ETHICAL GOURMET / Remind me to Tell You About the Time I Looked in the Heart of an Artichoke

Revival House and The Chapel in Stratford is Open!  (Soft opening for lunch + dinner) Rob Wigan and Candice Sanderson Wigan of Molly Bloom’s Irish Pub purchased the iconic Church Restaurant. The former Mackenzie Memorial Church turned fine dining establishment debuted last week as Revival House. Chefs Kyle Rose and Byron Hallett (late of London’s former Auberge du Petit Prince) are operating the kitchen, emphasizing a Canadian menu featuring whole animal butchery and charcuterie on the daily menu. Rose apprenticed at The Church eight years ago and Hallett is a graduate of the Stratford Chefs School. “ Executive Chef Kyle Rose and Chef de Cuisine Byron Hallett have assembled a kitchen team excited about creating and serving food that expresses the depth of Perth County’s food culture* with Stratford’s sense of drama – favourites re-imagined, traditions reinvented, memories reinterpreted.” Revival House offers event dining. Upstairs in the former Belfry, The Chapel

Fine dining isn't dead. Restaurateurs just keep transforming and redefining it:   The Only on King / TOOK Fine dining isn't dead. Restaurateurs just keep transforming and redefining it. Chef/owner Paul Harding of the Only on King recently announced that after a brief closure and minor renovation, The much lauded Only on King, will reopen its doors on Wednesday, August 12 th and will operate as TOOK. In the meantime, be sure to drop by and try their Food Day Canada menu that will run until August 1st. Part of the transformation will include expanding their business hours, offering lunch Tuesday through Friday, and offering take-away options including coffee and pastries. TOOK’s dinner service will commence after 5 pm, with a brand new menu focusing on small tapas style portions, all priced under $20. Harding’s commitment to using locally sourced ingredients won't change and they will still be serving some of their classic signature dishes, such as their season

Abruzzi BY BRYAN LAVERY Abruzzi is stylish but casual, with an elegant white marble bar just inside the front entrance. There is an elevated communal table in the centre of the dining room that seats eight. The chairs and banquettes are comfortable. The simple, striking décor with bare brick walls and lots of mirrors, the innovative lighting, and the friendly ambience are all central to the Abruzzi experience. The menu offerings capture the distinguishing essences of the Italian culinary repitoire. They are intuitive, often iconic, prepared with locally-sourced and quality ethnic ingredients, executed with skill and an eye to detail. The kitchen has a long-standing commitment to procuring local and sustainable ingredients. Chef Lamers has the ability to take the earthy Italian culinary vocabulary and imbue it with both his idiosyncratic style and a culinary dialect that is responsive to the seasons. Lamers’ stresses simplicity and freshness as foundations of the A

By BRYAN LAVERY We are very fortunate to have many talented farmers, cooks, chefs, restaurateurs and retailers who are not just advocating “eating and drinking local” and “eating seasonal,” they are actively and creatively enhancing and developing new region-specific cuisines. As for their cuisine, it’s made from scratch and it’s innovative. They are implementing time-honoured traditions and trusted techniques yet delivering ingredients in revolutionary new ways. They are among the culinary vanguard, trailblazers of the cutting-edge and emerging culinary regionalism in Ontario. In the next week I will be profiling of few of the best restaurants that personify the farm-to-table experience. Food Day Canada is the largest national food event in the country – get ready for it on August 1 st , 2015. Be sure to tune in for a celebration of all things culinary in Canada. In the meantime, check out The Only on King’s,   exceptional Food Day Canada menu which is running until August 1 st

 Chef Sean Collins of The Red Rabbit First, in other news... Down the Street Down the Street re-opened to rave reviews last week under new ownership with partners Jacqueline Hayton and Cassandre Frost along with Alondra Gálvez as the new manager. We are looking forward to Chef Lee Avigdor’s new globally-inspired menus. We have had great meals at Bijou and Mercer Hall this summer. Chef Ryan O’Donnell is at Mercer Hall and Chef Max Holbrook is at Bijou this season, they are both at the top of their game. The Revival House is getting closer to opening. Chefs Kyle Rose (late of London’s former Auberge du Petit Prince ) and Byron Hallett will operate the kitchen, emphasizing local, seasonal ingredients on the daily menu. www.revival.house Restaurant Manager Joel Kechnie tells me The Prune will open for lunch in July. (Lunch will be served Thursday, Friday and Saturday closer to the end of July) 151 Albert Street www.theprune.com ​

I am a dedicated reader of New York chef,  writer and storyteller Gabrielle Hamilton. I was pleased to hear that The Stratford Chefs School recently announced that Hamilton will be the 2015 -16 Joseph Hoare Gastronomic Writer in Residence at the school. The Gastronomic Writer in Residence program is one-of-a-kind and unique to chef training in Canada. Launched in 2007, the program is sustained by the family of the Joseph Hoare, former food editor at Toronto Life magazine, and a group of other donors. The school's previous eight writers in residence have had wide-ranging experiences in gastronomy, but have been mostly celebrated authors or columnists. Chef-owner of the lauded 30-seat Prune restaurant in Manhattan's East Village, Gabrielle Hamilton was named Best Chef NYC by the James Beard Foundation in 2011, after two earlier nominations for the honour. Hamilton famously authored the edgy 2011 memoir, Blood, Bones and Butter: The Inadvertent Educatio

Stratford`s Changing Gastro Scene: Where to Dine Now By BRYAN LAVERY     Stratford is known internationally for the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, which runs from April to October. The Festival’s primary mandate is to present repertory productions of William Shakespeare’s plays, but it also produces a diverse variety of theatre, from classic Greek tragedies to more contemporary works. The Festival and the renowned Stratford Chefs School have contributed to the formation of a distinctively vibrant dining culture and restaurant community.                 One of the standout features of Stratford's successful gastro scene is its relaxed but, intellectually driven approach to cuisine. Restaurant enthusiasts have long disputed whether Rundles, The Prune, Bijou, Mercer Hall and more recently The Bruce, with their pre-theatre prix fixe menus, are the cutting edge dining experience in Stratford. Incidentally, Stratford’s prix fixe menus are an arrangement