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International cuisine
National treasures
How to find cultural and culinary
gold in Toronto's neighbourhoods
By Sarah B. Hood
A persistent urban legend states that UNESCO has named Toronto the world’s most multicultural city. Whether it’s true or not, the city’s kitchens can serve up plates that represent just about any national or regional cuisine you might care to name.
There are entire neighbourhoods devoted to specific culinary traditions: : Greek souvlaki and spanakopita on the Danforth; Korean kimchee on Bloor and Christie; South Asian tandoori treats on Gerrard East; Portuguese churrasco on Dundas West. There’s Tamil food at Parliament and Wellesley, Latin American cooking along Bloor West, Jamaican jerk on Eglinton and Jewish deli eats at Bathurst and Lawrence, not to mention more than one Italian district, and numerous Chinatowns.
Some of these international flavours have become commonplace to North Americans, who have embraced tacos, pizza and egg rolls as part of their everyday fare. But how many of know the correct way to eat the Persian dizi, or what ingredients go into a south Indian pongal?
For the culinary globetrotter, we’ver charted a cook’s tour of Toronto establishments that offer a taste of world cuisines from all corners of the globe.
Pomegranate Restaurant
Sheherzade Persian Grill and Dizi
The Cuisine: Persian. “Pomegranate is different from most other restaurants; it’s based on the idea of ‘sofreh khaneh sunnati’ or ‘traditional home tablecloth’: home-style food,” says Danielle Schrage, who owns the two restaurants with her Persian husband Alireza Fakhrashrafi. But there was enough demand for the more common Persian kebabs that the couple also opened Sheherzade next door to serve traditional kebabs and dizi, also known as abgoosht, a hearty stew cooked in a clay pot.
The Menu: For Pomegranate, Fakhrashrafi researches historical sources for “forgotten dishes” from specific regions or time periods. “We’re presenting to non-Iranians traditional Persian cuisine, and to Iranians, dishes they may not know any more,” Schrage says.
At Sheherzade, “Dizi is basically everything cooked in a clay pot together, like lamb shank, beans and tomatoes; you eat it with a flatbread. It has this lovely tradition:
you drain the broth into a bowl, you shred the bread into it and let it sop up the juice, and then you use a masher – almost like a mortar and pestle – to create a paste. You eat it with fresh herbs and onions, almost like a dip.”
Persian cuisine makes great use of herbs in unusual combinations, like mint with parsley, and often mixes meat with fruit. Among unusual flavours are limoo omani, “essentially a sun-dried key lime. They’re very perfumed, very aromatic, something that completely transforms a dish,” she says. Then there are the tangy-sour verjus called ghooreh and more subtle ingredients, like dried rose petals.
The Drinks: Doogh is a yogurt-based drink similar to Arabic leban or South Asian lassi: always salty, usually minty and often fizzy. The staple beverage is chai, the Iranian samovar-brewed black teas with cardamom, saffron or rose. “Every home has their own style,” says Schrage. “You serve it in a glass, and [drink it with] the sugar in your mouth, with no milk.”
In a Nutshell? “the flavours are very subtle; they’re very aromatic, but
they don’t punch you in the face.”
Pomegranate: 420 College St, 416-921-7557. Sheherzade: 422 College St, 416-929-9222, pomegranaterestaurant.ca
Open Sun & Tue-Thu 5-9, Fri-Sat 5-10, Sun 5-9
Average check price: $40 incl drinks, tax & tip
Pomegranate: 40 seats. Sheherzade: 25 seats
No delivery. Takeout weekdays only. Reservations recommended.
Photo
Left: (Top to bottom): Maast o Khiar, Salad Shirazi and Qeymeh Stew.
Right: Danielle Schrage and Alireza Fakhrashrafi.
Frida Restaurant and Bar
The Cuisine: Mexican.
“My mom is from the north, my dad is from the south, and I was born in Mexico City, which is the dead centre of Mexico, so I have all the staples of all those places,” says chef and co-owner José Hadad.
The Menu: Hadad offers central Mexican classics like chicken mole poblano: “Poblano sauce has over 20 ingredients, which would range from nuts to chocolate to dried peppers to cinnamon and cloves – and it’s all made from scratch,” he says.
From the south, there’s pollo pibil, “marinated with achiote, which is one of the spices from the Yucatan region. Typical from the north, we have the fish tacos that are very traditional to the Baja California region. It’s lighter than fish and chips, with a light cabbage salad on top and some red smoked pepper salsa.”
Hadad estimates that 70 per cent of his ingredients are native to Mexico.
“Right now, if I go to my dry storage I have at least ten different kinds of dried peppers; just the mole sauce uses three. We also have ground chocolate paste and cajeta, which is a goat’s milk caramel.”
The Drinks: “We have the best margarita that I’ve ever tried; we combine tequila, fresh lime juice and a little Cointreau. We shake that up with a little bit of ice, and the sourness and the sweetness just match up perfectly. Also, the mojitos are really fresh. We have all the Mexican beers that you can get at the Beer Store and about 21 kinds of tequila, including some that you could not get anywhere else. There’s really fine stuff out there. Good tequila is like good whiskey: the next day you won’t even notice it.”
In a Nutshell? “Mexican food is about reunion with your loved ones. People find places in their stomach that they didn’t know they had just so they can hang out with their loved ones.”
999 Eglinton Ave W, 416-787-2221, fridarestaurant.ca, @fridarestaurant on Twitter
Open Tue-Sat 5-10.Sun brunch 10:30-2, dinner 5-8.
Average check price: $70 per couple incl. drinks, tax & tip
50 seats. Takeout; no delivery. Reservations recommended, especially on weekends
Photo:
Right: José Hadad.
Udupi Palace
The Cuisine: South Indian vegetarian.
Owner Hubert D’Mello reports that requests for vegan and gluten-free meals are on the rise, although “vegans are growing in faster numbers,” he says.
The Menu: Udupi Palace offers a straight traditional South Indian menu, with a few surprises, “like a few dishes which are not Indian and a few dishes which are fusion, to attract another clientele.”
North Indian specialities include chana masala (chickpea curry), matar paneer (green peas with curd cheese), and saag paneer (spinach with curd cheese). Udupi Palace also mixes up the South Indian idli (a soft, savoury rice and lentil pancake) with Chinese ingredients to create the Manchurian Idli. “It’s a fast-moving item,” says D’Mello.
There’s also Szechuan kofta: vegetable dumplings in a Szechuan sauce with cauliflower, carrot and cabbage.
The signature South Indian dish is the masala dosa: a gigantic, crispy rice- and lentil-based crepe filled with potatoes cooked with mustard seed.
The dosa contains a little bit of wheat flour to help it brown nicely, but gluten-free dosai can be prepared on request; they do, however, take a little longer. Rice
dishes are also characteristic, like bisi bele bhath and pongal, which combine rice, lentils, vegetables and spices.
Uncommon spices like fenugreek, tamarind and asafoetida are important in the South Asian kitchen; however, the kitchen equipment is fairly standard – except for the six-foot flat-top griddle used for cooking dosai, and the 30- to 40-gallon stainless steel vessels for the sambar (a vegetable stew that accompanies many dishes).
The Drinks: “We have fresh lime soda, which can be either sweet, salted or a mix of both,” says D’Mello. In fact, this was in a Toronto Life article about 100 things you should try before you die. And we have mango lassi [a yogurt-based milkshake-style beverage], which is a traditional Indian drink; it goes in any of the cuisines in India, and you could even have it as a dessert.”
D’Mello describes falooda as “a drink with milk, ice cream, tukmaria seeds and vermicelli”.
Sweet and filled with gelatinous floating balls, falooda is comparable to a bubble tea.
In a Nutshell? “You can never go wrong with a vegetable dish.”
1460 Gerrard St E, 416-405-8189, udupipalace.ca, @UdupiPalaceTO on Twitter
Open Sun-Thu, noon-10, Fri-Sat noon-11.
Average check price: $12 incl. tax & tip
120 seats. No license.
Delivery, full takeout.
Reservation only for 8+
Photo:
Left: A vegetarian thali (sampler plate).
Right: Hubert D’Mello (left) holding a dosa.
Udupi Palace photos by John Hood.
Nunu
The Cuisine: Ethiopian fusion. “Most of the Ethiopian restaurants here prepare Ethiopian food the traditional way, but I can do many things,” says owner and chef Nunu Belayneh. Cardamom, cinnamon and cloves are key flavours in Ethiopian fare; Belayneh learned her spice combinations from her mother, a well-known cook. “That’s why people say that it’s different,” she says. Among the offerings you might not normally find elsewhere are desserts like crème caramel and fruit salad; “and I have my mother-in-law’s trifle.”
The Menu: The classic traditional Ethiopian dish is misto misto, a sampler platter made up of half vegetarian items and half meat, all of which are prepared as thick stews or curries. The meal is served in the customary way, with generous dollops of each dish presented on a porous, slightly bitter, fermented round of injera, the Ethiopian flatbread, and accompanied by a green salad. Normally, guests share from one plate, serving themselves with small squares of injera torn from the dish itself, or from a supply of extras on the side. For those who prefer to dine alone, there are rectangular plates; the large round platter is for groups who like to share.
Nunu’s injera, baked in-house, is made with 95 per cent tef flour and 5 per cent barley. The batter is allowed to rest for three days to begin fermentation, “to bring the sourness and the bubble.” Guests who call ahead with two days’ notice can request 100 per cent tef, which is compatible with a gluten-free diet.
The Drinks: Nunu offers a signature honey wine cocktail, but the epitome of after-dinner indulgence is the full-scale Ethiopian coffee ceremony. Green coffee beans are roasted on the spot, ground, and boiled in a traditional clay pot.
Tiny cups are presented with a smoking brazier of sweet frankincense, a perfect complement to the taste and aroma of the thick, dark brew.
In a Nutshell? “The most important thing is to share it all together; when you touch the food with your own hand, you give your love to the food.”
1178 Queen St W, 647-351-6868, no website
Open Mon & Wed-Fri 5 p.m.- midnight, Sat-Sun 11 a.m.-midnight. Average check price: $25 incl. drinks, tax & tip. 45 seats.
No delivery/takeout. Reservations recommended.
Photo:
Left: Nunu’s exterior.
Right: Nunu Belayneh.
Elle m’A dit
The Cuisine: Contemporary Alsatian. Alsace is now part of France, but historically it has gone back and forth between France and neighbouring Germany, and its cuisine is a blend of the two nations.
Chef Gregory Furstoss offers straightforward recreations of Alsatian traditional dishes, as well as a few of his own creations.
The Menu: “I’m not twisting the original dishes; they’re exactly the same [as] if you go to Alsace, but I have my cooking style.” For instance, he says, “Alsace is famous for goose fois gras – it’s hard to get in Canada right now; most of it is from ducks, but I do have fois gras with gingerbread French toast.”
The tarte flambée is a signature dish of Alsatian cuisine, and Furstoss offers one. “It has a super-thin crust made from yeast-free dough that’s even thinner than
flatbread,” he says. He fills it with sautéed onions, bacon and gruyère cheese
Most of his ingredients can be found locally around Ontario, but Furstoss does use an Alsatian vinegar that he orders from a supplier in Quebec. “It’s flavoured with herbs and honey; I use it for dressing for the salads and also sometimes in the sauce for some dishes.” Apart from that, Alsatian cooking “is more like the classic methodology of the French cuisine; it’s the stuff you can learn at school,” he says modestly.
The Drinks: Alsace has a similar climate to the Niagara region, so it is known for its Gewürtztraminer and pinot gris, as well as Crémant, “the sparkling wine Alsace is famous for.” It goes into the classic cocktail known as the Kir royal, which also uses crème de cassis, a blackcurrant liqueur that’s commonly drunk after dinner “or even as an apéritif”. A variation is made with non-sparkling white wine. “It’s better to use something pretty acidic – Sylvaner or Edelzwicker – because the crème de cassis is pretty sweet.”
In a Nutshell?“Comfort food and sharing and having a good time with friends: conviviality.”
35 Baldwin St, 416-546-3448, ellemadit.com, @ellemaditoui on Twitter
Open for lunch Tue-Fri 11:30-2:30. Dinner: Tue-Sun 5:30-10.
Average check price: lunch $25 plus drinks, tax & tip. Dinner: about $50 + drinks, tax & tip
46 seats. No delivery. Full takeout. Reservations suggested.
Photo:
Left and right: exterior and interior of Elle M’a Dit.
Torito Tapas Bar and Restaurant
The Cuisine: Spanish tapas.
“Understanding the food would mean understanding the history of the country,” says chef Luis Valenzuela, who points out that under the Franco dictatorship, food was rationed, so “traditional Spanish food is very simple: gazpacho is just a mixture of old stuff that you had that you blend with sherry; crema catalana, which is like a signature dish for Spain, is a photocopy of the crème brûlée with cheaper ingredients.”
On the other hand, he says, “I think the reason Spanish cuisine now is one of the leading cuisines is for many years they have been absorbing the cuisines of other places. Spaniards have been shut down from the world for many years; once Franco died, there was an explosion in culinary influences: when I was in Spain, I saw mango gazpacho.”
The Menu: Tapas are the little dishes served with drinks. “In Spain there would be ten tapas places in one block,” says Valenzuela. Friends and colleagues gather in the early evening and proceed from place to place, sampling a little at each one.
Since costs are “a lot higher” in Toronto, Torito offers only a few full tapas plates; “the rest are what they call ‘half rations’ in Spain, like an amuse bouche to us.”
Valenzuela says a classic tapas dish would be “a piece of bread, Serrano ham on top and a piece of Manchego cheese and, of course, tortilla [sliceable rounds of egg and potato].”
Torito also serves wild mushrooms sautéed with garlic butter, white wine and parsley, and garnished with crispy jamon (ham) on top (“very tasty!”)
Valenzuela uses somewhat unusual ingredients from Spain like the piquillo peppers, Arbequina olives, sherry vinegar and liquid salt, as well as pata negra, the renowned black pigs “that are fed on the acorns and hazelnuts, and therefore they are more fatty.”
The Drinks: We have a drink called tinto de verano; it’s basically ginger ale and red wine; it’s really tasty. It’s very popular in Spain; a lot of the younger people drink it.
In a Nutshell? “A place to have fun and to eat well: that would be a tapas place.”
276 Augusta Ave, 416-961-7373, toritorestaurant.com, @ToritoTapas, @chef_valenzuela on Twitter
Open daily 5:30-11
Average check price: $50 incl. drinks, tax & tip
54 seats. No delivery/takeout. Reservations recommended on weekends
Photo:
Above: Piquillo peppers stuffed with salted cod and tapanade sauce.
Below: Luis Valenzuela.
Keriwa Café
The Cuisine: “Keriwa” is a Proto-Algonquian word meaning “eagle”, and Keriwa focuses on local, regional, seasonal foods using Aboriginal ingredients and techniques. However, the concept is certainly not museum recreations of First Nations food ways. “Our menu is largely focused around seasonal change,” says chef and owner Aaron Joseph Bear Robe, whose heritage is from the Siksika First Nation of Alberta. “We smoke fish, we make pemmican, we preserve fruits by drying them, but beyond that it’s just straight cookery; nothing is ever a literal, face-value interpretation.”
The Menu: “We’re playing with traditional classics,” he says. “Traditional pemmican is bison meat, dried, pounded to dust and buried in fat; it was used as a trail mix. But we take cuts of bison, braise them, make a ragout, fold the braised meat back into it and finish it with Saskatoon berries and sage.”
Keriwa’s pemmican is served creatively, as in perogies with Saskatoon berries, crème fraiche and celeriac. The baked scone known as bannock is another classic staple First Nations food, here reinterpreted using local Ontario Red Fife flour.
Above all, game meats and fish shine on the menu: whitefish, pickerel, venison and wild turkey. The offerings are constantly changing, but “if there’s any one thing we do have on the menu all the time, it’s bison,” says Bear Robe.
“Bison is the staff of life for my people traditionally; it has a lower fat content than halibut and it is indigenous to Canada. We braise it, roast it, brine it; we use all sorts of different cuts like tongue, brisket and short ribs. I definitely was exposed to bison and game as a child growing up on a reserve, but I didn’t really seek it out until I started working at a restaurant called River Café in Calgary. Bison was a big part of their menu; their chef felt passionately about bison as well.”
The Drinks: “My bartender/manager has a craft cocktail program that changes quite often. Right now we have the Parkdale Pusher, which is our ode to the community we live in.”
In a Nutshell? “We are the ingredients.”
1690 Queen St W, 416-533-2552, keriwacafe.ca, @keriwacafe on Twitter
Open for dinner Tue-Thu 5:30-10, Fri-Sat 5:30-11. Brunch: Sat 10-2 & Sun 10-3.
Average check price: $75-$100 incl. drinks, tax & tip
40 seats. No delivery/takeout. Reservations recommended
Photo:
Left: Aaron Joseph Bear Robe.
Photo by Kelly Anne Jones.
Right: Keriwa café exterior.
Photo by Carli Vierke/BlogTO.
Acadia
The Cuisine: Acadian and Low-country cuisine – French-influenced food from New Brunswick to Louisiana, interpreted “somewhat vaguely,” says chef Matt Blondin (formerly of Rain, Sen5es, Colborne Lane and others), “because we tend to look at all the east-coast cultures that the French colonies have influenced.”
Acadia nestles on a College Street strip better known for pizza and prosciutto than a “serious but playful” spin on the home cooking of Maine, Nova Scotia, Louisiana and Quebec.
Although Blondin does come from a French Canadian background, his approach is far from literal.
“We definitely look at every ingredient, every product we bring in and ask how we can do something special that falls within the cuisine that we’re doing.” he says. “The spirit is to stay true to the culture and the flavour; if I’m going to have an east-coast restaurant focusing on the Carolinas to Quebec, I would never put something like a pasta on the menu just because the customers want it.”
The Menu: The broadly-interpreted theme and the wide geographical inspiration bring a host of lesser-known ingredients into the kitchen. “We have a catfish with persimmon and sunchokes; veal cheeks with satsumas, which are oranges from the Carolinas; kingfish from South Carolina with red peas and savoury; shrimp and grits,” says Blondin.
“Foie gras from Quebec. Nova Scotia cod cheeks. Pickled watermelon rinds, mirlitons, which are water squashes [also called chayotes], white coffee, black unhulled sesame seeds, black rice grits. I make my own andouille sausages; I use Tasso ham.”
The Drinks: “We do feature cocktails. We have about 24 items on our cocktail list, obviously all crafted in-house.”
Whiskey and bourbon are key ingredients, as in the Maple Shack (bourbon, maple syrup and Peychaud’s bitters), or the Indian Summer (bourbon, Calvados, Strega and spices).
In a Nutshell? “The techniques and the cuisine styles mean going back to family traditions instead of looking towards the new – always referencing old-school cookbooks. But nothing in this restaurant is very straightforward.”
50C Clinton St, 416-792-6002, acadiarestaurant.com, @AcadiaToronto, @Chefmattblondin on Twitter
Open Wed-Mon 5:30-11.
Average check price: $60 incl. drinks + tax & tip
40 seats. No delivery/takeout. Reservations suggested.
Photo:
Left: Matt Blondin.
Right: Acadia exterior.
Keriwa photos by Carli Vierke.
Guu SakaBar
The Cuisine: Japanese Izakaya. The first Toronto incarnation of Guu caused a frenzy when it opened on Church Street in late 2009 as the first restaurant in the city to offer the tapas-style Izakaya concept, complete with an open kitchen and cooks who greet each customer vociferously as they enter the room.
The buzz was so strong that there were continual line-ups to get in – to the extent that space heaters were installed outside the doors to keep guests warm while queuing.
Guu SakaBar, which opened its doors in the spring of 2011, is a larger space, so guests can generally walk right in.
The Menu: Although Guu SakaBar presents traditional Japanese Izakaya, the recipes have been slightly tweaked for North American consumption, says manager Natsuhiko Sugimoto. “The Toronto people like the sweet stuff, so we [add] a little sugar,” he says.
No single dish stands out among the offerings; the important thing is that “Izakaya in Japan is like a pub, so we are making [food that is] good for the beer, good for the sake.”
Guu’s standard ingredients list includes dashi broth, fish broth, seaweed broth and shiitake mushrooms. Among their traditional dishes is a Japanese take on hot pot: fish cakes, vegetables, boiled eggs, radishes and bamboo shoots simmered in hot broth.
There are also fusion dishes. “We have creamy noodles like carbonara,” he says. In the place of spaghetti or fettucini, Guu uses Japanese udon noodles in soy sauce with butter and cream.
For diners who aren’t familiar with the cuisine, “We have a top-five menu on the wall,” says Sugimoto.
“So [it is] easy to understand our recommendations, like baked oysters in the shell with cream sauce, chilis and mushrooms; deep fried chicken, and seared tuna from British Columbia,” he says.
The Drinks: Guu SakaBar’s list includes Japanese beer, Japanese vodka, sake and plum wine, as well as an array of fusion-inspired cocktails like the sake mojito.
In a Nutshell? “The most important thing is fun.”
559 Bloor St W, 647-343-1101, guu-izakaya.com/sakabar, @GuuIzakaya on Twitter
Open Sun-Thu 5-11:30 & Fri-Sat 5-12:30.
Average check price: $30-$35 incl. drinks + tax & tip
126 seats. No delivery/takeout. No reservations.
Photo:
Left: Natsuhiko Sugimoto.
Right: Guu SakaBar interior.
Guu SakaBar photos by Sarah B. Hood.
Hrvati
The Cuisine: Croatian, as interpreted by executive chef Rod Bowers. “You have a base dish and you put your own spin on it,” he says. “We have cevapi [a minced meat kebab] and pljeskavica.” Toronto Life calls the latter “a Balkan burger worthy of a return visit”.
The Menu: Bowers considers the cevapi to be a signature dish of Croatian cooking. “It’s a caseless sausage, so we grind beef and pork and season it as per a sausage and then put it through a sausage stuffer, but without a casing, and then we form it into little sausages. We also make these appropriate sauces like ajvar, which is red pepper, eggplant, garlic, onions and seasoning.”
Kajmak is another house specialty; it’s made with ricotta, heavy cream, cream cheese, salt and pepper. “We beat it with a heavy wooden spoon until it becomes soft and smooth, and we add a thick Balkan-style yogurt at the end,” says Bowers. “That becomes a garnish for the cevapi platter.”
There’s also a Croatian-style goulash, he says, “with buttered noodles very much like a beef stroganoff, but we use more paprika in it. We do a Croatian-style soup, a lot like a chicken noodle soup with a heavy influence of cabbage as well, and plum. We make our own plum jam,” he adds.
“I’m from Newfoundland, so we bottle and jam a lot there. We take these little damson plums and cook them down; we stuff it into a crepe or palacinke.”
Bowers points out that “Croatia is very influenced from Italy as well, because they share the sea, so you have some seafood pastas and cooking methods influenced by Italy.”
The Drinks: “In Croatia, everyone makes their own slivovitsa, which is plum brandy; they make all their own spirits in little towns. We serve a slivovitsa.” Hrvati Bar also offers Ožujsko, a popular brand of Croatian beer. “It’s a pils, and it’s very easy drinking; it’s got a very smooth aftertaste. It’s our number one selling beer.”
In a Nutshell? “If there’s one culture that cooks with their hearts, it’s Croatians for sure.”
690 Euclid Ave, 647-350-4227, hrvatibar.com, @rodneybowers on Twitter
Open for lunch Mon-Fri 11:30-2:30. Dinner: Mon-Wed 5:30-midnight & Thu-Sat 5:30-1:30.
Average check price: About $18 incl. drinks + tax & tip
About 30 seats. No delivery. Limited takeout. Reservations only for 6+
Photo:
Left: Cevapi with ajvar and kajmak.
Right: Rod Bowers.
Hrvati photos by Sarah B. Hood.
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