Discover Wine Country Ontario

Throughout all Terroir 2018 festivities, we could not help but be inspired by the sheer diversity of what Wine Country Ontario has to offer, to the province and beyond.

The fun began the day before the Symposium when speakers and media representatives were invited to Wine Country Ontario to experience the heart of the Niagara wine region. We are proud to say that Ontario’s cool climate and limestone-rich soils produce some of today’s most exciting wines and we want to shout it from the rooftops!

Guests had the opportunity to meet the winemakers, experience the terroir, and learn why Ontario VQA wines are capturing the world’s attention.

Photo credit: Jo Dickins

VQA Wines of Ontario were being represented by talented winemakers and sommeliers in almost all Terroir programming. Under the sea in Ripley’s Aquarium to among the vines in Norfolk County, we could guarantee you would not be without Ontario vino.

For the big event (Terroir Symposium), Wine County Ontario was featured in two of our beverage master classes. In the architecturally-stunning venue of Galleria Italia in the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO), long tables were prepped for deep-dive wine tastings and discussions.

We learned about how our beloved Cab Franc is having a comeback within the province and beyond by wine heavy hitters, Master Sommelier, Pascaline Lepeltier and US based wine writer, Bryce Wiatrack. We also got a taste of complex wines created by women in a master class facilitated by inspiring women in the wine industry such as Okanagan Crush Pad’s Christine Coletta and Canadian wine Trade Commissioner, Janet Dorozynski.  

There were dozens of examples of unique, terroir driven wines being poured by passionate makers all day. Tastings featured key varieties including Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Riesling and Cabernet Franc.

Photo credit: Jo Dickins

In the words of Matt Kramer of the Wine Spectator, “Ontario wines are the epitome of cool climate, which puts them right on the cutting edge. I’m anxious to taste the latest, as quality keeps surging, seemingly with every new vintage”.

We can’t wait to see what cutting edge vintages come next!

#SeeTorontoNow as a Culinary Destination

Whether you’re a local in the 6ix, or a visitor to Ontario’s capital, we promise there are some don’t-miss culinary destinations to satisfy your food lover needs. 

Toronto offers endless opportunities to eat & drink and Tourism Toronto has gathered the best of our dynamic food scene for you in one place! Check out their Food & Drink Issue here.

As Torontonians, our favourites in this issue include:

MUST-TRY BRUNCH HOT SPOTS -- We LOVE brunch. Find the city's best hot spots for everything from bennies to fried chicken & grits.

EXPLORE BY NEIGHBOURHOOD -- If we had it our way, we'd eat our way around the city all day, every day. Discover hidden gems from the busy city centre to the culturally diverse east end.

SMALL PLATES FO' LIFE -- Sharing is caring. Explore the many restaurants serving up small portions for you and your dining partners 'til late night.

And don’t forget places like these that have made Toronto a culinary destination:

CANOE

EL CATRIN

BAR RAVAL

ST. LAWRENCE MARKET

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As this Food & Drink issue discovers, the culinary scene in Toronto isn’t just about what we can find in the downtown core. Just as we did for the Terroir 2018 World Food Court lunch, we put our appetites in Suresh Doss’s hands when we followed him to the fast-growing city in the Greater Toronto Area -- Brampton. 

Suresh leads some amazing food tours in the Toronto ‘burbs and this one didn’t disappoint. In a city filled with strip malls and industrial areas, we found delicious hidden gems of all cultures to enjoy. This day was a celebration of diversity and the incredible flavours that come with it. 

Highlights included:
-    “The best dosa in the city” at Annalakshmi
-    A variety of South American empanadas from a convenience store (La Favorita Latin Market) – get the housemade hot sauce!
-    Naan straight from the tandoor at Tandoori Tonite
-    Being schooled on how to eat doubles at Vishnu’s Doubles & Roti Shop

Ask around for more suggestions and see where the Toronto food scene takes you. Oh, the places you will go!
 

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Amass Chef Explains How to Hit the Money Spot With a Zero-Waste Restaurant

SKIFT TAKE

Zero-waste is the food world’s latest favorite catchphrase, but only a few restaurateurs are turning the trend into sustainable profits.   — Jennifer Parker

By Jennifer Parker, Skift Table 
April 25, 2018

For the uninitiated, here’s the rub: Globally, industrial agriculture processes and landfills full of discarded food account for roughly one quarter of all manmade greenhouse gases. That’s more than the entire transportation sector, which means what’s on your plate impacts the environment more than the car you drive.

Chef Douglas McMaster pioneered the zero waste trend in 2014 with the opening of Silo in Brighton, now coupled by his latest fine-dining venture Cub in London. In Brooklyn, Danish chef Mads Refslund, cofounder of Noma, is also picking up the torch with his soon-to-open eatery Fire and Ice. But the zero waste appeal is perhaps most fully and viscerally experienced at Amass in Copenhagen, where chef Matt Orlando and his tight-knit, 20-person staff have been quietly refining renewable techniques since 2013.

“Zero waste is talked about a lot, but 90 percent of it is all talk and no show. I didn’t want to be that restaurant,” says Orlando, a tattooed, rebel skateboarder from California who worked at Noma as a sous chef and then later as chef de cuisine, a position held for three years, before opening Amass in the industrial harbor neighborhood known as Refshaleøen. The 64-seat warehouse-style dining room suits Orlando’s aesthetic, with a freewheeling vibe, bold street art canvassing concrete walls, and a spare smattering of jet black modern furniture.

But the beating heart of the restaurant is actually just outside, where a small farm and garden play host to nightly bonfires, lit in celebration of produce unwasted in the making of the restaurant’s 10-course Nordic tasting menu.

At Amass, dishes such as salted Zander fish, dry-aged beef, and fermented potato bread are so delicious and well-presented that customers likely leave completely unaware of the assembly-line efficiency and specialty organic farm production that made the meal possible.

NO-WASTE ECONOMICS

A regular fine dining restaurant and a true zero-waste business share the same basic main costs: rent, staff salaries, utilities, and product. But the latter operates under the mandate of lowering carbon emissions in every way possible. This typically involves lowering electricity usage, recycling water, and adopting “nose to tail” cooking methods.

At Amass, staff members take these practices to the extreme. The staff makes do with minimal refrigerator space, source produce from local organic farms, and turn what others call waste — skins, seeds, and stems — into dried seasonings, misos, or crisps. The team has also mastered meat aging and fermenting techniques, which are a hallmark of Danish cooking and essentially produce more meals from less food.

But while operating a zero-waste restaurant sounds altruistic, upfront costs can be daunting. For example, to open Amass, Orlando needed a higher-than-average headcount, because of the extra steps involved in zero-waste cooking. Luckily, other expenses can quickly turn into savings. For example, Orlando bought eight $250 dehydrators to ensure food byproducts  would be dried and used, instead of taking up dead space. “A 15-gallon container, when processed via lactic fermentation or ground into a powder, becomes less than one quart of product,” said Orlando, clearly eager to see others in the industry test his methods, which he insists can deliver a return on investment.

“We were always profitable because of lower food costs,” says Orlando of his five-year-old restaurant. An average fine dining operation runs a 30 to 35 percent food cost in its budget, whereas Amass spends only 18 percent of its budget on food.

Still, it’s certainly not a cake walk. In order for Amass to break even, it must take in 335,000 kroner ($56,000 USD) per week, by charging $163 per person for each pre-fixe menu. And of course, the restaurant industry is cyclical, and littered with finicky customers.

Photo courtesy of Amass

MANAGING EXPECTATIONS

Most people who eat at Amass aren’t aware of its sustainability efforts, they don’t necessarily care, and no amount of marketing is going to instantly change that. Visitors come to Copenhagen for a great dining experience, and they’re paying good money to get it. So when Chef Orlando sets down a mere 20 grams of expensive, ethically raised aged beef in front of a hungry diner, they might get cranky.

“It’s funny, you put this small portion down in front of people, and they look at you like it’s a joke. But most of the time, they don’t want any more because the taste is so rich,” said Orlando. He’s standing inside a second-floor meat storage room, where huge tranches of bone-on dairy cattle hang ripening to the thick consistency of blue cheese. One single tranche will yield 80 to 90 portions.

There’s a certain charm in Amass’ rare methods, evidenced by its consistent use of endangered heritage eggs, which are five times more expensive than regular farm-raised eggs. “Sometimes it’s really frustrating. We serve an endangered species, but when you serve cabbage in a different dish later on, they’re like: This is cabbage. They instantly forgot about the langoustine, beef tartare, and heritage eggs,” Orlando said.

The art of making money at this game is to elegantly balance the expensive dishes with the less expensive ones to stay within the budget, without anyone seeming to notice.

LOOKING AHEAD

To stay relevant and compete with another well-known Copenhagen restaurant recently reopened within walking distance of Amass, Orlando is expanding his business with a new organic brewery. Opening this fall, the brewery will be named Broaden & Build, and will feature a test kitchen, where Amass staff can continue developing and teaching zero-waste techniques. The brewery will house its own casual restaurant.

To fund the new concept, Orlando solicited $2 million from private investors. His idea is to expand on Amass’ zero-waste ethos, building an add-on business that can attract more visitors. The kitchen team will be led by head chef David Parrott, who already works closely with Orlando, and the building designed by Lendager Group Architects, who are known for aggressive sustainability (which well suits the Amass brand.) Brewers from Italy, San Francisco, and Denmark have signed on, as the project swiftly takes shape.

Meanwhile, Amass’ outdoor bonfires will be lighting up the Danish summer, while guests sip wine and eat campfire marshmallow s’mores torched with recycled coffee vinegar. The fact that the staff will later use the bonfire ash to make lye, and soak vegetables in it for added texture, is just part of the experience.

Reserve Is Expedia’s Exclusive Reservations Partner in the U.S.

SKIFT TAKE: 

News out of Reserve has been relatively quiet since the hiring of the company's new COO last fall. But they're now doubling down on efforts to reach diners across many platforms, and this deal is no exception.   — Kristen Hawley

By Kristen Hawley, Skift Table 

April 19, 2018

Reservations provider Reserve has struck a deal to be the exclusive provider of restaurant reservations on Expedia.com in the United Sates beginning in May. Reserve works with 1,000 U.S. restaurants in all 50 states. Only restaurants on Reserve’s network will be available for booking on Expedia.

Reservations providers are battling for a bigger slice of the booking pie and reservations are no longer an afterthought for travelers. Instead, the opposite: many travelers book trips around dining at notable and hard-to-book restaurants. According to Skift’s recently released Affluent Traveler Survey, 19 percent of travelers (and 22 percent of travelers without children) prefer an urban culture and food trip when vacationing. Additionally, the survey found that “excellent food and beverage on property” is the third most important aspect of a hotel, according to respondents.

Bar at Tied House in Chicago, a Reserve partner restaurant

“One of the themes we talk about so much in our business is, how do we put our restaurant partners first? How do we make sure we are meeting their customers where they are? This is another great example of that for us,” Reserve CEO Greg Hong told Skift Table. “We’re so excited about being able to work with [Expedia] and for the opportunity to bring so many people they have on their platform into the Reserve network and into our partner restaurants.”

“We’re excited to work with Reserve to add restaurant discovery and reservation services to Expedia’s activities and attractions platform,” Jen O’Twomney, vice president, Expedia Local Expert said in a statement. “Dining out is an integral part of the travel experience, so this is a natural addition and one we believe travelers will really value.”

Reserve’s technology will enable restaurant discovery and reservation services directly on Expedia’s activities and attractions platform — guests will not be redirected to Reserve in the process. As on Reserve, guests will see real-time availability for their selected day, time, and party size at the restaurant they’re looking to book.

Restaurants won’t incur any additional costs associated with the partnership. Reserve charges restaurants a monthly flat fee of $249 per month, covering reservations and table management services. Reserve plans to make some product additions soon, including point-of-sale integration, that could see some restaurants paying more for additional functionality. A Reserve spokesperson also noted Reserve does not charge cover fees, a pricing structure pioneered by reservations provider OpenTable, which charges restaurants a dollar per diner seated in addition to monthly subscription fees.

Tied House, Chicago

COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE

Reserve declined to comment on any potential investment from Expedia, though historically these types of deals come with some level of support. In early 2017, Airbnb led a $13 million investment in Reserve competitor Resy. Then, in September, Airbnb announced it was integrating Resy into its platform, allowing Airbnb users to book reservations at Resy partner restaurants directly within the app.

Expedia’s tie up with Reserve follows years of partnerships and acquisitions by other online travel agencies and travel brands. Booking Holdings acquired OpenTable in 2014 for $2.6 billion, and both TripAdvisor and China’s Ctrip partner with OpenTable to offer reservations. TripAdvisor also owns reservations service La Fourchette, which it acquired in 2014. Most recently, Accor Hotels bought ResDiary, a Scotland-based reservations provider.

Until now, Expedia has been the lone major online travel company without a dining reservations stake. For Expedia, entering the restaurant reservations space with a U.S. partner makes sense. Last year, Expedia generated 55 percent of its revenue in the U.S. versus 45 percent abroad.

WHAT’S NEXT?

In the competitive space of restaurant reservations, footprint and growth are paramount to success. While Reserve and its competitors offer powerful software to restaurants, success in the market depends on size and power.

“Our plan is to continue to grow the Reserve brand,” said Michael Wesner, Reserve’s chief operating officer. “We’ve had a great deal of success in a number of the cities that we are in growing far faster than we would have even expected. Certainly the intent is to grow the business from a sheer footprint standpoint and this Expedia relationship is one means by which we’ll be able to do that.”

Our Top 5 Chef Works Must-Haves

We love how easy it is to look good when dressed in Chef Works apparel. Check out our top 5 picks !

BERKELEY CHEFS BIB APRON. We love the street-meets-rural vibe it has going on. You might recognize it on our Feast On chefs at the 2018 Terroir Rural Retreat!

The Chef Works Urban Collection is meant to be practical and yet fashion-forward, inspired by emerging trends with gourmet food trucks, fusion cuisine and rising culinary chefs.

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BOWTIE. To the front of house we go! These cute bowties add a touch of sophistication when greeting and serving guests in your dining room. 

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MARRAKESH WOMEN'S CHEF COAT. Inspired by the kitchens of Sonora, Mexico, the Marrakesh will make any lady chef feel like she's looking classy.

This is a fashion-forward coat that flatters the feminine form. With a flattering crossover collar, figure enhancing darts and flared hip opening, this single-breasted, coat redefines chef coats.

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MANHATTAN DRIVER CAP. Take a trip back to the Gastby era! On your bartender or sous chef, this edgy newsboy cap fits right in in a casual setting.

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GINGHAM DRESS SHIRT. We love that this gingham shirt can either be dressed up or down depending on your style of restaurant. Maybe add one of the bowties above!  

The Great Ontario Craft Brew by Beau's All Natural Brewing Co. & Great Lakes Brewery

Calling all beer lovers!

Our Signature beer sponsors, Beau's All Natural Brewing Co. (Vankleek Hill, ON) and Great Lakes Brewery (Etobicoke, ON), are creating an all-Ontario beer to be tapped at Terroir 2018!

On March 26th, we ventured into the land of Etobicoke to Great Lakes Brewery, where we joined the two breweries to witness the magic in the making!

Now, what is beer without hops, malt and yeast?

We were joined by VQH Farms, Barn Owl Malt and Escarpment Labs on Brew Day to get a behind the scenes look on how such amazing Ontario-grown product is incorporated into the beer-making process.

An Instagram contest was held to allow a lucky member of our beer community a chance to name this locally-inspired brew and to join us on this exciting brew day. The unanimous winner was “Yours To Discover” by James Hamilton, a slogan that as Ontarians, we are familiar with! We thought it was the perfect name to reflect the provincial roots of the brew.

For those who are beer nerds (us included), Beau’s All Natural Brewing Co. and Great Lakes Brewery decided on a one-of-a-kind, crushable Ontario Pale Ale for the 12th Annual Terroir Symposium.

To create the scene, last year, Peter Bulut, Owner & Chief Brewing Officer at Great Lakes Brewery, purchased a 30th birthday present for the brewery – a beautiful copper pilot system that can produce up to 700 litres (or 7 barrels). From this, GLB created their “7 Barrel Series” that allows them to create more unique and experimental beers – just like this one!

To start the mashing process, Brew Day participants poured four different grains into the copper mash/lauter tun – Barn Owl Pilsner, Pale Ale, Red Wheat and Munich.

VQH Farms Chinook, Cascade and Centennial hops were then measured and added to the wort. There will be a touch of dry-hopping later in the process for good aroma measure!

And last but certainly not least, the “Wild Thing” wild Saccharomyces yeast from Escarpment Labs was added for the fermentation process to begin!

And now, we wait. Want to get a taste of the final product? You can check it out at the 12th Annual Terroir Symposium being held on Monday, April 23rd at the Art Gallery of Ontario.

As a bonus, if you've signed up for the Craft Beer Master Class, you'll get a chance to sit in on a locally-driven discussion between Peter Bulut from Great Lakes Brewery, Rob Morra from Beau's All Natural Brewing Co. and Crystal Luxmore from Beer Sisters.

In the meantime, stay tuned for a creative logo featuring the “Yours To Discover” name – another collaboration by both breweries’ creative teams.