In Toronto:

Chefs on the move: Dustin Gallagher is leaving Grace (503 College Street) to travel, and will be replaced by Kevin Castonguay, formerly of Woodlot. Sous chef Misha Nestreneko takes over the stoves at Marben (488 Wellington Street West) now that Carl Heinrich has left to open his own place.

William Serre from Acadia Restaurant (50C Clinton Street) and Andrew Wilson, Chef de Cuisine at Colborne Lane (45 Colborne Street) took top honours last night at the Nella Cucina Discovered Culinary Competition.

I keep hearing  the voice of Tichina Arnold from the TV show Everybody Hates Chris, but L’Unita Enoteca (134 Avenue Road) can now boast “my restaurant has 7 desserts!” Mike Angeloni (who has previously done pastry for Spendido and the Hoof restaurants) has created a dessert menu of Italian favourites; doughnuts, cannoli, biscotti… yum.

You should go:

Tonight is Schoolicious at School (70 Fraser Avenue). $25 for a 3-course prix fixe from the regular restaurant menu.

The Depanneur (1033 College Street) and Fidel Gastro team up for a super cool drop-in dinner on Friday, February 24th. Drop by after 6pm and $9 will get you 3 mini sandwiches featuring Gastro’s 3 famous flavours (Havana Club, Sloppy Jose and Diablo’s right wing). Side salads and chips are extra.

Drinky drinky! Fynn’s of Temple Bar (489 King Street West) hosts a Maker’s Mark dinner on Monday, February 27th at 7pm. Tickets are $50 for four courses of food plus drink pairings. Email info@fynnstemplebar.com to reserve a spot.

The Big Ragu (1338 Lansdowne Avenue) hosts another Big Night-themed dinner on March 25th. The menu includes suckling pig, roast salmon and yes… the Timpano. These tend to sell out way in advance, so book your seats now. Tickets are $75 per person. Louis Prima not included.

Today’s food news:

When menus get pretentious – are menu descriptions getting too fancy? [New York Post]

Speaking of fancy descriptions – when a moonshiner becomes a “micro-distiller”. [New York Times]

You know, I’m ashamed to say that I’ve walked past this Filipino grocery for 18 years and never bothered to try the BBQ’d pork. [Spice City Toronto]

Hey cops, want (really fancy) doughnuts? Screw cupcakes, doughnuts are the hot new pastry trend. [Toronto Star]

How a server “reads” your table. And how you can help them figure out what kind of service to give you. [Wall Street Journal]

In Toronto:

The Cheese Boutique has announced the line-up for their annual Festival of Chefs, which takes place each weekend in May. The event features local chefs including Rocco Agostino (Enoteca Sociale, Pizzeria Libretto), Victor Barry (Splendido) and Rob Gentile (Buca) doing in-store demos and samplings. Check the website for the full schedule.

Just opened – Bazaar Global Food (692 Mount Pleasant Road), where Amaya‘s Hermant Bhagwani has transformed the old Lai Toh Heen location into a family-friendly restaurant with a globally-sourced menu. [Full coverage at The Grid.]

Woodlot (293 Palmerston Avenue) has been given the go-ahead to proceed with its tiny 5-person patio, but other restaurants adjacent to residential areas and seeking patio permission will have to wait. Campagnolo, Dark Horse (Queen West) and Cafe Stella‘s applications have all been deferred to March or April.

Vegetarian restaurant Buddha’s Vegetarian Foods (666 Dundas Street West) will be closed from February 23rd – March 7th for renovations.

You should go:

It’s Mardi Gras, and tonight at The Depanneur (1033a College Street), owner Len Senater is cooking up a big pot of jambalaya for the drop-in dinner from 6 – 8pm. The price is $9 (includes seconds if you want ‘em) and a side salad will run you $3. Check The Depanneur’s twitter feed for updates.

Friday, February 24th is Surprise Party night at Cardinal Rule (5 Roncesvalles Avenue). Go, have dinner, enter your name in the draw and if they pick your name at midnight the whole party is for you – cake, presents, free drinks, the whole shebang.

Tickets are now on sale for Brewer’s Plate, the annual event that pairs local food with local craft beer, to be held at Roy Thompson Hall on April 18th. This year’s chefs include Brad Long, Mark Cutrara, Lora Kirk, Michael Steh and more. Tickets are $125 per person with proceeds going to Green Thumbs, Growing Kids.

Today’s food news:

Eat some nuts! Turns out that most of us aren’t getting enough magnesium and the best way to do so is with a simple handful of nuts. [National Post]

Don’t be scared, the sommelier is your friend. [Serious Eats]

Used to be, dessert was what you got for eating all of your vegetables. Now the darn things are hidden in there with the chocolate and the sugar. [Wall Street Journal]

The 10% – vegans, vegetarians and lacto-ovo vegetarians make up somewhere around 10% of the population. [Grist]

Banning foods like foie gras doesn’t stop them from being produced or sold. They just go under the counter and require a secret password to be purchased. [Daily Mail]

Like the Lucky Dip? Please tell your friends by sharing on Twitter or Facebook. Got stuff I can use? Contact me.

If you enjoy the Lucky Dip posts, please help spread the word by sharing the link via Facebook, Twitter, etc. And if you have info on local restaurant news or events, I’d be very appreciative if you’d send it my way by visiting my Contact Page. Cheers!

In Toronto:

Caplansky’s Delicatessen (356 College Street) is closed this week from February 20th – 24th for renovations.

The Gladstone Hotel (1214 Queen Street West) has hired Chef Michael Smith (no, not that Michael Smith) as their new Executive Chef. Smith has previously worked at C5, and is in the process of revamping the various menus at the hotel.

Coming soon – This End Up, a new restaurant at 1454 Dundas Street West that will be serving sandwiches and cocktails. What? You need more than that?? Watch for their opening in March.

Both chef Carl Heinrich and butcher Ryan Donovan have announced they’ll be leaving Marben (488 Wellington Street West) (wait, who’s left to run the place?) to open their own restaurant somewhere in the west end. Heinrich is set to take part in the upcoming season of Top Chef Canada.

The Construction Site has opened a second location in Sherway Gardens where they’re spreading the grilled cheese love.

You should go:

Seeds, a play about farmer Percy Schmeiser’s battle with agri-giant Monsanto runs until March 10th at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts in the Distillery District. Tickets are $10 – $25.

This month’s Epicure’s Revue screening at The Revue Cinema (400 Roncesvalles Avenue) is Casablanca on Thursday, February 23rd at 6:30pm, with a theme of “What would Rick have served?” Host Olga Truchan will share her thoughts on North African cuisine of the era, and there will be samples from local restaurants including Blue Plate, Mildred’s Temple Kitchen, Lardon and more (check the info for a full list of participants and their menu). Tickets are $10 for members and seniors; $12 for non-members. Alcoholic beverages will be extra, but the food samples are included in your ticket price.

Quince Bistro (2110 Yonge Street) has announced the date for their next Indonesian Rijsttafel dinner – Wednesday, April 4th. This dinner that includes around 20 Indonesian dishes typically sells out fast, so if you want to try it, call Quince ASAP. Cost is $55 per person (does not include tax, tip or beverages) and having been twice, I can guarantee that you will have to roll yourself out of the place when you’re done.

And don’t forget that next Thursday, March 1st, is FoodShare‘s Recipe for Change Event at St. Lawrence Market. There is an outstanding selection of local chefs, restaurants, wineries and breweries serving up gorgeous samples, and the $125 ticket price goes to help fund FoodShare’s work with local schools. (Check out a recap of last year’s event.)

Today’s food news:

Tomorrow is Mardi Gras – check out this great primer with lots of stuff to read about New Orleans’ most-loved festival and the food that goes with it. [Eatocracy]

Here’s juice in yer eye – the annual Battle of the Oranges in Italy. Those things have gotta hurt. [The Guardian]

Hey chcocolate snobs – how do you feel about Nestlé, maker of the KitKat, getting into the bespoke chocolate game? Are you willing to pay $100/pound for their products? [Business Week]

In the US, it’s not only President’s Day/George Washington’s birthday, it’s also National Cherry Pie Day. Of course, cherries are totally out of season right now, so it looks like the folks who make the canned stuff have hit the jackpot. [Eatocracy]

Six years after I first started reading/writing about lab-grown meat, we’re almost at the point where it’s ready for a tasting. The creator is hoping Heston Blumenthal will do the cooking honours when the product is ready in October. Would you eat meat grown in a lab? [The Guardian]

I want to get myself a top hat and cane and stand outside the newly-opened Ursa (924 Queen Street West) and yell at passersby to lure them in, much like a sideshow hawker, except that Ursa is neither a circus or a freak show. You will, however, not believe your eyes, as plate after plate is placed before you and you are astounded that food can be not only beautiful and delicious but also healthy.

Taking over the old Bar One space, complete with a full gut job down to brick walls and the uber-trendy Edison-style bulbs (LED though, because it’s more environmentally-friendly) brothers Jacob and Lucas Sharkey Pearce have translated their work as Two Brothers Foods Inc. (where they created nutritionally-dense bespoke menus for high-end clients including professional athletes) to some combination of art, nutrition and fabulous flavour.

Our dinner starts with a basket of bread, a combo of Thuet‘s sour dough (Chef Jacob is a Thuet alumni and has also done stints at Centro and the Windsor Arms Hotel) and flatbread crackers with sunflower seeds, made in-house. Plus a schmear of house-made butter that is so big and so good that, when we don’t finish it all, I scheme for ways to take it home without seeming desperate. “Could the kitchen spare a small piece of foil, perhaps?”

Starters arrive looking nothing like we imagine them from reading the menu, with many more elements, blasts of flavour and fun techniques than we expected. A trio of Georgian Bay whitefish (Ursa is dedicated to serving local products where ever possible) comes smoked, pickled and cured with housemade cultured creme fraiche and whole grain rye. Topped with pickled onion rings, each style of fish is bright and flavourful and yet so different from the last. The creme fraiche is loaded with probiotics. We feel healthier already.

A dark green salad with roasted apple, pomegranate, hazelnut and pumpkin is indeed a huge pile of cruciferous leaves; kale, radicchio et al. The apple and pumpkin have been dehydrated and made into a “glass” – a particularly dry fruit leather that can be broken into pieces and eaten on its own or mixed with the greens and hazelnut paste. I want one of these for lunch every day.

The whey brined Niagara pork loin and apple cider glazed belly with lentils, kale, sunchoke and bullberry mustard is a fascinating combination of yes, healthy ingredients with, really, pork belly? Our server tells us that pork belly is one of the healthiest types of fat. And who can argue with that explanation? It’s sweet and tender. The loin too is a fantastic texture and combined with the lentils and kale, and pureed Jerusalem artichoke, it’s perfect winter food.

I’ve never seen a chicken dish like the one that is placed in front of me, and this Rhode Island white chicken with amaranth and quinoa polenta, smoked mushroom, chard and preserved lemon tells me a great deal about what Chef Jacob intends to do in terms of changing how Toronto eats and even thinks about food.

The smell of hen of the woods mushrooms smoking fills the restaurant every time this dish is ordered. The greens are compressed in a vacuum to create the texture of blanching without any loss of nutrients. Meat portions are generous, but not massive, and are combined with other ingredients for the greatest nutritional value possible (amaranth and quinoa, people!).

And most importantly, the dishes are heart-stoppingly beautiful, so the diner never feels like they’re being force-fed some diet food, and that presentation is backed up with flavour – many different intense tastes, all on one plate; the preserved lemon – it’s a pool of unsweetened custard (the consistency of lemon pie filling) atop the grains. It blows my mind.

It’s a quiet night when we visit (SuperBowl Sunday) and Chef Jacob stops by to offer us a taste of a dessert he’s planning to add to the menu (note – this happens before I introduce myself). The red fife and duck fat scone comes with more of that house-made creme fraiche, marinated raisins, berry compote, honey, candied kumquats and is garnished with leaves from the Sichuan pepper plant. I’m surely forgetting half of the flavour elements on the plate (there’s also ginger and a couple of other things). Every bite here is different, and with an additional scone would be perfect on a brunch menu to share as a starter.

The dessert we ordered was a raw chocolate mousse with pumpkin and hibiscus. The mousse (made creamy, we suspect, with avocado) sits underneath, sprinkled with sea salt. It’s topped with pumpkin seed brittle. Hibiscus sauce and pumpkin kefir cream surround a piece of sous vide pumpkin. It’s a disconcerting combination of flavours, but the various combinations are fun and bright.

Finally, when we think we’re done, there’s more. A beautiful selection of tiny raw root vegetable slices (radishes, candy cane beets, heirloom carrots) with some house-made cracker and a spice blend for dipping – to aid our digestion. Again, gorgeous, tasty and yes, after that pork belly and two desserts, it actually works and makes us feel good.

If it’s possible to be smitten with a restaurant, I think I might well be. The Two Brothers use their years of nutrition education and expertise to create a menu that fools us. How can these foods (pork belly, foie gras, duck fat) be good for us? We’ve been told for years to avoid it all. But Chef Jacob and his team know balance and restraint. A little bit of this, paired with some green or grain with a lot of bang for the nutritional buck, and then a presentation that takes the breath away… And if you think I’m just some silly food writer gushing over a hot new restaurant, how about the fact that established chefs in the city are penning love letters of their own?

I’m not kidding when I say “Ursa is major”. This restaurant is going to change how we eat out in Toronto.

It’s baaaacckkkk!

Starting Monday, February 20th, the Lucky Dip column returns with more treats, surprises and fun than ever before.

Okay, it will actually be more local restaurant news and event info plus the regular combo of interesting local and international food news.

If you were a fan of my old site, TasteTO, it’ll be like a daily dose of our regular columns T.O. Tidbits, A la Carte (news about new menus, restaurant specials, etc), and the event posts, Flavours of the Day, plus news and other cool stuff.

Lucky Dip will run Monday to Friday. Tell your friends.

Anyone who knows me or who reads this site regularly knows my feelings on donairs. Particularly that we don’t have any good ones here in Toronto, and that it’s a crying shame because we do so much to celebrate the street food of other cultures, but we seldom, even within the realm of “local”, celebrate the food of Canada. That goes for all Canadian foods, actually, not just street food, and it’s truly a delight to see restaurants like Keriwa Cafe, and Acadia to some extent (Chef Matt Blondin has a specific niche but there’s definite Canadian influences) and now Hopgood’s Foodliner (325 Roncesvalles Avenue) picking up on Canadian regional cuisine.

Geoff Hopgood has been very quiet about his recent restaurant opening. Few people knew it was even happening until news of the soft opening broke on Twitter and an exclusive with the Globe and Mail’s Chris Nuttal-Smith ran the following day. A website with the most basic info was made in late January, but wasn’t getting indexed by Google as Toronto food freaks desperately searched for more information last Friday.

Most folks know of Hopgood from his time at the Hoof Cafe where he created ingenious brunch dishes with a nose-to-tail aesthetic. But my interest in checking out Foodliner lay in the fact that Hopgood was promising a Nova Scotia-themed restaurant, with dishes that ranged from Halifax’s favourite street food, the donair, to his Mom’s crab dip to a traditional corned beef dinner. Having grown up in Halifax, I was intrigued to see what he’d do to the foods of my youth.

The donairs (pictured above) are pretty bang on, although they are of a higher quality than you’d get at the many donair shops that line Halifax’s downtown streets. In a city once noted for having the largest number of bars per capita in North America, you’ve got to figure that the place would have its own after-bar drunk food.

Hopgood’s donair is smaller than what you’ll get in Hali (although you do get two, served on a crumpled paper bag), with homemade pita instead of store-bought, and a meat made with beef and pork instead of just beef. But he very smartly doesn’t fuck around with it. The meat has the right crispiness on the edges from whirling around on a rotisserie, and the toppings are just the standard tomatoes, onions and donair sauce (it’s sacrilegious to add anything else). The ingredient proportions are slightly different from the recipe I use for donairs at home, and Hopgood was intrigued when I told him that I make the sauce by whipping and freezing it, but his is the best donair I’ve paid for outside of Halifax.

Hopgood’s menu also includes the crab dip, a recipe served by his Mom, always with Triscuits. Creamy, hot, gooey… this is fantastic. Even if the idea of eating processed food crackers freaks you out  (there was apparently a plan to make the crackers until they realized how many they’d need), this would be wrong with anything else.

I don’t know if you can see the colour of the trout there, the shot is a bit dark. But the flesh is almost white. Seared simply so that the skin was crisp, this gave me crazy flashbacks to my childhood and mornings in early May when my Grandfather would return from a fishing trip and we would stuff ourselves silly on the very freshest spring trout. This was the colour of those trout back then, before we all started eating farmed trout that were fed dyed food based on a colour wheel in a palette of pinks and oranges. It didn’t taste orange either, which was a very good thing. On the side, smoked potato salad with leeks. This dish was so perfect, I can’t even begin to explain.

I avoided the corned beef when I came across it on the menu because, well, not all Maritime food is good. The traditional boiled dinner, typically mushy, overcooked and stinking of cabbage, has left me with very little love for corned beef. Greg was braver, though, and jumped in, and was glad that he did. The meat was sweet, bright and the accompanying veg (little white turnips) were cooked fork tender and had a buttery silkiness to complement the turnipy tang.

The space (formerly brunch spot Brad’s) is simply decorated, in order to let the food and drink be the stars. The only artwork is a lightbox behind the bar displaying the Hopgood’s Foodliner graphic featured on the restaurant’s website. Hopgood’s family owned a number of Foodliner stores in the Maritimes (they were associated with IGA), which is where the name came from.

Finally, dessert. Behold the maple square (lotsa walnuts in this baby) that is served with a wee pitcher of cream, and the crispy toffee bar – a puffed rice centre surrounded by a light fluffy chocolate mousse, and dusted with cocoa. Both amazingly good.

Other than the lack of coffee available (they’re planning to invest in some French presses), this was a truly outstanding meal. Food in the Maritimes, despite the access to some of the best local ingredients, is traditionally not known for being cutting edge or daring. It’s a fairly conservative place, and it’s easy for things to get a little twee. Fortunately, Hopgood seems to be able to keep a really good balance between traditional dishes, family recipes, featured local ingredients, beloved street food and a modern sensibility that will appeal to Toronto diners.

The menu will, of course, change regularly. I’ve heard rumours of fried clam sandwiches, and if it weren’t for the fact that I know clams are out of season (and a real pain to harvest right now), I’d be at Foodliner’s door, bugging them to fry up some clams… my second favourite Halifax fast food treat.

This former Haligonian offers two big thumbs up to Hopgood’s Foodliner. Go on now, get over there and get it in ya.

Mill Street Brew Pub closed for renovations

More places to catch the super bowl

Restaurant news – Lil’ Baci, Focaccia, Ici Bistro

Cheesewerks lets customers meet their maker

Challenge of the Super Bowls

Marben to host iYellow Wine School

Souper Bowl Sunday

Speakeasy combines burlesque and dinner theatre

Pack a lunch for Lunch Money Day

Nota Bene to expand eastward

The Depanneur to host dinners featuring the flavours of the world

Restaurant News – The Real Jerk, Balzac’s, Little Anthony’s Italian

New menus – The County General, L’ouvrier, The Sister

A horse, of course

Fidel Gastro pops up at the Superbowl

BIRDLADY from FORTNIGHT LINGERIE on Vimeo.

Parkdale, my neighbourhood since 1993, is known for its many characters. People who make the place unique and colourful, people who definitely dance to their own drummer. For 90 some-odd years, one of those characters was Annie Ross. Born in the building that stands on the south-west corner of Queen and Dunn in 1913, she lived there her entire life until her death in 2004. Miss Ross never married, instead running her family’s flower shop at the front of the building, and spending her retirement years in a small apartment at the back where she was known for feeding the local pigeons; thus her nickname, The Bird Lady.

Miss Ross could tell you stories of how Parkdale had changed and grown. She could remember when the lot directly across the street from her on Dunn was a field for horses. She could tell about how the buildings went up along Queen, or how the mansions along Jameson came down to make way for apartment buildings. And she could tell you about books. In a 4-minute short documentary filmed before her death, she talks about how she began keeping track of all the books she read in her lifetime, some 8,600 different titles.

Since she never married and never had children, upon Miss Ross’ death, a niece took possession of the building. The century-old brick structure was in a poor state of repair and many renovations were done, including to the rooms where Ross herself had lived, as well as to the shop in the front, and the apartments on the second and third floors (formerly the family home)  that had been rented out to tenants.

People who lived in the building referred to the niece as hard and mercenary, caring only for the profit that could be made on raised rents.

Most of Miss Ross’ belongings were taken away, many valuable antiques and family heirlooms. But the niece was overwhelmed by the books. Miss Ross was a bit of a packrat and there were so many books. So the niece held a “yard” sale one weekend in the empty storefront. There, bits of furniture, knickknacks, old sewing patterns from the 60s (Miss Ross had been known for being quite the style-setter in her day) and stacks upon stacks of books were all laid out for people to sort through.

It felt tawdry to go in there and poke through a dead lady’s possessions. In the same way when, after my husband’s uncle died, many of his belongings were boxed up and taken to the funeral for his friends and acquaintances to take if they wanted to, it felt almost as if we were stealing that sweet old lady’s favourite things.

We definitely weren’t stealing, though, and when I came across a pair of first edition Adubon books and the Edgar T. Wherry wildflower guide and asked the price, the niece tried to pull them from my hands saying, “Oh, those shouldn’t be there, they’re worth some money! Those are not for sale!”

I insisted. Not because I thought them to be of any value (they’re not really, despite being first editions) but because if I was going to take away a memory of the sweet old bird lady, books about birds seemed like a fitting choice.

We haggled a bit and finally settled on a price for the three books, and I brought them home and put them on a shelf, planning on flipping through them at some point, but then forgetting, as is often the case with such things.

Then, last week, some 7 years after bringing home Miss Ross’ books, I had occasion to need to look up something in the wildflower guide. I flipped through the pages and suddenly little bits of yellowed petals fluttered to the floor.

Carefully, ever so carefully, I flipped each page until I found it. A small strip of yellowed wax paper, maybe 3 inches high, containing the pressed remains of 4 flowers. I can make out a daisy, a sprig of Queen Anne’s lace, something that might be a white iris, and possibly a pale yellow Johnny jump-up. Unfortunately some of the petals have been crushed to a fine dust, the stems have come off the others, and the whole thing is perilously fragile.

For all of her love of books, the spine of this wildflower guide seems to not have been cracked. The standard pages have yellowed with age, but the glossy colour plates are as good and fresh as new, making me think that Miss Ross maybe didn’t use this book very much since its printing in 1948. She did, however, use it to press a few flowers. This packet is the only one in the book, and I cannot tell its age; it may have been there for six years, or for sixty.

Did she forget they were there, hidden among her 8000+ books? Did she plan on using them for something? Or did she place them there, figuring she’d forget them completely and would have a small burst of joy when she finally opened the book at some point in the future and found them again?

Annie Ross never got to enjoy her flowers again. But on a dreary winter day, I was given a splendid gift and reminder… of her, of beauty, of nature and of the importance of remembering.

I’ve put the flowers back in the book. Some day, when I have passed, my own niece will likely have to go through my things and sort what will be kept and what will be sold off. I hope she opens the cover, looks at the little sticker bearing Annie Ross’ name and address, watches the slip of waxed paper and crushed flower petals fall to the floor, and wonders who she was and what she meant to me and the people who knew her.

Just opened – Pachuco

Kung Hey Fat Choy! – Lee Celebrates Chinese New Year

The Epicure’s Revue hosts Babette’s Feast

Scaramouche brings back Lobsterlicious

Splendido cooks up the love

New food for you

Where’s the beef? At Allen’s

Surprise! It’s a party at Cardinal Rule

School creates their own Licious event

Where to go if you don’t do Winterlicious

Local chefs take advantage of the slow season to cook up a new menu

Gilead‘s got the cure for your snack attack

Nick Liu’s big farewell

Colborne Lane celebrates 5 years in business

Queen & Beaver to host a Superbowl party

Anybody who has ever strolled the streets of New Orleans, lazy with the humidity and history, overcome by the wafting smells of magnolias interspersed with a blast of jambalaya, knows that the crescent city is a town that loves its food. From beignets and acrid chicory-laced coffee at the touristy Cafe du Monde to po’boy sandwiches served up at some place in the 9th Ward with no sign to even let people know it exists, New Orleanians like to eat.

Nobody knows this better than food writer Tom Fitzmorris. The man who has been writing about food in New Orleans since the early 70s is probably the most knowledgeable person in the world on the subject of New Orleans restaurants and Cajun and Creole food. To say the guy is high-functioning would be an understatement – he does a daily 3-hour radio show about New Orleans food (can you imagine? 3 hours a day – just about local food and restaurants?), writes reviews almost daily, hosts a weekly dining event and runs The New Orleans Menu, a website on dining in New Orleans that is updated daily.

Admittedly, I’d never heard of Fitzmorris until my husband came home with a copy of his latest book, Hungry Town, in which Fitzmorris chronicles not just his own career, but also the history of the New Orleans dining scene, from the ragtag po’boy shops to the upscale French dining meccas to the hot new trends that infiltrated restaurants everywhere. Fitzmorris refers to it as “sleazy chic”, but the prevalence of braised pork belly on the menus of hot young New Orleans chefs differed little from the “rustic” “comfort food” or “nose to tail dining” that has been prevalent across the continent.

The most engaging sections of Hungry Town are when Fitzmorris writes about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. From the restaurants who served up meals for free, both to help people who were displaced but also to use up perishable ingredients in a city where electricity was spotty, to the reconstruction of New Orleans dining icon Commander’s Palace, Fitzmorris shows his love for his city as he begins a count of the number of restaurants open before Hurricane Katrina (809) compared to the date after the disaster when that number was matched (April 16, 2007). His website continues to keep track (1238 as of today). He is whole-heartedly devoted to his city and its food scene.

It may be less devoted to him however – in Googling him, I came across a blog that seems to be all about smearing him, which means that either someone’s being petty and jealous or Fitzmorris maybe thinks a bit too highly of himself (or both). In any case, foodie scene politics (and hey, it’s not as if Toronto doesn’t have its fair share) aside, I found Fitzmorris’ book to be entertaining, informative and, most importantly, it made me want to head back to New Orleans for another go at their fabulous restaurants. So he’s doing something right, isn’t he?