"Pandemic circumstances have prodded chefs Stephanie Duong and Bruce Lee to chart a new direction for their exceptional patisserie, Roselle. “We wanted to engage and connect more with the local food scene in Southern Ontario, to work with local farms to explore what Canadian pastry and desserts can be,” Duong explains. So, she and Lee have been visiting producers. They’ve enticed some to attempt growing new things. But mostly, they’ve been using what they sample to reconceptualize the European pastries they were already making so well."

"If this really is the world’s first pizza subscription service, you have to wonder what took so long. General Assembly Pizza launched in downtown Toronto four years ago with a purpose-built counter service and takeout facility designed to rapidly sate the gourmet-pizza appetites of the worker bees occupying nearby towers and lofts. As lockdown descended, founder Ali Khan Lalani noticed a run on frozen pizzas at grocery stores and put his idle team to work, figuring out how to freeze a quality pizza for cooking at home."

"Alo Midsummer, the posh stand-alone patio experience from the Alo Group, was in many ways even more indulgent than their previous best effort at Alo, Toronto’s — and Canada’s — number 1 restaurant."

"Itinerant South African–born Quinton Bennett has landed his first executive chef posting at the posh new Enigma, in Toronto’s Yorkville. “It’s a great opportunity for me,” says Bennett, whose CV includes a recent stop in Vancouver at Hawksworth, as well as gigs in the U.K. (including Northcote, The Gun) and Copenhagen (Noma)."

"Last fall in Ottawa, when restaurant-going briefly verged on normal, masked servers at Aiāna confidently doled out delicacy after delicacy as part of the fledgling restaurant’s 12-course tasting menu. Think crisp potato cones brimming with truffles or Acadian caviar, a splendid lightly curried squash soup, chocolate–foie gras macaroons, a deeply beefy wagyu pithiviers and more."

"When Covid-19 gutted Famiglia Baldassarre’s wholesale pasta business and put their modest restaurant on hold too, owner Leandro Baldassarre was forced to go all-in on retail-, its third and formerly smallest revenue stream. “We were 50-per-cent-plus wholesale before,” he says. “Shifting to almost-all-retail was weird. But hey, it helped.”"

"Nick Liu’s decision to move into retail was born of necessity. “We needed to add new revenue streams in the short term,” says the chef of Toronto restaurant DaiLo. “But people are really connecting to these products, so we’re gonna make them permanent.”"

"This Harbord Village favourite packs all the appeal and quality of its engaging omakase experience into handsome takeout boxes, marrying Ontario-grown produce with luxe ingredients flown fresh from the port city of Fukuoka."

"Transforming their elegant parade of tweezer-precise tasting menus to takeaway, this oft sold-out experience from Canada’s top restaurant features five courses of daintily labelled, carefully packaged dishes. Accompanied by a personalized menu, easy-to-follow serving instructions and an ambience-setting Spotify playlist drafted by chef Patrick Kriss himself, the weekly-changing meal might start with scrumptious cheddar-jalapeño-filled, black-onion-crusted gougères, shucked oysters and lightly dressed crudo."

"Le Pré was designed as an elegant tented affair. Guests would be gently ruffled by breezes from the adjacent vineyards as Galloway cattle grazed nearby. But would people come? The inaugural block of reservations booked solid within a few hours and Hadida slept soundly that night. Le Pré became the hottest reservation in the Golden Horseshoe."

"Roberto Marotta, who introduced Torontonians to his compelling Sicilian take on Mediterranean Italian cuisine at the intimate Ardo, on King Street East, has opened a new, larger and more ambitious restaurant to spread the word. Dova opened in Cabbagetown in the late summer of 2020, drawing culinarily underserviced locals to its heated back patio for lovely antipasti — like white anchovies with artichokes and pink peppercorns, swordfish carpaccio,"

"Scaramouche co-owner Keith Froggett and his son Benn are opening Greystones Restaurant and Lounge in a restored 1853 building in Orangeville, about an hour northwest of Toronto. The duo partnered with the building’s owner, Jennifer Dattels, and convinced Scaramouche sous chef Shigetaka Wakai to take the head chef role with the aim of turning out seasonal contemporary cuisine in a range of styles."

"Fans of Edulis might miss the cozy dining room and airy patio looking out at the CN Tower and the primo dog-walking turf due south of Toronto’s King West and (nouveau) Liberty Village neighbourhoods. But the Spanish-influenced cuisine offered by chef duo Michael Caballo and Tobey Nemeth, which regularly ranks in the Top 10 at C100B, is easily accessed via their Tock site, though the weekly offerings sell out quickly."

"In a sense, Fairouz Café has come full circle. The posh dine-in Middle Eastern restaurant that opened in Ottawa in 2016 (#46 on the 2017 C100B list) has faced down the pandemic by changing to a casual takeout-based business model — just like its namesake predecessor, Fairouz, of the ’90s."

"The latest initiative from Toronto’s (okay, Canada’s) premier cheese emporium, the Cheese Boutique, has almost nothing to do with cheese. Instead, it revolves around an old food truck purchased at auction a few years back for the purpose of mobile catering but, for now, is parked on store property. Afrim Pristine put up an IG post inviting any other interested local chefs to book a weekend in the truck near his store entrance gratis — on the sole condition that they make a credible promise to sell very good food."

"Rob Bragagnolo spent the early days of the pandemic rethinking paella. “I played around and realized that a metal takeout container is kind of like a paella pan. So, I start it in there, over the flame and finish it in the oven. It travels well and reheats nicely.” Labora’s loyal downtown Toronto customers were perfectly happy ordering his five-course takeout menus, and his wife quit her job to handle packaging and ordering."

"When it opened in Toronto early in the summer of 2019, Sushi Masaki Saito’s 14 bar stools immediately became the most-sought-after seats in town. Many were mesmerized by the pair of Michelin stars chef Saito had left behind at Sushi Ginza Onodera in NYC. A more fortunate few who ate there were entranced by the sushi, each piece of fish coaxed into yielding maximum umami through the chef’s bespoke formulas of salt, kelp, shoyu — and time."

"Momofuku’s third-floor restaurant, Kōjin, stays the barbecue course via Eva Chin, who took over the Toronto restaurant’s kitchen in February 2020. Previously chef de cuisine at Boulevard Kitchen & Oyster Bar in Vancouver, Chin was born and raised on her grandmother’s farm in the town of Kahuku, in Oahu, Hawaii."

"Sometimes the only thing we feel like putting together at dinnertime is someone else’s nearly finished handiwork. But then, a top-quality, low-effort meal kit that’s also bristling with bright, fresh flavours that leave you feeling both sated and healthful — well, that’s an elusive commodity. Or so we thought until we tried the takeout from The Edible Story — Alanna Fleischer and Brian Cheng’s catering-and-event space in Toronto."

"Toronto fish and seafood wholesale distributor Daily Seafood sells a direct-to-customer make-at-home sushi kit called Sushi Master. It contains saku salmon (a precision-cut block of the loin, perfect for slicing), yellowfin tuna, hiramasa (kingfish), otoro (tuna belly), along with ikura (salmon caviar), gari (pickled ginger), nori and wasabi. For a modest fee, you can add a tray of Boston uni."

"Three small spoonfuls of caviar — each topped with a tiny frond of dill — were resting, invitingly, on a small bed of smoked capelin–infused custard, its jiggly texture an ideal counterpoint to enhance the sensual pop of those little eggs on the tongue. And what’s this that sommelier Brie Dema is bringing our way? Flutes of Robert Moncuit Grand Cru Réserve Perpétuelle Blanc de Blancs Extra Brut? Nice choice, Brie, thank you. It was April 2nd, the day before Ontario was scheduled to descend into a province-wide lockdown. And my wife and I were settling in for an emergency tasting menu at the chef’s counter at Elora Mill, in Wellington County — where indoor dining was still permitted — for four more hours. We made the most of it."

"Oliver & Bonacini Hospitality is now in the grocery business. The Toronto-based restaurant group has teamed up with Voilà by Sobeys, a grocery delivery service launched last year by the Sobeys mothership, Empire Company. Original offerings showcased dishes like Leña Restaurante’s piri piri chicken, Bannock’s tourtière and Maison Selby’s french onion soup."

"“I’d say we’ve found our raison d’être,” says chef Zach Kolomeir, who co-owns Taverne Bernhardt’s and Dreyfus in Toronto, the latter temporarily closed due to Covid-19. He’s referring to his recent game-changing addition of a Rotisol, the veritable Rolls-Royce of rotisseries, to Bernhardt’s kitchen arsenal."

"At Métis Fish Market in Midland, Ontario, Shawn Zurawski hot smokes a lot of fish. He runs a tidy little shop, with delivery throughout Ontario. His uncle fishes Georgian Bay — as did his grandfather and great grandfather — to supply his smokehouse. His fish is superlative, the whitefish being his favourite."

"Julio Guajardo and Kate Chomyshyn — the husband-and-wife chef team who helped get Quetzal off to its great start and then unexpectedly upped and left — are now in the taco business with Matty Matheson. Their Spadina Avenue pop-up purveys two versions of that social media darling of tacodom: birria."

"A trio of French expats have brought Gallic flair to Toronto’s Little Italy with Pompette (loose translation: “tipsy”). Chef Martine Bauer’s dishes play in the realm of traditional. Her sommelier husband Jonathan Bauer’s list is a showcase for forward-thinking French winemakers. And mixologist Maxime Hoerth’s cocktails display the same panache he famously brought to the bar programs at the George V and Le Bristol hotels in Paris."