For more than a decade, enRoute has been combing the country for Canada’s Best New Restaurants, offering readers a mouth-watering snapshot of the country’s culinary scene as it evolves. In 2012, food journalist Sarah Musgrave once again ate her way across Canada on a month-long journey, dining anonymously wherever she landed. More than 250 dishes later, it was clear: the year belonged to Toronto, which nabbed an unprecedented 6 of the 10 spots on the list. “With a flurry of lease signings and exhaust-fan installations, the city’s dining scene is on fire,” she writes in enRoute’s November issue. The most respected and hotly anticipated restaurant list, this year’s results were inspiring and solidly staked out Canada’s spot in the international culinary scene.
enRoute names Edulis (Toronto) Canada’s Best New Restaurant 2012 “…the make-it-look-easy restaurant of the year. Refreshingly more show than tell, it does barn to table without the fuss. …it’s above all not self-conscious…Nor should you be when you come back for more.” Sarah Musgrave on Edulis, Canada’s Best New Restaurant 2012
The Top 10 best new restaurants in Canada on enRoute’s 2012 list are:
2. Model Milk (Calgary). “Justin Leboe is taking his cooking down home without dumbing it down… perfectly tender southern-fried rabbit, the golden crust stung by hot pepper vinegar, sits on ethereally creamy grits.”
3. Ursa (Toronto). “…rootsy and possibly radical, but with more than a touch of glam… A cuisine that is health-oriented and highly original, but not preachy. We’ll drink to that.”
4. Acadia (Toronto). “Encompassing Lowcountry and Acadian cuisines… the menu reinterprets with technical aplomb the messy jumble of rustic French and southern coastal influences.”
5. Pastaga (Montreal). “Pastaga shows off chef Martin Juneau’s kooky but tightly controlled creativity… bison smoked meat sandwich with homemade rye, chopped liver ‘à la juive,’ marinated salmon and salmon jerky shavings…”
6. Hopgood’s Foodliner (Toronto). “…Geoff Hopgood presents East Coast comfort food with intimacy and intelligence. His
nouveau Scotian cuisine is equal parts nostalgia and now.”
7. Grand Electric (Toronto). “…doing for Mexican what the isakaya scene did for Japanese. It’s exciting, fun, affordable, quality late-night food to get drunk by.”
8. Keriwa Cafe (Toronto). “Keriwa’s seasonal-minded menu draws First Nations techniques and unspoiled tastes of the Canadian landscape into an urban context…Canadian head-to-tail cooking with a history: a real dream catcher.”
9. Borgo (Calgary). “…a workhorse of a restaurant. It hustles from day to dark with the clatter of espresso cups and shared plates of the cuisine’s greatest hits – golden arancini, imported salumi, crudi and cicchetti….”
10. Nora Gray (Montreal). “Emma Cardarelli honed her command of red sauce at Liverpool House… the parade of direct, unfussy,
seasonally motivated plates comes at you nonna style.”
Air Canada’s enRoute magazine looks for new restaurants that advance the Canadian culinary identity; they are places where the overall dining experience will have a lasting and significant impact on our restaurant culture. This year, Canada’s chefs are telling a new story in their own words and the diners are definitely listening.
Pick up a copy of enRoute’s November issue or visit the magazine at http://enroute.aircanada.com/en/articles/canadas-best-newrestaurants- 2012 to read the full article and discover the latest trends in Canadian dining. Readers can also follow on Twitter @enroutemag and on enroutemagazine.tumblr.com. And as of November 1, readers can download the enRoute Eats app, which includes details of this year’s Top 10 restaurants and previous years’ winners, along with enRoute-recommended restaurants across the country. The top-ranking new establishments, from Canada’s best chefs and restaurateurs, are changing the way we will dine in the coming year and beyond.
