coffee-scented dried apricots on the inside of the chocolate egg. Very good truffles, but $50?

Otherwise dinner at La Banane is utterly enthralling. On the small table at the entrance, you notice, as you leave, a hardcover copy of Larousse Gastronomique, the grand bible of French cuisine. Larousse tells cooks precisely how to cook every precious and wonderful item in the classic French lexicon. Chef Olsen has chosen his calling card well — for he is clearly an adept lover of la grande cuisine.

La Banane, 227 Ossington Ave., 416-551-6263

Kara Alloway stars in brand-new Real Housewives of Toronto

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Andrew Mannsbach

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10:54 am

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Cattiness, conflict and … born-again Christianity? When it comes to The Real Housewives reality series, some things are to be expected — and others less so. To the joy of local fans, the buzzy new stop on the addictive series’ train is none other than our fair city. In The Real Housewives of Toronto, local gal Kara Alloway is one of the six different personalities from the Six.

Alloway, a longtime resident of North Toronto, is the fashionista, philanthropist and born-again Christian of the group. The well-clad women of the series — billed as some of Toronto’s wealthiest residents — include outspoken lifestyle brand builder Roxy Earle and French-Canadian actress Gregoriane Grego Minot, who, as a mom, has put her career on hold. Self-made business woman Ann Kaplan Mulholland, TV host and producer Joan Kelley Walker and Joga CEO Jana Webb round out the cast. The show follows the women as they navigate their jobs, their relationships and Toronto’s most elite social scene.

Prior to becoming a name to know in T.O., Alloway was all about knowing her neighbours. “I grew up on McRae Drive in Leaside,” Alloway says. “I knew the names of every single person on my street. It’s a real old-fashioned community. We even had a milkman. It hasn’t lost that charm at all.”

After studying English at McGill University, Alloway headed west to live in Beverly Hills, where she worked as an event co-ordinator for a restaurant and hung out with fellow housewives Kyle Richards and Bethenny Frankel.

“That was how I ended up meeting Kyle. She used to come into my restaurant all the time, and Bethenny Frankel worked up the street. Kyle was like the apex of the triangle between Bethenny and myself,” Alloway says.

Alloway’s glitzy Beverly Hills gig allowed her to rub elbows with the high society of L.A., including Graydon Carter, the editor-in-chief of Vanity Fair.

“I remember Ivana Trump was on the cover of Vanity Fair in this iconic yellow dress, and we did this big party with everything yellow — yellow flowers, yellow linens. It was amazing,” Alloway says. “I had always wanted to work in magazines, so I sent around some of my writing samples.”

Alloway then went on to join the media world at Condé Nast, where she wrote for Allure magazine as the assistant west coast editor. “It was a really fun job and I learned a ton,” she says. Some of Alloway’s most memorable Allure anecdotes include delivering jewels to Naomi Campbell and helping with a Kate Moss cover shoot when the ’90s grunge phase was in full swing.

“We were the first ones to put Kate Moss on the cover of a magazine,” notes Alloway. “It was a really cool time in magazine publication.”

As fate would have it, the next time Alloway headed home to renew her American visa, she met her now husband at a party. “It was literally love at first sight,” she says. “I went back to Toronto and that was it.”

Today, Alloway splits her time between writing and marketing for her husband’s brokerage, ReaLawState (she came up with the name), and doing charity work for poor societies in places like Malawi and Nicaragua. “My life mantra is you can’t take it with you, so you might as well send it ahead,” she says. “I think it’s very crucial that I teach my children to give back.”

Most recently, Alloway travelled with her family to Nicaragua, where they helped to install reverse-osmosis water filters, and Ecuador, where they worked in mobile hospitals.

“People had 18-month-old babies that had never seen a physician. We take our medical care for granted here,” she says.

Alloway’s philanthropic efforts don’t stop when she comes home, though. One of the charities she’s most passionate about, Kids, Cops & Computers, is devoted to helping financially disadvantaged kids access electronics so they can succeed at school.

“This program provides inner-city kids with electronic devices, which are delivered by police officers to break down the negative stigmas. I’ve seen the kids that come through this program, and it really is life changing,” she says.

Alloway and her family now live in the Hogg’s Hollow neighbourhood, which she and her husband love for its peace and quiet. With three boys, one attending Crescent School, one at Blyth Academy Lawrence Park and the oldest at the University of Miami, Alloway has her hands more than full. Although the family members are all on different schedules, they still find ways to spend quality time together.

“It does get crazy sometimes, but we are a very tight-knit family. We all support each other,” she says. “If my sons know I’ll be at a charity event downtown for the night, they’ll offer to cook dinner. I have a lot of support.”

As if Alloway’s schedule wasn’t hectic enough before, her involvement in The Real Housewives of Toronto has upped the ante. “If I could describe the show in one word it would be ‘Crazy.’ ‘Manic.’ ‘Demanding’!” Alloway says.

What’s next for this busy housewife? Alloway is currently in the research phase for a book on female friendships — a fitting subject for a real housewife. The book will discuss the relationships women have with another and the reasons why so many women lose touch or “break up” with their friends. “I’m in the throes of researching right now,” Alloway says.

“The show gave me a great platform to do a ton of research on what happens when you put six women from different socio-economic backgrounds together. It’s a really interesting dynamic, and I think that’s why everyone tunes in to the show,” Alloway says. “It’s a really important project for me.”

Although the drama and juicy secrets from The Real Housewives of Toronto are under wraps until it premieres, Alloway, whose traditional values sometimes put her at odds with the more liberal ladies, says she’s confident that viewers will be glued to their television sets once it’s released.

“The dynamic between all the women really is fascinating, and I think that’s why the franchise is so successful,” she says.

“I also think the show will be really popular with all those secret male watchers who would never admit to watching it. There’s something to be said for the escapism of it all.”

The Real Housewives of Toronto premieres March 7 at 10 p.m.

Laguna

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11:08 am

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When it comes to choosing a getaway destination, “LA” always tops my list. I feel the need to put that in quotations because as a general rule, the only LA I get on my trips there is at the airport, and possibly a short day trip into Beverly Hills for some retail therapy and a cone of frites at the bar at Bouchon. I simply cannot reconcile staying in the city when there’s an ocean around, and so home base for me is always in Santa Monica, where I can get my fill of shopping and west-coast eating but still fall asleep listening to the waves crashing. It is my true happy place, one that I am fortunate enough to visit fairly often. Each trip there looks pretty much the same as the time before, and that’s the way I like it, thank you very much.

That said, my most recent trip to Cali found me craving something even beachier. So rather than the same-old, I headed down the coast to Laguna for some real beach-town R & R. There, there is no semblance of city at all. A former artist’s colony, Laguna is all about the ocean, the sand and time spent wandering about the myriad of local shops, open air restaurants and tiny galleries. It is the very personification of “chilling out”; a pastime, if I’m honest, that I’m not particularly good at at all.

Any concern of “not enough to do” was alleviated the moment I stepped foot into the lobby of my resort. Just a few miles south of town is the real star of the Laguna Beach show. Perched on a 150-foot bluff overlooking the Pacific is the Ritz-Carlton, Laguna Niguel. Impossibly, the hotel décor manages to echo the stunning beauty of it’s environs. Finishes are luxe, flowers defy gravity in glass vases along the halls, art and antiques abound and floor to ceiling French windows offer panoramic ocean views.

The rooms are charming and comfortable. I could have been content to spend the trip just sitting on the balcony of my suite looking out over the water and watching the surfers ride the waves. But the ocean called, so after a morning workout in the well appointed fitness centre and breakfast at one of the hotel’s 5 restaurants, my time was spent walking in the surf, admiring the multi-million dollar homes that dot the coastline and exploring the trails that surround the well manicured property. Evenings were reserved for tapas, martinis and viewing jaw- dropping sunsets 150 feet over Salt Creek Beach. Enough to do, indeed.

I have no doubt that on my next trip to the California coast I will lapse back to the familiar routine of city life on the ocean. But It’s nice to know that when I really need to unwind, there’s a little bit of paradise just an hour and a half drive down the beach.

Restaurant Review: Chef Steve Gonzalez is back with his gigantic new King West eatery

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Andrew Mannsbach

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10:22 am

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I’m confused about Baro.

Try getting a res there. Good luck. Even in the slough of despond that is the depths of the grey Toronto midwinter, tables at Baro are like hen’s teeth. So I went. How could I not, with everyone flocking? Four floors, 15,000 feet.

It does not begin that well. The glam women at the front desk check you in and hand you to the headset people, none of whom offer to take one’s coat. They ask if we want a high or a low table. We say low. They put us at a high table. We order wine. The food comes before the wine, which is apparently forgotten.

We have to do empanadas and guac with salsa and chips because these are part of owner/chef Steve Gonzalez’s signature from his previous place, Valdez. But the guac and salsa are unexceptional, and the empanadas of beef, peas and potato are unflaky pastry with mushy filling. Rather a disappointment.

But cherry-picking the menu works really well. Some of the fusion items, where East meets Latin, are really fun. Chef’s suite of ceviches are superbly entertaining: we’re captivated by the variegated flavours of tiraditos, raw tuna napped in passion fruit and lulo sauce, with black and white sesame seeds, chili-studded purée of butternut squash and baby greens.

The other fab fusion item is chaufa, invented by homesick Chinese immigrants in Peru. Like Korea’s bi bim bap, chaufa is a big bowl of rice with flavourings and crisp edges from the super-heated bowl: $35 is a bit much for a rice bowl, but chaufa is much more exciting than its Korean antecedent. The rice is cooked on the flattop with shreds of confit duck, edamame, egg, tobiko and papi kung fu, a sauce made from sweetened soy with duck fat. Which makes it coat the rice with splendid grease and slide down sweetly.

Much more sweetly than the blah tres leches cake, which seems thin compared to others of its kind. Rather like the service at Baro. There are staff hustling around the tall glam room, always looking very busy.

Some of them are men in suits wearing headsets. This makes them seem very important. Perhaps too important to notice that our servers (of whom there appear to be two) rarely visit our table.

Maybe that’s okay. Maybe it’s the new normal. Maybe it matters more that the place exudes cool, from the headset people to the good-looking gals up front, from the long marble bar overlooking the big open kitchen, from the tropical plants and brass accents, from the speakeasy ambience, from the password-only bar on one floor (really! It apparently changes daily).

Which all goes to show you that a good-looking restaurant with spotty food and less than stellar service can do really well in the party district. All it needs is snazzy bar food on the menu and complicated cocktails.

The Emperor doesn’t, apparently, require much of a wardrobe.

Baro, 485 King St. W., 416-363-8388,

Post-ROM sips at Museum Tavern

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3:43 pm

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ALL IN THE FAMILY
Blink and you’ll miss Museum Tavern. Squirreled upstairs and across the street from the Royal Ontario Museum sits the suitably named brasserie. The charming space has been satiating museum goers and the spillover crowd from Koerner Hall ever since siblings Chloe, Glen and Kyle Kristenbrun opened back in 2012. (Prior to opening, they were involved in an intense food tour in the States.) In addition to serving American comfort food — think upscale burgers, giant salads and the like — the tavern is known for its stellar cocktail program.

THE MAN FOR THE JOB
“I’m from Halifax,” notes bar manager Andrew Foster, “and I moved out here last year for … a blonde.” After pouring at bars around town, Foster was spotted and subsequently poached by a Tavern staff member, who knew he’d be the perfect fit behind the bar. The cocktail program itself is a collaboration between Foster and the rest of the team. “You want to follow trends but sometimes trends aren’t right for this establishment,” Foster says. “It limits you but also pushes you to keep trying new things.”

THE BUBBLES HAVE IT
“We always want a sparkling cocktail,” Foster says of the Beauty and the Bog, a tipple found on the winter menu. To craft the popular drink, Foster pours Bombay Sapphire gin and Lillet Blanc into a cocktail shaker. He adds a grenadine syrup made from fresh cranberries and pomegranate juice, some lemon and half a rosemary sprig and then shakes it and fine strains it. A pour of sparkling brut tops it all off, making for an easy sipper that’s just the right amount of sweet.

Museum Tavern, 208 Bloor St. W., 416-920-0110

Parent Hacks: Your teen’s first date

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Andrew Mannsbach

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12:12 pm

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Forget all of those jokes dads make about their daughters not being able to date until they’re 30. You don’t really want this to happen. Realistically, your kids are going to start dating at least 15 years before that. And how do you handle it, Dad and Mom?

Your kids will assume that back in the good ol’ days, when you dated, you sat around and looked at dirt for entertainment. They might not feel you can relate to their style of dating, so they won’t look to you for your always excellent advice.

One of the trickiest parts in managing that first date is actually knowing that it’s happening. Some teens have no problem discussing their personal lives with their parents, but if your teen is not comfortable, it can be easy to miss day-to-day details. Teens communicate mostly online, so you’re not likely to hear them on the phone (people still talk on phones?) arranging to meet up.

It’s important to get to know as many of your kid’s friends as possible. If your son or daughter starts to date, it isn’t long before you’ll catch one of your kid’s friends teasing them about it. That’s your cue to get “other kid” gossip — the best way to get intel on your own kid.

Before the date, talk to your child about what your expectations would be, including whether or not he or she will be posting it on social media. This is a very public way to start a relationship, and it might be prudent to caution your child about posting too many personal details and consequently being opened up to offensive or inappropriate comments. You could always threaten them that you’ll post “dating” pictures of Mom and Dad to match theirs.

If kids start to date before they can drive by themselves, you’ll likely be the one dropping them off at a movie or coffee shop. This is an easy way to manage location, timing and length of date, and a public location might be preferred by your child and by you.

It helps to go over a series of questions prior to the date. Who’s paying? Have they talked about it in advance? Does your child have enough money to cover his or her own expenses? Not knowing this beforehand can be awkward when your teen gets to the ticket counter.

Will there be other people on the date? Is it a group thing? Find out if your son or daughter has a close friend going, and get the friend’s contact info so you have a backup if your child is out past curfew. Oh, yes indeedy, curfew is still a “thing,” and you need to make sure your kid knows you will be expecting him or her to be home on time.

It’s important to not make too big a deal of the date — wedding jokes are not cool — but a debrief after the fact might keep the lines of communication open as and if the relationship progresses.

Kathy Buckworth is the author of I Am So the Boss of You: An 8-Step Guide to Giving Your Family the ‘Business.’

Etalk’s Devon Soltendieck on how he met and married his publicist

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Andrew Mannsbach

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10:07 am

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Devon Soltendieck, who first came to fame in 2004 after winning MuchMusic’s VJ Search, has now become a staple on T.O. televisions. That competition kicked off his career and also introduced him to his future wife, Ashley Applebaum.

After a three-year stint as a news reporter and anchor for CP24, Soltendieck then hosted Pop Quiz, a pop culture game show.

He is now a senior entertainment reporter for etalk, which airs weeknights on CTV.

Soltendieck kicked off awards season coverage live from Los Angeles at the Golden Globes and will continue to support the etalk team as they cover the Grammys and the Academy Awards this February.

How they met
Ashley and I met when we were both working at MuchMusic. She was my publicist at the time and part of her job was accompanying talent to events. The first chance I had, I used that loophole to get her to spend an evening with me at an event. After some work on my part and a few drinks for both of us, she finally agreed to go on an actual date with me.

The first date
A few days later we went to my favourite bar at the time, Souz Dal, on College Street. I remember two things from that night: First, I was not just late, but, because of a subway delay, I was very late. I think it was close to 40 minutes, so she wasn’t exactly thrilled. Second, I laughed more that night than I had in years. I’d never met someone who I connected with so quickly and deeply. It was exciting, scary but, most of all, pretty magical.

The courtship
Ashley and I got serious pretty quickly. It just instantly felt different than any relationship I’d ever been in. It’s been a wild ride. We’ve travelled the world together, lost family members together, we’ve seen incredible successes and some incredible failures together, but through it all we’ve always remained a team. I’m lucky to have a wife and partner who truly understands and knows me.

The proposal
My family owns a country home an hour north of Montreal, so many of my best childhood memories originate there. It’s also where my and Ashley’s families met for the first time, so I knew I wanted to propose up north. On Thanksgiving weekend in 2014, while on a hike to our favourite lookout point of our lake, I pulled out some plastic cups, a bottle of bubbly and the ring out of my backpack. Then I got down on one knee and proposed. I had also secretly planned for her parents to come in from Toronto and sneak into the cottage while we were hiking. So by the time we got back, both families were there to celebrate. It was an amazing night.

The wedding
We wanted our guests to feel like they were going to a great party where two people also get married. The Thompson Hotel in Toronto couldn’t have been a better choice. They were incredible. We had about 60 friends in our suite until about 5 a.m. It was a very memorable night.

The home
We’ve been at Avenue and Eglinton for two and a half years. Before our wedding we had just gutted the home, so we decided to spend the honeymoon budget on our basement. It’s the best money we’ve spent. We don’t regret it for a second.

Balancing work and marriage
We both work in the same business, so it’s a language we’re both fluent in, so to speak. Travel is a big part of my job at etalk, but when I’m not on the road, I’m with Ash. We spend 99.9 per cent of our time together, so much so that we’re starting to worry about losing friends. We both love our careers, but we love each other more.

Shared hobbies
I’m very passionate about fitness, and I’ve finally convinced her to wake up at 5 a.m. every day with me and do CrossFit. We love it. We have similar and separate interests, but I’d say our number one hobby is spending time together at home, cooking with a glass of wine in our hands.

Secret of success
We love each other, we listen to each other, and we have each other’s backs.

North Toronto native Will Arnett in his most challenging role yet

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Andrew Mannsbach

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9:53 am

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When Will Arnett was a pint-sized poppet, chances are he dreamed of being a superhero.

After donning the cape of one noted crusader in The Lego Movie, the Toronto thespian is back with this month’s kid-friendly project. But this time, it’s all Batman.

In The Lego Batman Movie, the animated action flick follows Arnett as he embodies the gravel-voiced crusader. But all is not well with the Dark Knight, whose cavernous Batcave does much to showcase his lonely life. After being reminded about the orphan boy he’s adopted, Batman witnesses his transformation from normal kid into sidekick Robin (Michael Cera) who helps him — along with Batgirl — to protect Gotham City from the Joker’s evil plans. Expect high-impact laughs for all.

North of Bloor crime briefs: Another marijuana dispensary raided by police

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1:56 pm

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A marijuana dispensary at 1532 Eglinton Ave. W. near Marlee Avenue was raided by Toronto Police Service (TPS) on Jan. 18. Four employees working at the dispensary were arrested and charged with possession of marijuana, proceeds of crime and drug trafficking offences. A TPS press release states that 4.4 kilograms of marijuana, 14 grams of hashish, 59 kilograms of edibles, seven grams of shatter (cannabis resin) and approximately $20,000 in cash were seized during the raid.

A male suspect wanted by the Toronto Police Service (TPS) in a sexual assault investigation is still at large. On Jan. 3, around 9:50 a.m., a 26-year-old woman was on board a TTC subway train heading northbound between St. Clair West subway station and Glencairn subway station when a male suspect allegedly sat beside the woman and sexually assaulted her. Security images of the suspect have been released on the TPS website. Anyone with information is asked to contact police.

A local synagogue near the Bathurst Street and Warwick Avenue area was the scene of a robbery in late December, with two suspects still at large. On Dec. 25, a male and female entered an area where coats were being stored and stole multiple items before leaving the building. The two were last seen entering a 2010 to 2015 black Volkswagen Golf before leaving the area. Security images of the two suspects, as well as the suspect vehicle, have been posted on the TPS website.

Canada’s fashion phenom: the good, the bad & the coyote ugly

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11:46 am

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Canada Goose clothing company is planning to go public as soon as this month in a move that could peg the winter parka peddler’s value at close to $2 billion. American actress Maggie Q and PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) were hoping to send a message to the company when they showed up at its doorstep to protest the use of coyote fur in the parkas worn by everyone from Rihanna to Drake.

On Jan. 16, animal rights activists, some covered in a blood-like substance, protested outside of the company’s headquarters. Canada Goose has long been criticized for its use of fur, but the company states: “We strongly support the ethical, responsible and sustainable use of fur.”

The Michelin restaurant guide doesn’t bother with Toronto. Should we care?

By

Andrew Mannsbach

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9:47 am

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The Michelin Guide is notoriously secretive in its selection process. Since first launching their coveted star rankings back in 1926, Michelin inspectors scour select parts of the globe, anonymously trolling and cataloguing eateries like the KGB of the restaurant industry.

For Canadians, despite the rising stock of our homegrown cuisine, international acclaim as a tourist destination and a blooming awareness of our independent cultural identity, the guide has yet to make a Canadian selection in its 116-year history.

But why?

“Who cares? Michelin is bull****.” Chris Nuttall-Smith, former Globe and Mail restaurant critic, cuts through the phone line with a familiar sharpness of opinion. “There are just not a lot of Michelin star restaurants in Toronto or in Canada. And I don’t think that’s a problem. I think that’s actually something to celebrate.”

“I have no clue why they are not here. I also couldn’t give a f***,” says chef Grant van Gameren, who shares a similar antipathy toward the inception of a Canadian Michelin guide. And it’s not because his restaurants Bar Isabel and Bar Raval have landed on best-of lists throughout the country.

“I don’t think restaurants should be wasting time worrying about the acceptance or rating from an outside source. How about we concentrate on fulfilling our customers needs and staying busy every night,” van Gameren says.

“I definitely don’t think it’s a level playing field from our perspective,” says Jacob’s & Co.’s chef Danny McCallum. “The uninformed reader will think it is, though.”

Undercover Michelin mercenaries can grant favour and fame to chefs and their theatre or relegate chefs to a diminished status of “continental” appeal in comparison to their culinary counterparts.

“Some Michelin stars in Europe are a joke, in my opinion — a lot of hype,” says chef David Lee of Nota Bene and Planta. The degree of anonymity, the aloofness of their critical rating scale and the stark descriptions of designated restaurants can leave both diners and proprietors questioning.

“It is a dangerous thing,” Lee says.

“I think if you have three Michelin stars [the rating system] works for you,” says chef Patrick Kriss, chuckling, of Alo — ranked number seven this year by Canada’s 100 Best. “And if you don’t have three stars, you probably don’t like it that much.”

“Maybe if we had the guide it might push restaurants,” DaiLo’s chef Nick Liu says. “But because we don’t, there’s no point to push a good business for those fancy techniques.”

“It’s more recognized worldwide [compared to other guides], if we want to get our tourists into these restaurants,” says Coulson Armstrong, Canoe’s chef de cuisine.

“If you get a star, it’s amazing for your business,” Kriss admits, with the caveat of having to absorb great operational strain.

The pressure of being assigned, denied or, worst of all, revoked of a Michelin star can weigh heavily on an establishment. It also forces a particular style of dining.

“We as foodies are not interested in that level of formality and price in Canada,” says Post City’s critic Joanne Kates.

“We base the style of restaurants on the style of diners we have,” says Liu. “And I think there are a lower percentage of three-star diners in Canada.”

Armstrong thinks that despite great star-worthy Canadian restaurants, like Montreal’s Joe Beef, Raymonds in St. John’s and Edulis here in Toronto, we still need more shepherds on the road to defining Canadian cuisine.

“I think Toronto’s scene right now is really cliquey and hip. There needs to be more restaurants that stand alone to put Canada on the map for a scene.”

For many, the guide is still the bible on the road to enlightened eating. To others, the crisp pages of each year’s publication are as stiff as the service and selectiveness of the restaurants it serves to elevate.

“They don’t follow the old snobbery routine that Michelin really expects,” Nuttall-Smith contends, of the same restaurants Armstrong references.

Even from an international perspective, the guide (and any guide, for that matter) is still rooted in subjectivity, to a degree.

“You look at the greatest restaurant I’ve ever eaten in,” Nuttall-Smith says, “and it’s really just a magical place. You look at Noma in Copenhagen.”

“It’s one of the most stunning, creative, transformative, influential, delicious, hospitable, wonderful places on this planet, and they’ve never got a third Michelin star because they don’t have some asshole who walks around with a f***ing tastevin around his neck,” he says.

“I love keeping an eye on Yelp because I love the rating system of averages and not just the opinion of one or two people in a book,” van Gameren says.

Both Bar Isabel and Bar Raval have four out of five stars on Yelp.

“In an industry where one’s experience can literally change from dish to dish, server to server or palate to palate, is one person’s opinion even valid in this day and age?” van Gameren says.

“I don’t feel like we need a tire company that really doesn’t have any idea how restaurants work these days to tell us that the great restaurants we have, that we ought to know are great restaurants, are actually great restaurants,” Nuttall-Smith says.

Ultimately, Michelin is a business — a tire company with a publishing division, driven to sell books.

“Why I think we deserve Michelin is because they want to sell tires, and we’re in Canada,” Kriss says, chaffing. “What better place to sell tires than in a cold winter country?”

Ultimately, Canada’s dining scene is still in its youth. The cultural-ethnic patchwork of Canadian residents — those cooking in our kitchens and dining in our restaurants — creates a laudable potage of traditional flavours reminiscent of our diverse culinary roots. On the flip side, we see a simultaneous evolution of new hybrid varieties, propagated from emerging trends seen around the world.

At the core, we are cooking from the heart as well as from the highlight reel of restaurant concepts abroad, and that in itself is a stark contrast to the assumed criteria of the Michelin overlords.

Here’s a story about what can happen when a city gets too much attention from the Michelin guide.

Letting kids get their hands dirty

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Andrew Mannsbach

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10:36 am

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The concept of experiential learning, commonly thought of as “learning by doing,” has been recognized as one of the best forms of education since antiquity. In The Nicomachean Ethics, for example, Aristotle writes: “For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.”

But how is this notion best applied in modern-day Toronto? As far as education of children and adolescents goes, experiential learning often means getting students out of classrooms or otherwise introducing them to new situations.

For example, students at Bayview Glen were tasked with designing a toilet that could work with the limited natural resources available in a Third World country. This project was accomplished through a partnership with the University of Toronto’s Global Ideas Institute. Students are given a challenge — like the toilet design — and work in groups to complete it.

“It’s probably intuitive to most of us that, although lots of great learning goes on inside the physical school, there is also lots of great learning that goes on outside of it,” says Christopher Federico, director of teaching and learning at Bayview Glen’s prep and upper schools. “It’s about bringing concepts that often just sit on the pages of a textbook to life for students.”

While working on a project, the students are mostly self-guided but receive mentorship from their high school teachers. They also attend lectures from relevant experts at U of T once a month.

“It’s about integrating the perspectives of multiple subject disciplines,” Federico says.

At Toronto’s the York School, the motto is “Experience teaches,” a point perhaps best exemplified by the school’s integrated Canadian experience (ICE) program.

Students in the ICE program might go on an excursion to Toronto Island, visit neighbourhoods around the city, work with various experts or go winter camping. The program culminates in a visit to another area of Canada — such as Squamish, B.C. — and in the production of student-created documentaries.

“We give them a lot of freedom,” says Sara Gardner, an ICE teacher at the York School. “They feel like masters of what they’re doing.”

ICE teaches students about Canadian identity by integrating several different high school subjects — such as geography, history and English — into one immersive class. This allows students to spend more time with their teachers and also allows for more experience-based learning.

“It means we can engage our students in meaningful activities that are relevant in the real world,” says Gardner. “When students can use their problem-solving skills and apply knowledge, they’ll remember stuff.”

For Luke Coles, principal at Lawrence Park’s Blyth Academy, experiential learning defies a simple definition. It’s much more pervasive, he says, than getting students outside of classroom walls.

“Experiential education often gets misrepresented as being field trips,” he says. “A lot of the time, when we exit the school, instead of doing real learning, we have a ‘safari,’ where the kids go out but nothing sticks. And everyone in education is trying to create some stick.”

Coles says that experiential learning is a philosophy that can be incorporated into all aspects of education, including within the classroom.

Reading comprehension, for example, is better measured by asking students engaging questions that relate to human experience as opposed to relying on rote memorization.

“If you ask a question such as, ‘Is there someone in your life who has experienced what the protagonist is experiencing in this chapter?’ that is experiential,” he says. “The child is sitting in their desk at home and they are having an experience thinking about their life.”

Experiential learning is not an end goal, he says, but a process through which teaching is improved one step at a time.

“To me, experiential learning is a spectrum, and if we can move it one tick forward from what we’ve done in the past, then we’re doing something of value,” Coles says.