Kingwest Magazine

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PRESIDENT AND PUBLISHER PETER FREED FREED DEVELOPMENTS EDITOR-IN-CHIEF JENNIFER BILL CREATIVE DIRECTORS AJ MANJI CLAYTON BUDD CALLUM MACLACHLAN CREATIVE AGENCY 64TH AND QUEEN NATIONAL SALES DIRECTOR MORAD REID AFFIFI PRODUCTION MANAGER SAMANTHA MAKER PRODUCTION COORDINATORS DEREK DOTTO AMANDA JAZVAC CONTRIBUTORS WRITERS KAREN CLEVELAND JAMES DOUGLAS THIEN HUYHN ALEXANDER JOSEPHSON LINDA LEATHERDALE RICK MCGINNIS MARC PHILLIPS CAROLE PARK CHAD RICHARDSON JJ THOMPSON PHOTOGRAPHERS ISHI ROGER ELBILIA MANGO STUDIOS STYLIST ZEINA ESMAIL FASHION ASSISTANT SANSYRAE ST. MARTIN MAKEUP SUSANA HONG CLOTHING HOLT RENFREW GOTSTYLE GRAPHIC DESIGNERS 64TH AND QUEEN MICHAEL BOZINOVSKI VISHANA LODHIA

This is a very exciting time in King West. The neighbourhood has seen a massive transformation in a very short period of time. It’s an area steeped in history. And it is this history that has set a colourful backdrop for the changes that have contributed to what has become an incredible part of Toronto, a vibrant and unique community that encompasses an entire lifestyle. It’s a destination to some, a home to others.

For those of us who live in the area, those who run businesses and the visitors, the one defining factor that emerges above anything else is the people that make up this community – the ones who have embraced the exciting changes and helped push the community forward. Their desire to be a part of the culture that embraces the neighbourhood, their passion for fashion and design, dining, nightlife – all the things that make up the King West lifestyle links everyone together.

KINGWEST magazine is a celebration of these elements and the people that make up the King West lifestyle. It’s a vehicle to showcase some of the area’s talented individuals, and the most exciting places and projects this city has to offer. Some of the greatest real estate in the city can be found in King West – both modern and mature – and residents take pride in knowing they are somewhere special.

It truly is a sexy strip; one that continues to grow and evolve into one of the best lifestyle communities the world has to offer.

The restored warehouse buildings, seamlessly connected to contemporary architecture, are an incredible part of the neighbourhood that continue to blossom, housing fantastic restaurants, bars, creative businesses, trendy cafes, and more.

For our inaugural issue we wanted to showcase the King West strip, with a fantasy photomontage showcasing a day in the life on the strip.

Also inside you can read about the area’s journey, chef Susur Lee’s philosophy on food and family, the area’s delectable Italian cuisine, and the launch of the city’s premier boutique-hotel experience, the Thompson Toronto.

As the community continues to grow, KINGWEST magazine will grow with it, celebrating the King West lifestyle. We hope KINGWEST provides you with a richer, more dimensional appreciation for this important neighbourhood, what it is today and what it will be tomorrow.

I hope you enjoy.

PETER FREED

FROM THE WAR OF 1812 TO A NEIGHBOURHOOD OF INDUSTRY – KING WEST’S HISTORY IN THE MAKING STORY RICK MCGINNIS On a cold January day in 1907, a war memorial was unveiled in an obscure park in a gritty, bustling industrial neighbourhood west of Toronto’s downtown. Most in attendance were civilians, and the 70 or so old soldiers on hand, veterans of Queen Victoria’s imperial wars, were probably not alive during the war being commemorated with a melancholy bust of a middle-aged warrior looking sadly to the west, over the park toward the city centre and the harbour.

Under their feet were the bones of dozens of veterans of the War of 1812, and several hundred early residents of Toronto, their precise resting places by this point forgotten, their headstones lost or stolen years before. The bones of a much-loved pair of horses were beside them, in a spot beneath the gaze of the old soldier cast in bronze, as well as the body of a young man who killed himself one summer night, for reasons unknown. A lot of history had happened in this forlorn square and the neighbourhood around it, and a lot more would happen in the century ahead.

Victoria Memorial Square is little known, save for the people who live in the surrounding King West neighbourhood, but it was there long before King or Spadina or any of the nearby roads were surveyed or paved, a graveyard for Fort York just a few hundred yards to the west, and known over its first hundred years as the military burial ground, the Garrison

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Cemetery, St. John’s Square, Portland Square and Military Memorial Park. It’s one of a scant handful of grassy public squares in the old city – a testament to the famously dour, utilitarian character of Toronto and its founders, some of whom lie beneath the grass.

“Downtown Toronto doesn’t have enough parks,” Olivia Chow says, “and once you see a green spot you really want to celebrate it and do what you can, whether it’s tree planting or whatever.” Chow, now an MP in Ottawa, began her political career here as a school trustee, moving on to represent the area in Metro Council and at city hall for 15 years. She recalls working with locals to protect and preserve the park over the years, but says she never worried that the square would be lost to development.

“There’s not a chance that they could touch that park, because of the people around it,” she says, citing its protected status as a cemetery, and the tireless efforts of locals and politicians who see its value – the latest in a long line of custodians and protectors of the square, going right back to the crowd shivering beside Walter Allward’s sculpture of the old soldier on that January morning in 1907.

If you’d looked out of the park on that day, you’d have seen a neighbourhood in transition. Homes still ringed the side streets, but beyond them the signs of industry were everywhere – smokestacks from boilers and multi-story

buildings full of warehouses and small manufacturers. Lyndhurst, a fine villa built by Ontario Attorney General Robert Jameson, was now Loretto Abbey, a Catholic girls’ school (and would be torn down in 1961 to make way for what is now the home of the Globe and Mail).

The cemetery itself had changed beyond recognition since John Graves Simcoe, lieutenant governor of Upper Canada, had buried his daughter there in 1794, its first tenant. Barely over a year old when she died, Katherine Simcoe was a victim of the harsh Canadian winter, but her marble headstone had disappeared from the graveyard years before the place was declared full and closed to burials in 1863. It was falling into disrepair even before that, and today fewer than 20 headstones, some just fragments, have survived, their original location long since forgotten.

Efforts to improve the cemetery grounds took years before much got done – a cornerstone for the monument was laid in 1902, but wasn’t completed until 1905, when the site was officially renamed Victoria Memorial Park (a name that only fitfully stuck). Walter Allward, later famous for his Vimy Memorial to Canada’s WWI dead, placed his bronze sculpture on top of the pedestal two years later, but by 1919 Canadian Magazine was encouraging its readers to make a trip to “a slum of Toronto, a shabby little park or baseball ground called Portland Square” to see Allward’s “little neglected shrine of art.” By the late ’30s, the location of the cemetery was so obscure that city workers uncovered human remains while excavating a new wading pool.

By this point the adjacent area was fully industrial, a mass of machine shops and wholesalers, and a thriving garment trade that would come to dominate King West for decades. Spadina and Bathurst were thoroughfares to the docks and railyards to the south, and the sweatshops drew its workers from neighbourhoods to the west and north – successive waves of Jewish, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese and Vietnamese women who worked the sewing machines. King from Spadina to Dufferin was an industrial zone, albeit one that began dying even while it was at its peak. Sturdy factory buildings lost their prime tenants, were divided and divided again, and by the late ’70s the whole area was undeniably in decline.

Fashion mogul Peter Nygard built his Toronto headquarters there in the early ’80s, transforming a century-old furrier’s building on the southern edge of Victoria Memorial Park into an audacious edifice of smoked glass and lumber. “We did that almost as a visionary move at the time, projecting what would happen with the entire district,” Nygard recalls. “It’s such prime real estate all around there, and I guess we sort of beat the gun on it because it turned out to be a fabulous investment.”

That was also when the artists moved in, lured by the cheap rents, high ceilings, clanking freight elevators and an attractively grimy atmosphere. “I used to be an artist, and I had a studio on the fifth floor of a building there,” recalls Chow, “and on the one side there was a garment factory. Very high ceilings, beautiful old buildings with lots of character, but very old. I remember being trapped in an elevator for several hours.”

At the same time that artists were discovering the area’s potential, developers like Michael Emory looked at the emptying warehouses and factory spaces and saw an answer to the city’s chronic need for office space. The president and CEO of Allied Properties, he saw a district full of “older, human-scale, somewhat ornate structures” full of windows and high ceilings and post-and-beam construction that lent itself to creating the sorts of character-rich office spaces that clients were looking for after years in drywall and concrete office towers.

There were drawbacks to these well-worn buildings, of course. “The floors are never level. They just aren’t, but in the days of laser levels this is easily overcome, and given that most of our tenants were adopting open plans that wasn’t a challenge,” Emory said.

The decisive moment came in 1996, when the city finally realized that older industries like the garment trade were leaving, searching for more convenient locations further out or, thanks to free trade, outside the country altogether. The King-Spadina Redevelopment Plan changed the zoning from light industrial to “any socially acceptable use,” and developers like Allied began buying up buildings that still contained workshops and sweatshops on the final years of their leases.

In one building, now the headquarters of Chapters Indigo, workers had been feeding the local rodent population. Emory recalls entering the now-empty space where, with one stamp of your foot, a carpet of mice would “come out flying everywhere.” Another new property turned out to contain a very unexpected surprise.

The building that sprawls along over half of the north side of King between Brant and Spadina was, for many years, covered in tin siding, a dismal monolith that Emory remembers seeing pedestrians cross the street to avoid. A previous owner had balked at the expense of bringing its hundreds of windows up to code, and covered them up, turning the one-time Gurney Stove factory into a lightless fortress. When Allied began taking the siding off, they expected the white-painted brick from old photos, but under the paint flashes of red and yellow brick began to appear.

“From that we knew it was the old Ontario pattern of red fields and yellow trim,” Emory says, and wet sandblasting revealed the old building, the home of the now-defunct Mini dealership among other tenants, in all its glory – a fine example of Victorian gothic revival applied to industrial uses, and “one of the most beautiful facades over there.”

“I remember standing outside our old offices on King admiring the work,” Emory recalls, and a local passing by asked me, ‘How did you build that building so fast?’ He thought it was a new building, which I really, really liked. I still look back on that as one of the most pleasant episodes.”

The garment business still lingers in King West – the odd sweatshop still survives, alongside fabric and button wholesalers and sewing machine repair shops, but the greatest legacy of the industry are the modeling agencies that have clustered in the neighbourhood. Ford, Elmer Olsen, Icon, Subzero and more – they’re all here, initially attracted by the proximity of the garment trade, not to mention the low rents in a post-industrial area. In earlier days the area was also home to Lincoln Alexander, Canada’s first black MP and Ontario’s first black lieutenant governor, who was born on Draper Street.

Ryan Greenwood, a model manager at Elmer Olsen, said when he started working and living in the area a decade ago, the relationship between all of the competitors was basically symbiotic. “Like in most industries, the modeling industry needs to have its competitors around each other. Meaning when an aspiring model is coming in from some small town and their family is nervous about coming into the city because of traffic and parking, modeling agencies tend to have a better shot at getting the model if everyone can walk the neighbourhood.”

Drawn here by now-departing industry, model agencies are exactly the sort of tenants that fit perfectly in the area that’s being created by developers like Allied, which concentrates on business spaces, and residential developers like Freed Developments, which builds condominiums in the vacant and underused lots between the old

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factories. “I love the neighbourhood I live in and when I moved here 10 years ago people didn’t live west of Bathurst – that was too far west,” Greenwood tells me.

“I think of this all the time when I toy with the idea of moving or finding a bigger space or something like that, and I realize that when I tell people where I live they say ‘wow, it’s great that you can walk to work.’ And I feel like there’s enough of a mix – there’s enough parks and athletic things to do, restaurants – it’s a vibrant nightlife kind of area without being too noisy or filled with people.”

While King West was starting to emerge from dormancy, Michael S. Rudman was searching the city for stories. A composer, Rudman chanced on Victoria Memorial Park in the ’90s, by which time it had reached yet another nadir. “A few things had been done over the years, but unlike the way it is now, there were no modern condos, and the park was pretty rough,” he remembers. “People using drugs were using the park and you couldn’t go through it at night. Apart from the few people connected with Fort York, nobody knew the historical significance connected with the place, because the beautiful monument in the centre has almost nothing to do with the actual historical significance of the park.”

Rudman began researching the burial ground and its occupants, and after discovering one of his own ancestors there, he came upon stories like that of little Katherine Simcoe and Lt. Col Francis Battersby’s horses. A veteran of the War of 1812, Battersby had been ordered home, and was forced to leave behind a well-loved pair of horses. Unable to bear the thought of selling them to a new owner who might abuse them, he took them to the edge of the burial ground, shot them and buried them on the spot, and Rudman wrote a period-perfect ballad memorializing the man and his mounts, which concludes with a verse evoking the haunting that some locals swear persists to this day: Some say that, in the spring, they hear, close by the graveyard railing, The sound of ghostly horses’ hooves, and ghostly, plaintive neighing.

He also discovered the story of Lt. Zachariah Mudge, a young man with an intriguingly Dickensian name and a poignant story. The private secretary to Sir John Colborne, one of Simcoe’s successors as lieutenant governor, he made his way home from Government House one night in June 1831, placed his clothes neatly on a chair, wound his watch, sat up in bed and shot himself. Denied Christian burial by Archdeacon John Strachan, he was laid to rest in the Garrison Cemetery and memorialized with obituaries in all the town papers and a conspicuously blank line in the burial ground registry. A suicide note requested that his five notebooks be burnt

by Colborne.

Rudman decided to write an opera about Mudge, populating it with his fellow tenants in the cemetery, and in exchange vowed to pay tribute to them by publicizing the sorry state of their final resting place. “I was at least part of the awareness,” Rudman recalls, and besides authoring nearly a half-dozen articles and research papers on the park, he helped collect signatures to prompt the city to post a historical plaque explaining the square’s place in the city’s history.

Ironically, the plaque was taken down a couple of years later, when the city began long-overdue work on the park, though it’s due to be replaced – along with the surviving grave markers – when the final phase of restoration begins. Still, he knows that it was the area’s resurgence, as much as the work of enthusiasts like himself, that made this happen. “No matter how people would have protested and requested, and how hard I would have tried to revive its history, if it had not become a fashionable area with expensive condos none of this restoration would have happened.”

While the neighbourhood revives, the fate of the park is still uncertain if no one knows it’s there. The city has spent $1.5 million rehabilitating the park and laying down a stone outline of the cemetery’s original boundaries, in addition to adding more soil when it was discovered that the graves lie mere inches from the surface.

Emory would like to see developers work together with the city to cut more pedestrian walkways through the long, thin blocks south of King that create an effective barrier. “If we can do that, the speed with which people will start to move toward that square will blow your mind.”

“It was really the main attraction for us, this very historic park,” says Nygard. “This thing that has to be preserved forever. We get shivers when we see a soldier on horseback riding there in some kind of ceremony. If anything it has to be brought more to light – it should be preserved and improved constantly.”

Rudman would like it to become more than just “a lovely park in an upscale area” – especially with the conspicuously high ratio of single residents in the area – among the highest in the city. He hopes that, with the signage and gravestones restored, a new generation will get a sense of the history that happened here. “That’s what makes the park unique – other than that it’s just some lovely green space which is very nice for the condos around it.”

Rick McGinnis has worked for 25 years as a photographer and journalist, working for Toronto Life, the National Post, the Globe and Mail, the New York Times and others. He has written more than 1,000 daily TV columns for Metro newspapers, and covers city issues for blogTO.

PHOTO ISHI

THOMPSON TAKES TORONTO

RENOWNED BOUTIQUE-HOTEL CHAIN ADDS LUXURY TO CITY STORY JENNIFER BILL

In large cities, as neighbourhoods grow and gentrification occurs, certain distinctive projects transform skylines and shift the centre of gravity of a city. With Toronto continually advancing its reputation as a firstclass destination, the city has further cemented its spot as an influential player in the upscale hotel industry with five luxury hotels planned here within the next few years. Thompson Toronto, the newest addition to the Thompson Hotels family, is the first.

King West’s new hotel, which opened its doors in June, is the first international location for the Thompson group, which has design-driven boutique hotels in nine American cities, including the renowned 60 Thompson in New York and the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in L.A. The 16-storey, 102-room property will be linked to 550 Wellington West, a 336-unit condominium project – the group’s first multi‐use property. Residents will enjoy hotelinspired-living, with access to the 30,000 square feet of amenity space at the hotel.

As King West continues its ascent as a trendy fashion and design neighbourhood pulsing with sleek dining and entertainment hotspots,

developer Peter Freed, who has been at the forefront of much of the area’s progression, identified a need for a boutique offering. He partnered with local hotelier Tony Cohen and the Thompson Hotel Group, headed by Stephen Brandman, Jason Pomeranc and Pomeranc’s two brothers, Larry and Michael, to develop, operate and manage Thompson Toronto.

Brandman and Jason Pomeranc, speaking together recently from New York where they live in Chelsea and Soho, respectively, called this new hotel in Toronto a crucial moment in the growth of their company and the perfect location for their next venture.

“It’s exciting, it’s fascinating and it will showcase some of the skills and things we’ve learned along the way and put it into a seminal project like the Thompson Toronto in a neighbourhood that I love,” said Pomeranc.

The hotel makes for a getaway within the city. Inside, a majestic, 12-foothigh by 125-foot-wide hand-painted, three-dimensional mural of the city’s skyline by renowned Spanish artist Javier Mariscal reminds guests that this is indeed Toronto.

Guestrooms and suites designed by Architects Alliance feature hardwood flooring, custom millwork with built-in workstations, floor-to-ceiling windows and Carrera marble bathrooms with heated floors. An entirely glass exterior designed by New York-based Studio Gaia will offer seamless views of the city. Amenities include a rooftop pool with seasonal cabanas; a 40-seat screening room with state-of-the-art equipment for regular film programming and special features, a conference room, function room, fitness facility, yoga studio and, from Muskoka, Wabora Japanese Fusion Steakhouse, adding a sushi alternative to the hotel.

The hotel’s premier dining experience, acclaimed Italian restaurant Scarpetta, directed by James Beard award-winning executive chef Scott Conant, will bring some seductive seasonally inspired old-world fare it calls rustic Tuscan meets chic Milan. Scarpetta has garnered kudos at its New York and Miami restaurants – it was named one of the “Best New Restaurants in America” by Esquire magazine, recommended by the 2009 Michelin Guide, and crowned winner of the 2008 Award of Distinction from Wine Enthusiast magazine.

The hotel will have little downtime, except of course for guests tucked away in their rooms. To keep it happening at any time day or night there are two lounges, with one named 1812 – paying homage to the adjacent Victoria Memorial Park, which has hundreds of soldiers from the War of 1812 buried there. There is The Counter, a 24-hour modern interpretation of a classic diner that beckons with stylish comfort food. And there is one of the city’s newest sweet spots on the rooftop, with one of North America’s largest infinity pools and accompanying bar, where the view is spectacular. Jet-setting guests can lunch and imbibe for days in different spots without even having to leave the hotel.

The Thompson hotel brand has grown dramatically since it launched over 9/11 in New York’s unsteady market. Brandman and the Pomeranc brothers had an awkward start opening their first hotel on Sept.

10, 2001, just blocks away from the World Trade Center. With the newborn hotel in a restricted zone, the company pushed through and was able to succeed and shine – suites at the 100-room 60 Thompson in Soho currently go for $400-$4,200 per night.

Jason Pomeranc started out as an attorney. A passion for travel, architecture, design and nightlife shifted him into the hospitality industry, and he partnered with his two brothers to start the small luxury hotel brand to fill a perceived need. Brandman joined the group after spending 16 years as a vice president with InterContinental Hotels & Resorts, where he was head of 150 hotels around the world and spearheaded more than $300 million in renovation projects.

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TOP AND ABOVE: HOLLYWOOD ROOSEVELT

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: SMYTH LOBBY, THOMPSON TORONTO LIVING ROOM, THOMPSON LES, THOMPSON TORONTO, THOMPSON BEVERLY HILLS, DONOVAN HOUSE

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THOMPSON TORONTO (PHOTO BY ISHI)

The foursome have combined their classy and savvy knowledge of what makes a boutique hotel extraordinary and their youthful take on cool to create a hotel chain that has a sexy exclusivity, unparalleled measure of service, and a low-key respect for guests.

Pomeranc and Brandman have spent their careers researching hotel design and service, perceiving what makes a night’s stay comfortable and memorable, and translating that feeling into luxury items, design schemes and service mantras for their own hotels.

“As a company we have been able to combine traditional aspects of luxury and hospitality and service with a forward-thinking sense of design and progressive thinking,” Pomeranc said. Acclaimed designers have imparted eye-catching individuality to each hotel. 60 Columbus, evocative of “mod 1960s design aesthetic infused with 21st century sensibility,” was designed by the acclaimed Steven Sclaroff. Donovan House in Washington, D.C., features Studio Gaia’s striking accents with its club chair, custom leather canopy bed and cocoon spiral shower, while gritty, sexy and flashy are some of the words used to describe the Thompson LES (Lower East Side), designed by Jim Walrod and architect Ed Rawlings. Further, in 2005, designer Dodd Mitchell modernized the nearly 85-year-old Hollywood Roosevelt, which hosted Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe and was the birthplace of the Academy Awards. He blended “the sophisticated cool of late ’70s and ’80s design with the casual elegance of California modernism” in the Thompson Beverly Hills.

Brandman says their aim is to create a “special experience” for their guests, whether they are celebrities or the nice, quiet couple looking for a memorable time. Thompson Hotels regularly attract big-name stars such as Madonna, Jennifer Aniston, Russell Crowe, Denzel Washington and Gwyneth Paltrow. “We want to be able to give those two types of people the same positive experience,” said Pomeranc.

“Everyone should feel special when they walk through our doors. I think we’ve always said that we treat regular people like rock stars and rock stars like regular people.”

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The hoteliers are always on the move. They call themselves “workaholics.”

“Jason and I are constantly traveling. We both basically live on planes… and we are both almost never in the same city at the same time,” Brandman said. “We’re always flying from property to property and I think that’s important because it gives support to the hotels and provides direction, but I think what it also does is it gives us the ability to understand the communities where we have our hotels.”

They admit they are probably too involved with each hotel for the staff’s sanity. “We are very hands on – sometimes to other people’s chagrin,” laughed Pomeranc. The hoteliers maintain that each hotel has its own sense of self and personality.

“I look at the individual Thompson hotels as if they are our children,” said Brandman, who welcomed a daughter a few months ago. “Take for instance the Hollywood Roosevelt … it’s like the starting quarterback for the New York Giants – it’s bigger than the others, it probably drinks more than the others, it sometimes gets into trouble more than the others, but we’re happy to have each and every one of the kids at the Thanksgiving table. So I’d like to think that all of the hotels have a unique personality, they’re all wonderful brothers and sisters, they all have a charm to them.

All of our hotels have a special feeling to them.” Settling on Toronto as the hotel chain’s first international project was a no-brainer, the team said. Pomeranc called Toronto “an interesting mixture.”

“It’s very international, it’s very sophisticated, but yet it’s on a more intimate scale so it’s manageable. You get the best of both worlds – you get the sophistication of somewhere like London but a slightly smaller city you can navigate better.

“Personally I think it’s a fantastic site, for a variety of reasons: the progressive architecture and nightlife and food scene of the neighbourhood.

The views will be fantastic, the open park adds so much charm to our building, the rooftop pool which will be one of a kind in Toronto …”

Pomeranc said. “And it’s a nice contradiction, with the contemporary glass structure against some of the older buildings in the neighbourhood.

Having that juxtaposition of old and new together is very exciting.”

THOMPSON BEVERLY HILLS

Pomeranc said the group generally chooses locations based on emerging areas that are “a combination of new and progressive development and rich history.”

“Peter Freed has basically almost singlehandedly pushed that neighbourhood, where a normal gentrification process would take two, three decades, it’s taken six, seven years,” he said.

With three sold-out condominium projects and several in the works, Freed decided to venture into the hotel world a few years ago.

Admittedly unknowledgeable about the industry, Freed approached his good friend and sometime partner Cohen and laid it on the line – he knew developments, Cohen knew hotels.

“I was sought after as the hotel guy,” said Cohen, president and CEO of Global Edge Investments, a hospitality-based investment company.

“What I compliment (Freed) on is he knows what he’s really good at, and he knows what he doesn’t know, which a lot of people don’t (admit).

He said to me, ‘you’re in the hotel business, I don’t know the hotel business, why don’t we do this together?’

Cohen, who opened 45 restaurants for a restaurant company before breaking into the hotel business in 1998, said the city is an untapped market thus far in terms of boutique hotels, and King West was an ideal location for the Thompson.

“It’s a defining project in the Central King West area. The Central King West area has just exploded over the last number of years and it continues to grow and evolve and to a certain extent gentrify,” said Cohen, who opened boutique hotel Le Germain in Toronto. “What’s exciting is that I think this is the missing piece to the puzzle of Central King West that’s going to bring it all together. I think it’s going to really anchor the area.

“This new project will show our city in a whole new light, and it will give us the ability to really talk us up as a world-class destination.”

TOP AND ABOVE: DONOVAN HOUSE

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AUDI R8 V10 COUPE

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To feel the full effect of the Audi R8 V10, you’ll need a dead-end road. Once found: slot the R8’s gated shifter into first, rev the engine to 3,500 RPM, then drop the clutch. The result? Simply sublime. There’s no wheel spin, no screeching tires, just an immediate almost seamless conversion of energy into warp speed. Even though the R8 is a four-wheel drive, most of the power is directed to the back wheels, making this a real driver’s car. The 5.2-litre direct-injection 10-cylinder engine, lifted from the Lamborghini Gallardo, pumps out 525 horsepower, propelling this supercar from 0 to 100 in a mere 3.9 seconds for a top speed of 316 km/h.

Some of that speed can be attributed to the R8 V10’s lightweight aluminum body. But it’s not just fast. It’s sleek. The car is equipped with new LED headlamps, along with a high-gloss

grille and air intakes. The front wings exhibit V10 badges, while at the back you can see oval exhaust pipes and restyled taillights.

Its gearbox consists of a 6-speed manual transmission, making the gear changes extremely swift and smooth.

Dominating its interior is the matte carbon monoposto, a wide arc with the steering wheel and the cockpit. Everything inside the R8 is of the highest quality. The dashboard and doors are lined with fine leather, the electrically movable seats are comfortable and the Bang & Olufsen audio system is awesome.

The long wheelbase of the car and large doors makes sure that passengers of any size fit inside with ease. And let’s not forget the great luggage space under the front hood and behind the seats. Owning this head-turning ride means you’ve definitely made it into the right tax bracket. – MARC PHILLIPS

THE REVIEW / 35

PORSCHE 911 TURBO CABRIOLET

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THE REVIEW

When Porsche unveiled the new 911 Turbo Cabriolet at the Frankfurt Auto Show in September, critics were somewhat bewildered. It looked, well, exactly like the old one. In fact, no one could spot the changes. But they’re there. For starters, it has an entirely new engine, the first in the car’s 35-year history. The new twinturbo flat 6 cylinder 3.8-litre engine has direct fuel injection, delivers an impressive 500 horsepower and has 480 lb-ft torque. That means you can go from 0 to 100 in 3.4 seconds. (Off the record: several testers for car magazines swear they’ve gotten the acceleration time down to 2.9 seconds.)

Depending on the configuration, the new Turbo requires considerably less fuel – only 11.4 to 11.7 litres per 100 clicks – while decreasing the C02 emission by 18 per cent from its predecessor. A manual transmission is still available, but as an option, the new flat-six may be combined for the first time with Porsche’s acclaimed sevenspeed PDK double-clutch gearbox. Models equipped with PDK are also available with a new, optional three-spoke steering wheel with gearshift paddles. Both the standard PDK steering wheel and the new optional steering wheel come with integrated displays for Launch Control and Sport (or Sport Plus) modes.

But the real enjoyment comes from the handling. Keeping the Turbo on the asphalt is Standard Porsche Traction Management. All-wheel drive and Porsche Stability Management can be enhanced by optional Porsche Torque Vectoring. PTV, a new variable torque distribution technology, enhances the traction and stability systems and actively distributes power between the rear wheels, improving the steering response time and making the car more agile and precise along corners and curves.

The look has been mostly untouched from the original Turbo, but there are subtle changes: the rear lights are now of the LED-type, the rear exhaust outputs are thicker and the standard 19-inch wheels have been redesigned. All in all, Porsche delivers. The new 911 Turbo Cabriolet is lighter, faster, and more eco-friendly.

– MARC PHILLIPS

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A ROYAL REVIEW://

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iPAD

LEICA V-LUX 20

BOXEE BOX

Nearly 10 years in the making, and lying somewhere on the tech scale between a smartphone and a laptop, stands the iPad. Boasting a 24.6-centimetre screen powered by Apple’s 1GHz A4 processor, it promises 10 hours of battery life whether you’re watching videos, listening to tunes, or surfing the web. Mail, mobile safari, the iTunes and Apple Stores, photos, YouTube and a bunch of other familiar apps come pre-installed, including iBooks, the new e-reader app which allows you to download books directly to the device. Also onboard is WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1, a digital compass, an accelerometer, microphone, and an ambient light sensor. The interface is nearly identical to the iPhone and iPod, so navigational problems are non-existent for those already familiar with Apple products. With sales passing the 1 million mark in the first 29 days, it’s safe to say that iPad is a hit. apple.com

V-LUX 20 compact digital camera is equipped with 12.1 megapixels and a high-performance 12x zoom lens. It’s the first Leica camera to combine GPS tagging with an innovative tracking system, allowing photographers to automatically record when and where photos were taken. A great feature for those posting images on social networks, image portals or map sites such as Google Maps or Google Earth. Film buffs will love the V-LUX 20 as well because it can record movies in HD quality. Its intelligent automatic features include: face recognition, automatic scene modes and smart exposure, all of which are available in movie mode. The camera’s 3-inch LCD display has a resolution of 460,000 pixels and offers an extremely bright, sharp view for framing shots.

In addition to all these high-tech features, the matte black V-LUX 20 is also available with a classic leather case, making it as stylish as any of the Leica’s signature models. leica.com

To expand the features of your HDTV to access Web-based content, listen to music or Internet radio, you’ll want a Boxee Box. Remarkably simple to use, this device was originally sold as a software application that lets you stream your movies and videos from your PC to your TV. But to do so you had to physically connect your laptop to the television to use it. Not exactly convenient.

Fortunately, Boxee Box creator D-Link realized this. Employing WiFi and a standard HDMI cable, connectivity is a cinch. Now there’s no need to pony up for a new ’net-connected TV set. Boxee’s clever remote uses a radio frequency instead of infrared so you can operate it from any room in the house. It also has your typical control features on one side, and a full QWERTY keyboard on the flipside.

Use Boxee Box to browse through pictures from Flickr, Facebook and Picasa and play songs from websites like Pandora. boxee.tv

With LCD and plasma profits near saturation, top television manufacturers are betting on 3D HDTV to lead them into the next upgrade cycle. Other tech devices seem to want to ensure you can listen to music, stream videos, download books, surf the ’net, take pictures and tweet all at the same time. It’s about being connected, anywhere, anytime. – MARC PHILLIPS

VIZIO 72-INCH XVT PRO HD3DTV

XPERIA X10

LG HB905PA

It’s hard to believe that just a decade ago a flat panel 42-inch TV would have set you back 10 grand. Vizio’s 72-inch XVT PRO HD3D TV, an LED whopper that delivers 480 hz TruLED and the third dimension in 1,080p resolution, is going for half that. All models in the XVT Pro series come with wireless HD and Vizio Internet apps that allow you to read news feeds, stream movies and music, and keep up with the latest social networking sites.

Thanks to the HDTV platform that uses builtin high definition wireless 802.11n dual-band, connectivity is easy. That means there’s no need to tether your laptop to your set to get the big-screen Internet experience. The Bluetooth remote comes with a sliding QWERTY keyboard allowing you to control the TV without having to point at a sensor. vizio.com

Sony Ericsson has finally produced a winner from its crop of modern smartphones. The Xperia X10 combines Android, attractive hardware, and killer specs. But the highlight of this sleek new phone is the 4-inch, 800 by 480 pixel screen. It has excellent contrast and adjusts to surrounding light, which is among the display’s best features, and images remain clear even under direct sunlight. X10’s software, Timescape, is a godsend for those on the go. It gathers Twitter feeds, Facebook status updates, e-mails and more, then combines them in chronological order. Timepiece’s sister app, Mediascape, allows you to get music, videos and photos from your memory card or online. There’s only one drawback: it’s not nearly as scratch resistant as it claims to be. sonyericsson.com

Packed with a 1,000-watt punch from its two tower speakers and two satellite combinations, LG HB905PA features Blu-ray technology that provides exceptional full HD 1080p resolution.

You can access YouTube Video, Picasa Photos and Accu-Weather directly on your TV using Netcast; stream video, music or pictures from one device to another through a wired or wireless home network; and playback music and HD video files using an external USB drive.

The iPod or iPhone direct docking station allows you to listen to music and recharge simultaneously. This home entertainment theatre offers superior picture quality and sound that far exceeds the standard electronic packaged system. lg.com

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GOOD CITY DOES TORONTO HAVE THE GUTS TO BUILD WELL? STORY ALEXANDER JOSEPHSON

S

TANDING ATOP A HILL near England’s Jurassic Coast, I stare through a thick fog draping a series of structures and pods so strange they look alien. The scene has the aura of a movie set.

I wondered if I would hear someone yell, “quiet on the set, action!” Set inland near Dover, is the UK’s Architectural Association (AA) field lab, Hooke Park, the Manhattan Project for architecture. These quiet woods are a proving ground for radical experiments by world famous architects and AA students.

There is more in common between Toronto and this secret creative laboratory than meets the eye. It is all about potential. I wonder, looking back at that valley, will King Street’s new architectural spine measure up to its own expectations and beyond? It doesn’t have a choice, failure isn’t an option. The AA (no, not Alcoholics Anonymous) was established in 1847 and has been the dominant force in architecture outside North America.

It has been the site of outrageous ideas and home to equally interesting characters to think them up. Perhaps King Street shares this playfulness.

It was the epicenter of Toronto’s fashion industry, warehousing, and today it’s an architectural playground with rich histories and potential new ones.

The key to Toronto’s new growth spurt on King and beyond, as in the AA, will be to embrace the radical, and accept the individuals that make the city totally unique.

Without architectural nonsense there cannot be a city – it marries imagination and dreams with brave clients. There are many examples, such as the Whitney or Guggenheim Museums in New York and Bilbao and Antoni Gaudi’s work in Barcelona, Spain. Toronto has the CN Tower and to lesser extents the ROM, but the more touching is the OCAD building designed by Will Alsop and stewarded by Isadore Sharp, founder of the Four Seasons hotel chain. This floating landscape lurching over McCaul Street redefines our idea of the city grid and transformed the school into a force to be reckoned with. Even with staggering shortfalls, it is one of the pivotal projects built in North America in decades. It represents Toronto’s will to make a city of dreams come true; the alternative could become a nightmare.

In many cases the greatest projects are branded crazy or impractical at first. However, after all the name calling, they are usually vindicated and broadly admired. These architectural victories are the nonsense in the fold of city life, which only a few appreciate at first. They are rare moments of perversion in the chaos of the city. Otherwise put, they are our culture.

We like to visit and spend time in the places that mark a difference.

The drag dubbed King Street West begins at Yonge Street. One block west we have an architectural masterpiece: The Toronto-Dominion Centre.

Designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, one of the late great masters

BAD CITY

of modernism, this complex is a metaphysical thing. Ideas ranging from political transparency to musicality and perhaps fascist attention to detail all happen in concert, and Toronto had the guts to do it. These buildings seem placed there supernaturally rather than put together by a human hand. It will be interesting to see if the city can continue in this standard all the way along King, expanding that sense of awe, even to the dreaded east end.

To do this, developers need to find inventive projects that fill in the spaces we have previously ignored. The rundown ramshackle warehouses on King West that were only until recently considered viable are now being reused, infilled, and developed. Much of that current value comes from the richness of those buildings, as their original owners demanded them to function, last and be beautiful. If the city is going to promote density, there must be dignified places, even a factory, where families that previously could only afford to live in the suburbs can work or move downtown. Toronto is flush with the land and the cash to do it right. Perhaps starting with the tracks that CN rail has hijacked from the city? There could be a spectacular new landscape above them, from parks to mixeduse condos. King Street will need to be the spine that holds all of that up because everything south near the lakeshore is becoming a mess.

Our city is faced with a predicament of our own making. First, high-profile projects have been arbitrarily reserved for foreign architecture firms and star architects, but most have ended up being their black sheep works.

Second, the bulk of the rest of the opportunities go to a cadre of large corporate firms masquerading as avant-garde modernists that have dominated our city with impunity. There is still time to fix the lakeshore.

King Street West’s main developers have opened the door for emerging talent to reinvent our city, and there is value in good design.

If one drives farther west along King toward Portland Street, a series of follies are in the making. Something new is taking shape. In the carcass of an appalling Travelodge motel, a new dynamic building is in the works.

Proposed by one of the few Canadian firms producing international quality architecture, Saucier + Perrotte, the Thompson Residences is a glimmer of hope that younger more ambitious designers should be trusted to build over the same old same old. There is hope. In this case, there is no room for cynicism. If the overall feeling of the city is to get better, an encouraging tone is important, especially with the youth. Not just to encourage the wealth of emerging architects around the globe, but mostly to egg on all of the potential clients at large, which Toronto has in spades.

Oh Toronto, city of solvent banks, who should I dare, will build us next?

Alexander Josephson, M. Arch and New York Prize Fellow, is an emerging architect, wannabe politico and enemy of the designed status quo.

Nature photo courtesy of Prof. Martin Self (AA) City renderings courtesy of Alexander Josephson & Pooya Baktash

/ 43

FROM RUNWAY TO HALLWAY LOCAL FASHION DESIGNERS SET THE TREND FOR FREED FASHION HOUSE STORY JJ THOMPSON

Few moments in King Street West’s history of beautification are as memorable as the demolition of the Tru Value Gas Bar. Dating back to a time when people used terms like “gas bar,” the ramshackle space represented what the westside used to be and what residents of the neighbourhood would rather forget.

The transformation of the Tru Value Gas Bar to the coming Fashion House by Freed Developments is an example of classic gentrification – one that we’re seeing more of around Toronto. One of the true beauties of gentrification is the esthetic it brings to everyday life, from designer dentists to boutique supermarkets. Today, design is no longer considered a frivolous excess – one that those from the era of communist-inspired 1970s concrete sneer at – but an integral part of and quite inseparable from a modern lifestyle.

In line with an increasingly global approach to our inhabited environments, Fashion House brings together 11 cuttingedge fashion designers who have made a considerable impact both here and abroad to work on the interior design of the new project at 560 King St. W., nestled appropriately in the heart of what was known as the fashion district. Tasked with creating more inspired common areas than what’s typically expected in a condominium, each of the designers created unique visions on their own dedicated floors.

A real first for a development of this sort, Fashion House, set to break ground this summer, allows the designers to carve out their own distinctive look and feel within the 12-storey, 334-condo complex. In a world of multi-storey buildings where one can rarely tell floor from floor, it’s a bold step to give free rein to individuals who make a living by standing apart.

“Fashion House offers us a phenomenal opportunity to experiment bringing together different faces of art, fashion and interior design, in a bold, contemporary, Canadian way,” said Kirk Pickersgill and Stephen Wong of Canadian fashion label Greta Constantine.

44 /

THE DESIGNERS INVOLVED IN THE PROJECT: Fashion Institute of Technology

Coming from a lineage of seam-

swear designer Lida Baday.

and carrying internships with

stressess, Jenny Bird founded

At 24 years old, Caoc found-

Oscar de la Renta, Randolph

her own line of luxury handbags,

ed his own label and claimed

Duke, Bottega Veneta and Marc

with her first collection in 2008.

the award for Canadian Design-

by Marc Jacobs, they started

Her label, which now includes

er of the Year three times. He

a women’s label of clothing,

jewelry, is stocked at Self-

was also featured in Maclean’s

handbags and jewelry.

ridges in London. Bird made a

“Top 100 People to Watch.”

big splash last year after being featured on the hit television show Gossip Girl.

GRETA CONSTANTINE

The distinguished design duo of Greta Constantine quickly gained a loyal and dedicated following for their high-concept, edgy, avant-garde design.

ANDY THE-ANH

The designs of Kirk Pickersgill

Andy The-Anh went into busi-

and Stephen Wong are stocked

ness for himself in 2006 after

exclusively in Canada by luxe

working in the fashion industry

magnet Holt Renfrew and in

for more than 15 years.

primo retailers in New York. The

Sewing from the age of 10,

The Montreal designer recently

duo’s annual fashion shows,

Mikhael Kale moved to London

which also include their new

in order to attend primo arts

BUSTLE

opened two new shops in Toronto

MIKHAEL KALE

as part of a brand redesign.

Shawn Hewson and Ruth Prom-

menswear line Ezra Constan-

college Saint Martins. Kale

Born in Vietnam in 1965, The-

islow, both former lawyers, left

tine, are some of the biggest

went on to work in Milan for

Anh came to Canada in 1981.

their big-paying gigs on Bay

of the season.

such labels as Antonio Marras

He has dressed Tanya Kim

Street in order to start their own

of eTalk for the Academy Awards

clothing label. Bustle, founded

and Kim D’Eon of ET Canada

in 2002, went on to represent

Jeremy Laing was born in

recently showed his fall/winter

for the Golden Globes and

more than just clothing – the

Peterborough and grew up on

2010 collection at intimate gath-

Grammy Awards.

duo began working on a wide

a Canadian Air Force base in

erings at both Holt Renfrew and

spectrum of design projects

Germany. Learning how to sew

The Spoke Club.

including museums and hotels.

at the age of 13, he went on

Hewson has become a celebrity

to intern in London with late,

in his own right as a judge on

iconic fashion designer Alex-

two seasons of the popular TV

ander McQueen. Laing estab-

show Project Runway Canada.

lished his self-titled label in

JEREMY LAING

and Bally. In 2007, he started his self-titled label for women. Kale

Toronto, where he now resides.

JAY GODFREY

Most recently Laing showed his fall/winter 2010 collection at

Jay Godfrey left a finance job

Holt Renfrew’s Fashion Week

in New York to pursue a career

media reception.

in the fashion industry. The son of Blue Jays president Paul Godfrey, he earned years of exp-

DEAN DAVIDSON

SMYTHE

erience at Hugo Boss and Oscar

BECKERMAN

The former agricultural advi-

de la Renta before he started his

The Toronto-based team of

sor was inspired by jewelry and

own label in 2004. Based in New

Christie Smythe and Andrea

hand-crafted beads he found

York, his collections are stocked

Lenczner

at marketplaces in Cape Town,

by Neiman Marcus and worn by

design house Smythe. Smythe

South Africa. Working with

such celebrities as Jodie Foster,

gained experience at Prada and

Canadian designer Paul Hardy,

Carmen Electra, Kim Kardash-

French fashion house Celine,

and now a solo designer under

ian and Carrie Underwood.

the

Dean

Davidson

JOEFFER CAOC

make

up

luxury

while Lenczner spent time as a fashion buyer at Holt Renfrew.

Design

In 2004, they joined forces to

Twins Caillianne and Samantha

banner, his pieces have been

Joeffer Caoc was born in the

Beckerman, along with their

stocked internationally at Har-

Philippines and came to Toronto

start their own label specializ-

younger sister Chloe, make up

vey Nichols. His celebrity clien-

when he was four years old.

ing in tailored jackets for ladies.

the trio behind their Toronto-

tele includes Bette Midler, Kate

Experimenting with garments

The made-in-Canada jackets

based namesake label. Hon-

Hudson, Alanis Morissette and

at a young age, Caoc went on

have been worn by such celebri-

ing their skills at New York’s

Sandra Oh.

to work with Canadian women-

ties as Anne Hathaway.

JENNY BIRD

/ 45

THE SCENE

ON THE TOWN | MARBEN Marben restaurant on Wellington closed out its final night March 20 before a month-long renovation in wild style. Lineups started early, and staff welcomed a packed house for a $45 prix fixe “greatest hits” menu. Tables ordered Duck Confit Tacos and Flaming Cheese Sanganakis well past dinner hours. Marben’s veteran DJs hit their respective floors with a mix of old favourites and new beats. Marben’s chandeliers, the glowing onyx bar and other goods including couches, tables and art were tagged for sale and bids for the “Great Auction” rolled in to the next morning. Afterward Marben staff held a celebratory plate smashing in the parking garage to mark the end of an era. The popular three-year-old resto-lounge fixture was set to reopen in June, with a new wine cellar, private dining room, a refreshed menu by chef Craig Alley, and a more relaxed, “homey” feel.

ON THE TOWN |

Open for Business – Thompson Residences

The Thompson Residences Sales Center at 621 King St. threw open its doors to the public on March 18.

About 250 people, a mix of young fashion-savvy professionals and trendy middle-aged executives, came by to check out the new Freed Developments offering, designed by Saucier + Perrotte Architects. By the end of the launch weekend the project was more than 50% sold. Managed by the Thompson Hotel Group, the Residences offers its dwellers hotel-inspired living, with access to adjacent Thompson Hotel amenities, which include a gym, yoga studio and one of North America’s longest rooftop infinity pools. PHOTOS MANGO STUDIOS

THE SCENE

S

HIDING OUT AT HAMMAM STORY CAROLE PARK

HAMMAM SPA 602 King Street West p | 416.366.4772 e | info@hammamspa.ca w | www.hammamspa.ca

THE LOCAL

tepping into Hammam Spa, the stress of the day begins to melt away with the pitter patter of trickling water, drowning out the sounds of the street and turning inner chatter into relaxing reflection.

An escape from the chaos and commotion of the gritty city, Hammam Spa, a popular corner fixture in the heart of Central King West, is sweet sanctuary, a soothing space just a few steps downward.

The holistic day spa offers solo tranquility, or can be a romantic retreat, if you and a loved one are down for a sexy couple’s rendezvous.

Designed and co-owned by Antonio Tadrissi from Prototype Design Lab and lifestyle entrepreneur Zark Fatah, there is a merging of modern lines and warmth from materials such as stone and wood within the 8,000-square-foot expanse.

“It (the design) really plays a significant role in someone’s experience for their treatment here because it’s not your average spa design or feel,” says spa director Celine Tadrissi. “We left a lot of the building raw; it’s a historical building and has a very warm feeling to it. It’s not overly clinical or feminine.”

Before and after treatment guests can relax in the tea lounge, where there is cucumber water and exotic organic loose-leaf teas served in a traditional Samovar. Couples can enjoy a sensual experience together with a Swedish massage side by side on separate tables, with some sexy, ambient, zen-like tracks, low lighting, a Jacuzzi, champagne and fruit to share afterwards. Facial and body treatments are performed on heated marble slabs that are unique to Hammam.

The most notable feature at the spa is the Turkish Hammam, a 500square-foot darkened communal steam room that prepares the body and mentally relaxes the visitor prior to treatment. The Hammam is inspired by Turkish baths in the Middle East, where individuals go to seek a cleansing and purifying experience.

“As soon as you go into the steam room you are just blanketed with comfort and warmth,” says Hammam regular, Mark Calicchia. “You’ve got the moist steam, the mood lighting, you see the silhouettes of the bodies. I don’t know what it is, it just feels so great in there. And there’s something sensual about being in that steam room.”

The steam is infused with eucalyptus oil to open up pores and relax the body.

“I love the way it makes my skin feel,” says Calicchia, 32. “The oils make your skin baby soft.

“I love the steam room before and after the massage. I’m good for a half an hour in there. You might have to get me a pitcher of water but definitely a half hour is perfect;” laughs Calicchia.

The music played in the spa isn’t the usual ocean sounds or muzak reminiscent of being placed on hold. The spa works with DJ Daniel Buckman from Bello Sound to create a sexy, more contemporary vibe evoking a chilled-out lounge setting.

Hammam Spa has seen the area and clientele steadily grow with the surrounding area.

“The location was one of the key aspects of us creating this concept and the spa. When we first moved here five years ago, the area wasn’t that populated, but it’s kind of a trendy, unique area now in the city,” says Tadrissi.

With Hammam Spa’s client base consistently growing, the real challenge of getting away from it all to enjoy a luxurious escape within the city is being able to clear time in busy schedules to relax.

CON T FROM DAVID LACHAPELLE TO HANK WILLIS THOMAS, TORONTO COMES ALIVE IN A SNAPSHOT.

TAC T 2010

STORY JJ THOMPSON

In today’s world, one hour is an eon. The proliferation of digital cameras has democratized the once esoteric skill of development and put it into the hands of the masses. Photography, as a result, has not only become widely accessible but has also gained mainstream acceptance as a legitimate form of art.

Now in its 14th year, Toronto’s very own Scotiabank Contact Photography Festival is now the world’s largest. The month-long city-wide celebration in May cast the spotlight on a broad spectrum of Canadian and international photography. Contact is unique in that it has an open call for submissions to encourage aspiring artists, who can be featured alongside the more established. The festival is also notable for its efforts to engage people in the spaces it uses. Alongside the more traditional venues like art galleries, there were displays in numerous public venues across the city, from cafes and restaurants to subways and billboards, raising eyebrows and stopping traffic across the city.

“Pervasive Influence” set the tone this year, drumming up a mass consideration of the influence and impact of photos on individuals from both a social and personal perspective. This theme, creating the base concept for the exhibits shown, seems ever relevant in a world that increasingly communicates through images, as the various forms of media we consume become more graphical and less wordy by the minute.

Such thought-provoking photographers as David LaChapelle epitomized this theme with pieces like The Rape Of Africa, which was enlarged and

THE LOCAL

THERE WAS A TIME WHEN ONE HOUR TO DEVELOP PICTURES FELT LIKE LIGHTNING.

displayed on a large public wall outside the Museum Of Contemporary Canadian Art (MOCCA) on Queen Street West. The highly controversial piece, based on Sandro Botticelli’s Venus and Mars and featuring supermodel Naomi Campbell, is LaChapelle’s bold statement on the current state of Africa, showcasing the effects of mining, war and mass marketing.

The highly acclaimed photographer has graced the pages of such iconic cultural glossies as Paris Vogue, Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone.

Sixteen individual pieces pondered the meaning of black identity at Front and Spadina. Using mainstream advertising photography as his fodder, vintage photography was Hank Willis Thomas’ media of choice.

Commissioned by Contact and the Art Gallery of Ontario, a gigantic installation by Barbara Kruger, known for such pieces as I Shop, Therefore I Am, ran an entire block across the facade of the AGO, from McCaul Street to Beverley Street along Dundas Street West.

Lectures captured what it’s like working from an antique airplane, with aerial photographer Louis Helbig; a roundtable on the effects of urbanization and global advertising on photographic explorations of contemporary African identity; and the personal and social consequences of photography using archival images from the National Geographic Society. Films on the art of photography rounded out the festival, as did such high-profile events as Heineken – Behind The Lens tours, the opening party at MOCCA and a VIP event for Glen Baxter in Yorkville.

The not-for-profit festival reaches wide and far with an impressive impact on the city, typically featuring works from 1,000 photographers in 200 venues,catching the attention of 100,000 visitors.

CLOCKWISE: HANK WILLIS THOMAS, ALIVE WITH PLEASURE!, 2009. COURTESY JACK SHAINMAN GALLERY CLUNIE REID, DETAIL, TAKE NO PHOTOGRAPHS, LEAVE ONLY RIPPLES, 2009. COURTESY MOT INTERNATIONAL. COPYRIGHT CLUNIE REID. DAVID LACHAPELLE, THE RAPE OF AFRICA, 2009. COURTESY OF ARTIST

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SCE NE TORONTO SOCIAL

ER BILL

NIF STORY JEN

CITY’S INDIE-ROCK COLLECTIVE LAUNCHES NEW ALBUM

BROKEN

SOCIAL SCENE

THE LOCAL

favours a music-making formula that is much simpler than most people think.

“We’re a group of friends who just love playing together,” explains multi-instrumentalist and founding member Charles Spearin.

Toronto’s celebrated indie collective returned to the local music landscape with the May release of Forgiveness Rock Record, which included a limited-edition, numbered box set on vinyl. While there are seven people at the core of the group, nearly 20 others, some former members and some new to the experience altogether, lent their talents to this fourth studio album.

Peppered with pillowy vocals, punchy drum tracks, blasting horns, and dueling guitars, the ethereal soundscapes and full-out rock frenzies stay true to the dreamy hypnotics and anthemic nature of past records, this time around with a notable presence of melody-driven hooks and choruses.

“It’s a pretty dense sounding record, like all the records so far. There are tons of different instruments playing all the time,” Spearin said from his home in Seaton Village (Annex West). “Because we have so many musicians, it’s kind of like making a collage of everybody’s different ideas. There are a lot of intertwining melodies … it’s a musical adventure – at least it is for my ears.”

Broken Social Scene has helped foster independent Canadian and international acts through its record label Arts & Crafts, having spun off multiple solo and side projects with many members going on to garner international recognition, including multiple Juno winner Feist. The label’s launch coincided with the release of 2002 breakthrough album You Forgot It In People and was the brainchild of ex-record executive Jeffrey Remedios and Kevin Drew, who also founded Broken Social Scene along with Brendan Canning.

The label has been a mainstay in the Richmond Street/Spadina Avenue area and has helped fuel a continuous flow of great musical energy circulating in the area. It is also not uncommon to spot band members Drew, Canning or Justin Peroff and other associates ambling across the street to catch live music together at downtown venues, or DJ’ing at Queen West hipster hangout The Beaconsfield, since many live in the King/Queen/Dundas West area. Together they help define the Downtown West scene, blending in yet identifiable as one more reason the Downtown West area is happening and real.

Torontonians will see them on the street less often in coming months as the band hits the road in support of their new music. The spring tour hits the U.S. and Europe before they return to co-headline the Toronto Island

Festival with Pavement June 19, then on to the U.K. for Glastonbury, Australia’s Splendour In The Grass, and then Croatia, Scotland, Ireland and the Far East.

With forgiveness perhaps the theme among some of the band, who went through oft-cited tense times during their last stint in 2005, Spearin said there were good vibrations musically and socially during the “delightful” recording process last year and onstage during pre-albumrelease touring.

“I think (the dynamic is) very healthy. I’m really excited about the way things are right now,” said Spearin. “There’s kind of an excitement for the band, you know it’s been up and down over the years, but right now everything’s great.

“I thought everybody was really at their best throughout the whole (recording) process. … It was really great to be in a situation where there was such creative flow.”

Spearin was especially excited to enlist longtime hero John McEntire — of post-rock groups Tortoise and The Sea and Cake — to co-produce the new Broken Social Scene album, which was recorded at Soma Studios in Chicago, as well as at Giant Studio and The Schvitz Studio in Toronto.

“I was a little star stuck at first, it took me a few weeks before I could get the smile off my face,” said Spearin. “After a while it wasn’t John fucking McEntire anymore, it was just John.”

Also a founding member of experimental-rock band Do Make Say Think and member of post-rock supergroup Valley of the Giants, Spearin has worked on eight records with Drew (the two first played together in KC Accidental, which eventually grew into Broken Social Scene).

Last year Spearin decided to spread his musical wings with The Happiness Project, a solo concept album that creates songs out of his neighbours’ ordinary speech. In April he picked up the Juno Award for Contemporary Jazz Album of the Year.

Spearin says with the ever-evolving musical landscape and rotating cast, the spotlight must be shared, and the band has become quite practiced at respecting each others’ ideas.

“One of the things about being in such a large band, a growing and changing band, you have to learn to step back …” Spearin said. “If you think you have a vision for the song, sometimes you have to let it go and let other people put their ideas in.

“But at the same time that leaves you wanting to follow through with some ideas. So that’s why I think it’s healthy to have other projects as well. I’ve always been lucky that Do Make Say Think and Broken Social Scene have been able to co-exist for so long. Everybody respects the boundaries and necessities to have other outlets.”

WE HAD TONS AND TONS OF IDEAS

/ 57

THE TALENTED MR LEE

PHOTOS MANGO STUDIOS

AS SOON AS HE BURSTS OUT of the kitchen doors, Chef Susur Lee’s renowned intensity quickly melts into a crisp smile. The chef is smiling today. He just received a glowing review from the National Post’s food critic for the new menu at Lee – his popular restaurant on King West, next door to his more demure Madeline’s. Lee grabs a copy of the newspaper review and congratulates each of his staff, who are efficiently preparing for the upcoming dinner crowd.

“Did you see this review? Keep up the great work!”

Lee enthusiastically thanks his young bartender.

“Yes Chef,” says the barkeep, as if he were responding to a general.

“Tuck in your shirt,” says Lee.

It’s charming yet comical to see one of Canada’s most celebrated chefs so giddy about getting good reviews in a local paper. This is a man who once battled superstar TV chef Bobby Flay to a tie on the Food Network’s Iron Chef America.

Win, lose, or draw, Lee has already garnered positive reviews around the world. In addition to his successful restaurants in Toronto, Lee recently opened one in Singapore (Chinese by Susur Lee), and in Washington (Zentan).

Then of course there is Shang, which opened just over a year ago in New York to much initial fanfare – including a visit from Madonna and a “Welcome to New York” party hosted by one of the city’s top food critics. But business has simmered down since, due to a still-recovering U.S. economy and tepid restaurant reviews.

“It has been a very tough year because of the economy. New Yorkers are very fickle,” says Lee, whose appearance as one of the 20 chefs competing on the new Bravo show Top Chef Masters has helped raise his profile in New York.

“New York wants to let you know that you’re the new kid in town so you have to pay your dues.”

The temptation to take a bite out of the Big Apple has made him long for Toronto, he says. Even when he’s in New York, it seems as if he’s in a King West state of mind.

“There’s something very peaceful about King West. Whenever I come back home, I let out a big sigh of relief,” says Lee, as he sits at the bar at Madeline’s.

SUSUR’S KING WEST STATE OF MIND STORY THIEN HUYNH

“I appreciate how Canadians have great tastes when it comes to Asian food. They notice flavours. In America, people still need education for Asian food. They didn’t modernize their food,” he says. “If you had a restaurant that opened in the 1970s and you pass it on to the son, the family restaurant and menu never changes. Here, we get access to herbs, spices, and ingredients that you can’t find in the States.”

Since Lee’s ambitious foray to win over New York, there have been a slew of misconceptions about his restaurants in Toronto – and even the man himself.

The main T-bone of contention is that many people think he sold the iconic Susur restaurant and watched someone else turn it into Madeline’s.

“The sad thing is that people think that I’ve completely left town. I’m still here and Madeline is my girl. I only changed Susur to Madeline’s because I went to New York to set things up. It’s not fair to customers to call it Susur while Susur is not here,” says Lee. “People don’t know that the prices have dropped. You don’t have to break your mortgage to eat here. Some people call and ask if I’m in town so I can do a tasting menu, and I get excited to do it. You don’t have to be a VIP to get the Susur tasting menu,” he says. “Someone off the street can come in and ask, and if I’m here I’d love to do it.”

Often portrayed as a notorious taskmaster in the kitchen, not many people get to see Lee’s silly side. Get him to let his ponytail down and you’ll see a guy who will enthusiastically admit to watching Treehouse TV cartoons.

You’ll also get to hear some crazy restaurant stories. Some chefs like to talk about bland marriage proposals they had a hand in helping. Yawn. Lee delights in reminiscing about the time he helped someone put together an extravagant break-up party.

“I did a break-up party once. Some guy wanted to make sure that he told all his friends that he broke up with his girlfriend. She was there too. It was a public break-up party. I asked him what her favourite dish was and he said it was soft shell crab … so we gave her crabs,” says Lee. Lee’s face changes back to intense as he enters the kitchen to prepare a rare dessert he’s willing to reveal the recipe to – Tong Yuen Sweet Rice Dumplings. He admits he’s firm with his staff, and cares about their development.

“Outside of the kitchen, I’m very childish. I’m really silly. I like slapstick.

I love stupid movies. When I’m relaxed, my childishness comes out, and that’s okay,” says Lee. “But in a working environment, you have to have that leader face.”

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Sometimes I get emotional because it’s an emotional business, that’s how it is in the kitchen. But at the end of the day, the staff is like family. They are like my own children. I want to see them grow and become successful.

RECIPE Tong Yuen Sweet Rice Dumplings 1 cup of glutton rice flour 1 tablespoon cornstarch ½ cup lukewarm water ½ tablespoon of veg. oil Mix it all together to become dumpling dough

THE CULINARY

ABOVE LEVI LEE

“I don’t have time for politeness. It’s showtime. Pick it up. Let’s go. People that haven’t been in the restaurant business long enough don’t understand that there’s emotion in the moment to deliver on time, the promise to the customer. So they don’t understand that in order to succeed, I have to be tough and put my childish side away. You almost have to become schizophrenic. Like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde or Chef Susur and Mr. Lee,” he says. “Sometimes I get emotional because it’s an emotional business, that’s how it is in the kitchen. But at the end of the day, the staff is like family. They are like my own children. I want to see them grow and become successful.”

Lee reveals he has plans well underway to see one of his children grow in the business. His 20-year old son, Levi Lee, has been handed the apron strings to the Lee dynasty. The younger Lee is managing the complete redesign of Madeline’s into a chic resto-lounge. Like his father, Levi has ambitious ideas to take the restaurant to new heights.

“We’re tearing down Madeline’s and turning it into a resto-lounge. We still want to focus on good food and cocktails,” says Levi, who was ranked Top 20 in Canada in tennis before leaving for Ohio for two years on a scholarship playing for the tennis team at the University of Toledo. “People are going to sit down and have a nice meal, then instead of going to a club or a bar, they can move over to the bar side and we’re going to have a great cocktail menu.

There will be a live DJ and people can hang out.”

There are certain advantages to being the son of Chef Susur Lee, such as impressing the ladies at the restaurant and traveling around the world looking for exotic recipes. However, the only silver spoon Levi’s ever encountered was perhaps when he was putting away utensils as a busboy at Terroni’s on Adelaide Street. Although he hasn’t run a restaurant before, he grew up watching his father work his craft and intends to re-learn every aspect of the business.

“This is the world that I grew up in. When I was 7 or 8, we couldn’t afford a babysitter, my mom would drop us off at the restaurant downstairs,” says Levi. “I remember he’d put me up on a little chair near the sink and he had a little cutting board for me and I’d wash all the veggies. And he’d teach me how to cut it really closely.”

“That kind of firsthand knowledge is invaluable. I fully intend to get my hands dirty in every aspect of the business, even if it means washing dishes,” he says. “I’m going to bring a youthful vibe to the resto-lounge and take Susur Lee to a whole new crowd.”

Lee thinks the time is right for his son to take over.

“All these years he grew up in a restaurant. This resto-lounge is perfect for him to run because it requires a young spirit. At the same time, I’m helping the foundation of what good food is,” says Lee, who will still be running the kitchen. “The restaurant business is something that you should never force your children to do. But my son wanted this. It’s going to be an exciting time on King West.”

With a new restaurant and the next generation ready to take Toronto by storm, it’s almost as if the once indomitable chef has made a concerted effort to prove himself all over again and re-introduce himself to Toronto.

“Toronto is where my heart is. King West is where I started. This is still my foundation, my temple. This kitchen is true to my heart. Everything that is served in Singapore, New York, Washington, it was developed here first,” says Lee. “And there’s nothing more important in my life than family and food.”

“With my son taking over the restaurant, now more than ever, there’s no place like King West and there’s no place like home,” says Lee, looking out of his restaurant’s storefront windows, expectantly awaiting his extended family, the dinnertime crowd, to make their nightly visit. He even cracks a smile and hums a little tune as he cheerfully rounds up his staff for the pre-dinner team meeting.

Chocolate Nugget 1 cup chocolate Nuts, everything ¼ (chocolate ganache, shredded coconut hazelnut, peanut & sesame seeds) A pinch of salt Melt everything together Put two tablespoons of butter, mix it all together Form it into a little chocolate nugget Combine Wrap the nugget into the dumpling dough Put it in boiled water for 4 to 5 minutes pouching Serve Serve with whipping cream and shaved chocolates on top

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The shift in seasonal wines isn’t unlike that in our wardrobes. Just as we begin to crave bare skin over cozy knits, our palettes turn toward wines that complement our short, warm season. A rich, bold red with a higher alcohol content (hello, warming effect) just isn’t at home on a sunny Toronto patio in the way that an herbaceous, chilled white is. Lighter fare like fresh produce and great seafood, along with the more body-conscious clothing that we don in the summer, all beg for refreshing wines – a marked and welcomed contrast to the rich, heavy comforts of winter.

Robert Gravelle, general manager and wine director at Jacobs & Co. Steakhouse and wine consultant to such King West institutions as Buca, Brant House and Brassaii, shares his picks for wines to celebrate the thaw.

Pinot Grigio is a bit predictable, so this spring Gravelle recommends checking out a Riesling. Niagara produces some fantastic Rieslings, he notes. As well, he explains, Rieslings from the Alsace region are particularly high quality: generally dry, with a steely citrus taste and petrol notes.

STORY JAMES DOUGLAS

THE CULINARY

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Willm Riesling Reserve (Alsace), $16.95

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Stratus Riesling (Niagara), $29.20

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Domaine Hubert Reyser Clevner Sonnenberg (Alsace), $16.95

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Racy and dry, with flowers and fruit? Sounds like a perfect summer night. This versatile wine pairs well with barbecued tuna steaks, seafood, chicken and Pan-Asian dishes.

This Riesling errs on the more sophisticated side. Citrusy aromas, grapefruit most notably, and crisp acidity deliver a lush, juicy drink.

Gorgeous with goat milk cheese, this is a great wine for guests.

An award-winning wine, this beauty is rich with floral notes and a touch of lychee. Its crisp acidity pairs well with slightly spices dishes – a mild Thai coconut curry, for example.

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Roland Bouchacourt Cotes de Provence Rosé (France), $11.45

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Château D’Aquéria Tavel Rosé Tavel (France), $18.95

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Beaujolais Village “Combe Aux Jacques” Louis Jadot (France), $16.95

Affordable, delicious and with some considerable body, this wine should be consumed as the French would: socially, and in generous quantities. Pairs well with salads and seafood.

Evocative notes of watermelon, cherry and rose petal conjure up the best of what spring has to offer. Grilled vegetables are well-matched to this dry, fruity wine.

Don’t be shy about chilling this red. Serve it quite cool, to preserve its delicate, lively flavours. Serve with Italian dishes, and cured meats – great with charcuterie.

ROYAL THE CULINARY KINGS, WEST OF ITALY

ITALIA

STORY CHAD RICHARDSON

I

t’s 6 a.m. in Los Angeles. The first sound that breaks the morning silence is the grinding of espresso grains as I prepare myself a double.

I pick a fresh lemon from the backyard and slice off a small piece of rind, dropping it into the bitter black liquid, creating a delightful taste evoking traditional Italy.

On one of my frequent trips to Toronto, where I own a music-production business, I pondered how over the past 10 years King West has grown from a quiet industrial district to the new face of “what’s next” in Toronto.

Steel cranes and Men At Work signs are the norm as condominium construction has become a constant to house the demand. The area is home to many young professionals in Toronto, overachievers who work by day and spend their nights in the local restaurants and nightclubs discussing politics and posheries. Over the last decade, restaurateurs have invaded the territory, and a few Italian restaurants took a gamble on the King West area.

One early resident was Alida Solomon with Tutti Matti – her personal love letter to authentic Tuscan Italian cuisine. Located on Adelaide

her mind to where she wanted to find her culinary voice. Sparked by frequent trips to Italy during her younger years, Solomon knew that Italian cuisine – and more specifically Tuscan cuisine – was where she wanted to make her mark. She spent 1995-2001 in Tuscany working in four different restaurants ranging from a small casual-style Osteria to a grander Michelin-star establishment. Throwing herself into the region, the people and the food, she lived and breathed Tuscan cuisine and gained a true understanding and appreciation for the culture and social place of food in the region. “Antipasto,” she points out, “it’s not just an appetizer but the beginning of a conversation.”

Six years later, Solomon returned to Toronto specifically to open her own restaurant. Against the advice of her real estate agent and most everyone else she settled on the space Tutti Matti calls home today.

At the time the King West area was pretty much barren, with prime spots taken up by a few high-end restaurants.

“I had a feeling this area would change,” she says with a smile that indeed grows bigger with every condo that breaks ground. With an expanding

CHEF ALIDA SOLOMON

Street just east of Spadina, seven-year-old Tutti Matti was one of the first Italian restaurants in the King West area. The region was developing and still in its infancy in terms of housing and commercial development – thus opening a restaurant was not the safest bet in town.

I walk though the glass front doors and from the first moment I feel the warmth that lies within. I smell the smells and hear the sounds. Formerly a diner, the space is long and lean with an arched roof, giving a subway car feel, making the room unique and charming. A wall is covered with framed photos of Solomon’s travels and an iron boar sculpture sits atop the hostess podium serving as both guardian and logo of the restaurant.

I notice the entire staff is speaking fluent Italian. I feel transported.

Solomon is conducting a culinary symphony behind the counter in the open-concept kitchen and when asked for her company the headwaiter shouts for her with Italian gusto.

The passion Solomon exudes for her work makes it obvious that she is the heart and soul of Tutti Matti. Pure, honest vision; understood and executed. After graduating from George Brown College in 1995, she set

community of new businesses like the animation house Pixar and the Toronto International Film Festival, Solomon laid down her chips and drew aces.

Once she began to put together her menu, the book of Tutti Matti almost wrote itself. Her mandate was to recreate the simple Tuscan food she had studied. That means fresh produce from local providers supplemented with products direct from Italy. Buffalo Mozzarella is flown in twice a week. Prosciutto comes from Parma, the place where it was born, and organic Sicilian olive oil is flown over twice a year. Eight pastas are handmade each day with imported Italian semolina flour. Tutti Matti stays true to the meats and fish found in the Tuscan area. Touching sea to sea with forest in between, Tuscany is high on game such as pheasant and wild boar.

After our conversation, Solomon heads back to the kitchen to prepare maltagliati, or “badly cut pasta,” with a wild boar ragu. This dish is a Tutti Matti favourite, with the meat enduring a five-day process that includes bathing in red wine for four days and then being

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cooked on the fifth, giving the ragu a richness in flavor. Classically Tuscan, Solomon generously pours olive oil over the finished pasta causing it to glisten in the sunlight streaming through the window.

Staying true to serving only what you would find in a Tuscan restaurant, Solomon has encountered the occasional angry letter arguing against the lack of chicken on her menu. But, she says, Tuscans do not go out to eat chicken. This uncompromising loyalty to the Tuscan way is what has begun to make others take notice: This year Tutti Matti was awarded the “Leccio D’oro” for best Osteria in the world, given by The Consorzio Del Vino Brunello Di Montalcino in Tuscany, an award also won by celebrity chef and restaurateur Mario Batali. When presented with the award in Italy the Consorzio introduced Solomon as the “Angel Of Tuscany.” Her job, they proclaimed, was to spread the word to the rest of the world about the glory of true Tuscan food. The award hangs in Tutti Matti but lives in Solomon’s heart.

Upon hearing that tiramisu is one of my favourites, she asks a chef to bring out a slice, said to be admired citywide. As I take the first

coffee at Buca. A double espresso it is then. With a slice of lemon rind.

With my sweet Italian elixir in hand I take a seat with the mastermind trio behind Buca, owners Peter Tsebelis, Gus Giazitzidis and executive chef Rob Gentile. What starts out to be a small chat turns into a twohour conversation ranging from cannolis to cogliones.

“The concept started off as us asking ourselves, how would we eat?”

Tsebelis says. “Maybe not a great business model but something that could work if done right.”

Tsebelis and Giazitzidis, who also own Jacobs and Co. Steakhouse on Brant Street, have found success with this philosophy. We talk of the “slow food” movement and how they try to implement its core values in their properties. Started in Italy in 1986, “slow food” was a reaction to the opening of a McDonald’s near the Spanish Steps in Rome and centres on the importance of bringing the family back to the table, using fresh sustainable ingredients and supporting local providers.

In Gentile, Buca has a chef with talent far beyond his years. Having trained under renowned celebrity chef Mark McEwan, he has the

CHEF ROB GENTILE

heavenly bite, I ask, “Why Tutti Matti” (which means everyone’s crazy). “’Cause to do this for a living,” Solomon says, “you have to be crazy.”

Set for round two the following day, I hit King Street West near Portland, where there is a small, unassuming plaque that reads Buca.

An alley to the left of the sign beckons and I get the feeling I am on the hunt for some secret foodie destination, or a place that needs no grand pomp and circumstance, one that lets the food speak for itself. And my gut is correct. Walking through the doors I find myself at the top of a staircase looking down at the action below. The kitchen is open concept and alive with the sounds of preparation for the evening. The dining room is spacious and inviting. With the restaurant’s exposed brick walls, wooden beams, meats hanging in the kitchen and waiters with aprons fashioned from leather, it’s like I’ve discovered a secret city that bustles and hums along unbeknownst to those outside walking along King West. I ask the waiter for a cup of “normal coffee.” He looks at me with an air of pride and tells me they don’t serve normal

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confidence to serve a dish with only three ingredients but the humility to believe that it’s the product itself that elevates it and not the person preparing it. The menu samples from all over Italy instead of focusing purely on one region and this comes in handy as Buca boasts a rotating menu that changes daily. Gentile talks about the importance of using local providers as much as possible, such as “Milo the Amish man,” who will only sell when his cow is feeling just right. That kind of Italian food traditionalism is taken to the next level when I discover that Buca cures all its own meats, makes its own vinegar and even some wines.

For Buca it all boils down to three words: sourcing, assembling and presenting – finding the best products, combining them in the simplest way possible without overcomplicating and presenting them to the customer. Just like Gentile’s Italian grandmother, or nonna, would do when he was growing up.

Having felt like I had just gone through an episode of “Inside the Actor’s Studio: Italian Food Edition,” Gentile pats me on the back and says, “Now you eat.” I take a seat in the beautiful back-room wine-bar area

and the food begins to arrive. Ever the perfectionist, Gentile offers to send the food out twice, once for photographs and again for tasting, so the dishes don’t get cold. I dig into lamb brains wrapped in prosciutto and deep fried. Wild mushroom covered crostini, topped with a poached duck egg. A dizzying meat platter arrives including all the greatest hits of Italian cured meats and a little-known star to Westerners called lardo.

Unique to Italy, lardo is a block of rosemary and salt-cured pig fat that when served with puffy fried dumplings takes on a creamy texture.

As the tagliatelle with duck ragu, mascarpone and basil arrives it’s explained that the pasta itself is made with an actual duck egg yolk.

At one point Buca worked with six different recipes so that each pasta would have the taste and texture to perfectly fit its accompanying sauce.

Indeed the average diner should love his or her meal at Buca but it’s the foodies that will delight in these small details.

I jokingly ask Gentile if he is ambitious enough to make my own personal favorite meat, mortadella, in house. He smiles, grabs his belt buckle, hikes up his pants and looks at me as if to say, “I’ll show you

With the massive and swift successes of Scarpetta NYC and Scarpetta Miami at the Fontainebleau, Toronto’s Scarpetta, opening this summer, is poised to become the next jewel in Conant’s culinary crown.

“There is such a crossover in clientele between Miami and New York,” says Conant, “that it made perfect sense (to make the next stop Toronto).” While most restaurateurs would see L.A. as the next logical venue for expansion, the arrival of Scarpetta in Toronto is added proof that King West is becoming the new “it” location and the culinary world is taking notice.

Gusto will be the latest for restaurateur Janet Zuccarini, known for her success with Café Nervosa in Yorkville. Starting with a few of Nervosa’s signature dishes, Chef Robert Craig of Jump and Monsoon fame will focus on traditional Italian cuisine from all regions. Gusto will even include an authentic wood-burning oven constructed and brought over from Italy. What will set the new eatery apart, Zuccarini explains, is a price point that will keep patrons coming back multiple times throughout the week.

PHOTOS MANGO STUDIOS

CHEF SCOTT CONANT

mortadella.” Ten minutes later he returns with a piping hot Roman-style pizza covered in fresh ricotta, pesto and an obnoxious amount of newly sliced mortadella on top. Passing me a pair of scissors to cut the pizza, he’ll let the food speak for itself.

The Italian dining scene shows no signs of slowing down in King West.

In the next few months, King West will see the opening of Scarpetta in the new Thompson Hotel and Gusto at 101 on Portland. Scarpetta Thompson will be the third in the brand of modern Milan meets rustic Tuscany restaurants for celebrity chef and James Beard award recipient Scott Conant, whose enthusiasm for this new venture in King West is obvious.

Although his cuisine has its sights set on the future of Italian food, Conant has one foot firmly planted in the past, as evident in the name itself. Scarpetta, meaning “little shoe,” is slang for the small piece of bread used to slop up and savor that last drop of sauce on a plate. This will come in handy when eating Scarpetta’s signature spaghetti with tomato and basil, which will find a home at the Thompson in Toronto.

Italian food is simple. Where the French work with sauces that tend to mask an ingredient, the Italians look to take that mask off. Fresh, simple ingredients coming together in their own way, to create something elevated. Similarly King West is moving to the next level. The new generations of fashion, music, architecture, business and food have come together to create a community rich in culture and excitement.

One that has only begun to see its full potential. Just like my espresso with the added lemon rind, the ingredients of King West, including the area’s premier Italian restaurants, are combining to create something unique and the resulting buzz is just as strong.

Affectionately known as “Chad Of All Trades,” native Newfoundlander Chad Richardson enjoys a career spanning a wide spectrum of the arts. From Parisian-trained chef to Broadway actor to songwriter/music producer, Chad now spends his time between his L.A. home and Toronto, where he is co-owner of TV production company LATO Productions and Arrive At Eleven Music.

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CITY’SC ONDOCRAZE IT’S ALL ABOUT LOCATION, AND KING WEST REIGNS STORY LINDA LEATHERDALE

WHEN DOOMSAYERS preach the condo sky is about to fall, they forget this: Toronto is a world-class city, which according to the Conference Board of Canada, will lead Canada’s economic recovery with 3.7% growth in 2010. At the same time, Canada’s economy is expected to triple the growth of all G7 nations, predicts Paris-based OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development).

They also forget this: Despite rising values, Toronto’s real estate prices remain cheap, especially when stacked against other world-class cities like New York, London and Paris.

Foreign investors view Canada as a stable country to park their money. And with the Bernie Madoffs of this world making off with investors’ precious money, young and old alike have turned to real estate as a safe haven.

That’s a pretty good bet, considering as an asset class, real estate time and time again proves itself to be a winner. In Scotiabank’s latest Global Real Estate Trends report, economist Adrienne Warren points out that Canada’s housing market returned a healthy rate of return in the past 50 years, with a price appreciation rate of 2.4%. That rate is adjusted for inflation – and includes busts, like the deep deflationary spiral of the nasty '90s.

Warren also points out that the 2000s were even better, with a recordbreaking price appreciation averaging 5.2% a year. If it’s a principal residence, that gain is tax free.

Meanwhile, even with stock markets scoring new record highs, equity portfolios took big beatings this past decade, with the hi-tech meltdown, 9/11 and the subprime crisis.

Bottom line is the dream of home ownership lives on, no matter what doomsayers preach.

And unlike previous generations, more and more young adults are lining up to take the leap into housing. Latest census data shows that between 2001 and 2006, homeownership among Canadians aged 25 to 34 jumped 4.6% to 51.3%, while for those under 25, it rose 5.2 percentage points to 21.1%.

“We expect these ownership rates are even higher today,” says Warren.

On the flip side, Canada’s aging population is also contributing. Research shows homeownership rises steadily until age 55 to 64. This helped push Canada’s aggregate homeownership rate to a record 68.4% in 2006.

Then there’s immigration, and the fact Toronto is a favourite hub for newcomers to Canada, who also want to make their dream of home ownership come true.

All of this helps explain why Toronto’s hot condo market rode out the brutal subprime meltdown with the boom exploding well into 2010.

Fact is, for many young professionals, condominium ownership is affordable, while offering a downtown lifestyle they lust after.

Meanwhile, some aging empty nesters are trading in their Scarlett O’Hara staircase homes in suburbia for carefree, classy condos close to all the

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amenities in the heart of the city. Some of these condo owners may also buy recreational property in cottage country, just to get away from it all.

As with all real estate buys, location, location, location is key. And just as God isn’t making any more waterfront, the city has precious little land for the development, which leads to this new trend: revitalizing old neighbourhoods.

One such neighbourhood is Central King West – the strip of King Street bordered by Spadina and Bathurst, which falls within the hottest condo market of Downtown West – where there is more construction than in entire cities across Canada, according to the experts at RealNet Canada Inc. “(Central King West) condos have been compared to New York’s Soho district,” comments Iris Li, a sales representative with Re/Max Goldenway Realty Inc. She recalls how the area was once considered rundown and derelict before a wave of condominium and loft developments began, and City Hall designated King West a “redevelopment area.”

Now it’s been rejuvenated into one of Toronto’s most vibrant and popular neighbourhoods – with fine restaurants, trendy pubs, bars and nightclubs, plus its close proximity to key attractions like the Air Canada Centre, Rogers Centre, Exhibition Place, Harbourfront Centre, Fort York and Toronto Islands.

Pioneering this King West rejuvenation is developer Peter Freed of Freed Developments, who’s developed nine projects in the area since 2004, bringing 1,600 new suites on stream. Included in this are his hip Fashion House development on King Street, plus 550 Wellington West, with its 336 hotel-inspired-living condos and associated 102-room designer Thompson Hotel.

Freed has been crowned the King of King Street West. He likes to dream big, but his vision is for a small, village-like neighbourhood where people can walk to shops, entertainment and transit. In his words: “There’s no big-box stores, no faceless franchises. It (King West) has a New YorkSoho feel to it. It’s Toronto at its best.”

Overall in Downtown West, which stretches from Lake Shore Boulevard to Bloor Street and from University Avenue to Dufferin Street, there are 55 condominium projects under construction, for a total of 15,562 suites – well ahead of other popular condo areas, like Bloor-Yorkville area and Yonge and St. Clair.

And the price is right, too.

According to RealNet, condos in Downtown West average $622 a square foot, though it’s possible to still find some at $450, while condo prices range from $180,000 to the millions. Bloor-Yorkville, meanwhile, averages $967 a square foot. Downtown core condos are at $900 a square foot; Yonge and St. Clair – $666; and central waterfront $631.

Compare these prices to other parts of the world: In Manhattan, N.Y., the average condo is priced at US$1,222 per square foot, but go to Upper Manhattan and the price rises to US$2,000.

Condo buyers, like homebuyers, have been hit by tighter mortgage rules, levied by Ottawa to douse the flames of inflation in hot markets, like Toronto.

Effective April 16:

In Paris, France, prices range from US$1,290 to $1,870; Barcelona, Spain, $916 to $987; Hong Kong $1,490; and Tokyo $760 to $1,100. Prime central London remains one of the priciest at $2,000.

Even Miami – hit hard by the subprime meltdown – is still more expensive at US$702 per square foot, down from $934 a year ago.

But, go to Orlando, Fla.: There you can find condos at US$140, down from $250. With our dollar close to parity, many Canadians are making their snowbird dreams come true with these bargain basement prices in parts of Florida.

So, what’s ahead for Toronto’s market?

Some experts, including the political hawks watching on high from Parliament Hill in Ottawa, worry a bubble is building in Canada’s real estate market – where a strong recovery has taken hold after we experienced a soft landing from the subprime meltdown that brought down housing markets around the globe.

As 2009 came to a close, we watched some impressive housing-market spikes across the country, while the Canadian Real Estate Association confidently predicted both sales and prices would hit record levels in 2010.

But after Ottawa tightened up lending rules aimed at cooling off the hot market, it appears CREA has changed its tune.

“Housing markets are becoming more balanced,” said CREA chief economist Gregory Klump, in the latest report which stated sales edged down 1.5% in February compared to January. A slowing Vancouver market was blamed.

But year-over-year numbers tell a different story. For example, actual sales in February numbered 36,275, up 44% from February 2009. Average prices, meanwhile, jumped 18.2% to $334,655.

The Greater Toronto Area market, meanwhile, continues to explode.

Latest numbers from the Toronto Real Estate Board show a record 22,418 homes and condos sold in the first quarter of 2010, while prices averaged $427,948 for the quarter.

In March alone, average prices hit $434,696.

Meanwhile, the economists at Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. forecast housing starts in the GTA will jump 26% to 36,140 in 2010, and move even higher over the next few years to meet demand by a growing population. CMHC also predicts while sales of single detached homes will be brisk, there will be a trend to the condo market as affordability begins to erode.

Right now cheap mortgage rates are helping to keep Toronto’s market affordable, with the Bank of Canada rate at a record low of 0.25%. Variable-rate mortgages are tied to the bank rate. But some experts warn we may see interest rates start to rise by summer. Fixedterm mortgage rates, meanwhile, have already started to edge up.

Then there’s the hated HST (harmonized sales tax), which will hit Ontario July 1 and push up the price of many real estate transactions,

• All new borrowers have to qualify for a five-year, fixed-rate mortgage, even if they want to take out a shorter variable rate.

• There is also a 90% limit on the amount homeowners can refinance from the value of their homes.

• And condo investors will now have to cough up a down payment of 20% to buy units they plan to rent out.

These rules come after Ottawa lowered all of the down payment required for conventional mortgages from 25% to 20% to avoid insurance fees, plus hiked the amount you can borrow from your RRSP tax free under the Home Buyers Plan from $20,000 to $25,000.

including home inspections, real estate appraisals, survey certificates, real estate commissions and legal fees.

Even though home builders fought for concessions and won, BILD (the Building Industry and Land Development Association) estimates the HST will still lift $800 million from the wallets of new homebuyers in Ontario in the first year.

Monthly condo fees are HST exempt, but if you pay $400 today expect to cough up another $28. Why? The HST will hit expenses like hydro, landscaping, repairs and maintenance.

But just like the market adjusted to the hated GST and Toronto’s municipal land transfer tax, experts believe sooner or later we’ll adjust to the HST, as well.

So, some experts predict this hot condo market, where changes over the years have curbed speculative feeding frenzies, isn’t going to stop anytime soon.

In fact, Stephen Dupuis, BILD’s CEO, predicts the cranes that dot downtown Toronto’s skyline will stay in 2010.

“When you take it in all at once, it’s truly remarkable to see what has been happening let alone what is yet to come on the Toronto condominium scene,” said Dupuis. “With major redevelopment projects like the waterfront, Regent Park, the railway lands (City Place) and the motel strip (the lakeshore area just past the bridge on Gardiner), not to mention signature buildings by Trump, the Ritz, Aura and One Bloor, the condo craze is reaching all corners of the city.”

Linda Leatherdale is a sought-after financial commentator and columnist (lindaleatherdale.com). She is also Vice-President, Marketing and Business Development for Cambria (www.cambriacanada.com).

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THE

PREMIER REAL ESTATE BROKERAGE IN

KING WEST

Private Service Realty Ltd. is a niche brokerage that aims to exceed clients' expectations in a unique, urban environment, with premium service in all elements of the real estate market.

First-time buyers, seasoned investors and everyone in between, our dedicated real estate professionals take the time to understand your goals and will find the perfect fit within the Toronto market.

OUR TEAM

Eric Kuzuian Broker of Record / Partner

Andrew Deacon Sales Representative

Arif Manji Sales Representative

Brandon Ware Broker

Corrie Hain Broker

David Bjerkek Sales Representative

Diamond Truong Sales Representative

Edward Kern Sales Representative

Giancarlo Spataro Sales Representative

Katerina Simon Sales Representative

Kenneth Laroza Sales Representative

Kristin Ramos Sales Representative

Kyle Lindsay Sales Representative

Martin Kicinski Sales Representative

Matthew Parent Sales Representative

Melissa Traina Sales Representative

Sanjeev Desai Sales Representative

Ted Kern Broker

Terry Goshulak Sales Representative

Zoltan Kugler Sales Representative

privateservicerealty.com | 416.360.0688 600 King Street West (Main Level) Toronto, Ontario M5V 1M3

INFORM

INSPIRE

INNOVATE

REAL ESTATE

STARCK STYLE

75 PORTLAND ST., 520 | $520,900

MLS#: C1856642

Yoo By Starck Building. Open concept 1+1 bedroom/1.5 washroom suite is approximately 923 sq. ft. Suite boasts 9 ft. exposed ceilings, Scavolini Italian flat-line kitchen with large island, engineered hardwood flooring throughout, frosted glass C-living partition doors for bedroom/closets and gas line to balcony. Stainless steel appliances, Corian/Stone countertops in kitchen, stacked washer/dryer, parking and locker included.

FOR LEASE

MLS#: C1884417

75 PORTLAND ST., 711 | LEASE $1550/month Open-concept one-bedroom suite, approximately 582 sq. ft. unit boasts 9 ft. exposed concrete ceilings, Scavolini Italian kitchen, engineered hardwood flooring throughout, frosted glass C-Living Partition doors for bedrooms and closets, and 115 sq. ft. balcony. Building amenities include part-time concierge and Philippe Starck courtyard. Steps to public transit, Victoria Memorial Park and King West restaurants.

SOLD

OPEN CONCEPT

35 MARINER TERR., 606 | $334,900

MLS#: C1871854

Bright and cheery corner unit, 769 sq. ft. total living space.

Largest 1+1 model with intelligent open layout. Walkout to open balcony overlooking well-appointed courtyard.

Tranquility in the city. Upgraded flooring, gas stove, granite and Corian countertops and phantom screen on balcony walkout upgrade. Amenities and location not to be missed.

BRILLIANT LOFT

MLS#: C1858547

10 MORRISON ST., 408 | SOLD $409,000

This is an amazing one bedroom and den loft in one of the hottest neighbourhoods downtown. It has soaring ceiling heights, floor-to-ceiling windows, a full balcony with gas line for bbq’ing, stainless steel appliances, granite kitchen counters and island with extended breakfast bar, kitchen pantry, closet organizers and upgraded pre-engineered hard wood throughout. Parking and locker are included.

www.privateservicerealty.com | info@privateservicerealty.com | 416 360 0688

SOLD

LAKESIDE SUITE

MLS#: W1840416

58 MARINE PARADE DR.,1010 | SOLD $453,000

Live lakeside. Stunning 2 bedroom + den, 2 full washroom suite with spectacular lake and city views. 9 ft. ceilings, floor to ceiling windows, hardwood floors throughout, large balcony with walkouts from living/dining, master bedroom, 2nd bedroom, marble foyer and bathrooms, Hunter Douglas window coverings. Upgraded faucets and shower heads. More than $40,000 spent in upgrades.

FOR LEASE

MLS#: C1862075 .

231 FORT YORK, 1114 | LEASE $1800/month Waterpark City. Upgraded throughout, 2 bedroom, openconcept unit, southwest unobstructed view. Lots of light, sunset and partial lake. Floor to ceiling windows. Building amenities: Indoor pool, dry sauna, exercise room, terrace and lookout points, BBQ areas, guest suites, media, games and board room, 24-hour concierge, individual security system per unit. Easy access to TTC, lake, Fort York, highway, Liberty Village. All closets mirrored.

LIVE AT THE THOMPSON 55 STEWART ST., 324 | $445,800

MLS#: C1850457

Hugely sought-after open-concept one bedroom + den with large 300 sq. ft. terrace. Hardwood flooring throughout, frosted glass C-Living partition doors, floor to ceiling windows, gas and water lines to terrace, and much more.

BOUTIQUE CHIC

66 Portland St., 801 | $534,900

MLS#: C1884376

Intimate boutique building built by Freed Developments, 931 sq. ft. sub-penthouse suite boasts 10 ft. exposed concrete ceilings and columns. Southeast wrap around balcony, gas line to balcony, modern Euro kitchen, stainless steel appliances, engineered hardwood flooring, and chance to redesign suite to suit buyer’s needs. Steps to public transit, King West restaurants and Victoria Memorial Park.

www.privateservicerealty.com | info@privateservicerealty.com | 416 360 0688

REAL REAL ESTATE ESTATE

LUX CONCEPT

55 STEWART ST., 308 | $230,000

MLS#: C1844162

SPACIOUS LOFT

MLS#: C1869982

477 RICHMOND ST. W. 806 | $499,000

Luxury living at the exclusive Thompson Residences. Openconcept one bedroom with balcony, 10 ft. exposed concrete ceilings and floor to ceiling windows. Building amenities included are gym membership, rooftop pool access and 24hour concierge. Steps to public transit and Victoria Memorial Park. Locker can be purchased for $3500.

True loft living in the downtown core in sought-after King and Brant area. This loft conversion is open concept, with granite countertops, new hardwood throughout and soaring ceiling heights showing off the exposed ducts providing a true loft feeling. Huge south-facing windows provide ultimate city and lake views. enjoy a spacious balcony. An entertainer’s dream. Shows incredibly any time of the day.

LAKEVIEW LIVING

MIDTOWN HIGHRISE

MLS#: W1836457

2287 LAKE SHORE BLVD W., 507 | $439,900

Completely renovated two-bedroom condo with stunning lake views. This unit has been professionally designed and boasts new hardwood flooring, custom window coverings, renovated washrooms and a modernized kitchen. The efficient layout maximizes and separates the living and dining space for the urban professional who loves to entertain. The master bedroom is a sanctuary to retreat and relax. Parking and locker are included in the purchase price.

22 WELLESLEY ST., 302 | $323,900

MLS: C1882777

Open-concept one bedroom + den with south exposure.

Unit boasts 9 ft. exposed concrete ceilings, floor to ceiling windows, modern kitchen, gas line to balcony for BBQ hook-up. Building amenities include 24-hour concierge, gym, visitor parking, sauna, and much more. Wellesley subway station steps from your doorstep.

www.privateservicerealty.com | info@privateservicerealty.com | 416 360 0688

SOLD

SKYLINE PENTHOUSE 66 PORTLAND ST., 901

MLS#: C1868527

One-of-a-kind contemporary penthouse loft. The entire exclusive top floor consists of approximately 6500 sq. ft. of living space including a 3200 sq. ft. terrace with infinity pool, hot tub, built-in cabana, bar, TV and outdoor kitchen overlooking the city skyline. 3300 sq. ft. of professionally designed unparalleled interior space with 2 private ensuite elevators, 10.5 ft. ceilings throughout, custom staturario 15 ft. marble centure Island, top of the lIne kitchen.

Extras: Wolf gas range, subzero fridge/freezer, subzero wine fridge, Miele dishwasher, hood fan, washer and dryer, Philippe Starck freestanding tub, wood-burning fireplace, 2 parking spaces in private grade-level garage, terrace.

SOLD

PENTHOUSE LOFTS

IMMACULATE LOFT

Suites have approximately 10 ft. ceiling heights with expansive floor to ceiling windows. Private elevator access to every suite. Imported pre-finished engineered hardwood flooring with acoustic underlay and limestone tile flooring. Stunning custom-designed European kitchens with top of the line appliances including Viking, Miele and Liebherr. Large extrawide sliding doors onto oversized terraces as per plan.

Absolutely immaculate. Exposed brick and beam true loft at the Toy Factory. This two-bedroom loft features 10 ft. ceilings, 6 juliette balconies, parking for 2 cars, new pre-engineered wood floors, granite kitchen counters and stainless steel appliances. Efficient open-concept floor plan to facilitate entertaining and relaxing. The neighbourhood features cafes, a 24-hour grocery store, gyms, banks, pubs and more.

500 WELLINGTON W. | PRICES FROM $1,699,900

MLS#: C1814630

43 HANNA AVE., 219 | SOLD $678,000

www.privateservicerealty.com | info@privateservicerealty.com | 416 360 0688

BAR 606 STORY KAREN CLEVELAND

‘

King West is no stranger to good parties. It’s seen its fair share.

A pillar of convivial, debaucherous good times that help put King West on the map was the famed Bar 606. Toronto’s own little taste of Studio 54 – a total scene, with a touch of Coyote Ugly – dancing on the bar was de rigueur – this club was a staple that consistently delivered good memories, if errrrr .... you can remember them.

I stumbled across 606 (literally, quite likely) when I first moved to Toronto and the bar was in its glory days. If you didn’t know 606 was there, you’d miss it: the main entrance was tucked away, perfectly inconspicuous. As a small-town girl, it offered a taste of the city that I didn’t know existed in Toronto (though ironically, at the time 606 felt almost outside of the city). It was effortlessly cool; everyone was attractive and social – almost like walking smack into the taping of a beer commercial, or a really great house party.

And this is exactly the atmosphere that owner Michael Summerfield wanted to create. He took on the space in the summer of 1993 when he was still wrapping up his exams at the University of Toronto. It was a bold move: 606’s location at King and Portland was a fair distance from the club district and there were no other bars or restaurants helping to anchor the area just yet. Summerfield admits that it took five years to get 606 to its best, and hot damn, those were good years.

Between 1998 and 2003, countless regulars spent their nights and early mornings at 606. Weekends were predictably fun, but even a random midweek evening could turn into a full-out party, Summerfield remembers with an ingratiating smile. And regardless of what patchy memories Torontonians share of 606, some foggier than others, one point remains consistent: 606 was always fun; it never tried too hard, everyone was welcome, and you always had a blast. Summerfield speculates that “because 606 wasn’t a cool bar, it gave people a license to lose their inhibitions and just have fun.”

Summerfield’s notoriously gorgeous staff (mostly men, and most of them Ford models by day, with heavy-hitting Hollywood actress Malin Ackerman amongst 606’s alumni) were treated well, and encouraged to set the pace for customers. And Summerfield looked after his staff and regulars (women and regulars never paid cover) and his close friends became unofficial brand ambassadors: goodlooking people who hung out at the bar and kept the party going.

Everyone – customers, staff and Summerfield included – danced on the bar and when the crowd needed an uplift, or for no reason

at all, it was common for someone to whip up a batch of “BrokenDown Golf Carts” and pour them down customers’ throats, from perched atop of the bar. Or, if the moment struck, Summerfield would offer a $100 bar tab to the first gentleman to shave his head right then and there.

But the salacious activities rarely got out of hand – the bar only ever saw two fights in its day, one started by Summerfield, ironically.

People looking for trouble didn’t stick around for long and if there was mild pushing of the envelope going on, Toronto’s finest didn’t come down too hard on 606 – odds were they were drinking there when they weren’t working, anyways.

FOND AND FOGGY MEMORIES Ben Le Fevre was a pillar of 606 – he was always there because “there was nowhere else you’d rather be.” He described 606 as a great house party but one that “you didn’t have to worry about your house getting trashed.”

Kirstin Turnbull, former King West’er and owner of Moxie Promotions, recalls that 606 “was always the last stop of the night, as it was consistently a good time. You knew that no matter how the rest of your night went down, it would end on a high note at 606.”

Edith Griffiths fondly remembers the gorgeous staff of 606, but also the crowd. “There was always a good crowd – young, hip and most of us young in our careers. We were working ridiculously long hours – truly living for the weekend and 606 was unpretentious and unabashedly fun. The dance floor was always packed and when you ran out of room – well, there was always the bar. It was impossible not to have a good time there.”

Jane Tattersall, an arts and new media marketer, recalls that you’d never know who you would run into a 606. “The best part of 606 was the way it always fit in your plans – I remember pre-dinner cocktails there before some fabulous nights at Susur Lee’s, and I also remember some pretty crazy nights dancing till all hours with my friends.”

Morad Reid Affifi remembers rounding up his friends for a pre-drink, then heading to 606. “It felt like you were in the middle of nowhere.

606 was the only reason to go west of the entertainment district.

Michael helped start a neighbourhood.”