the starters The CityBites Team Jacob Richler An award-winning journalist and magazine writer, Jacob Richler has contributed regularly to GQ, Departures, Flare, Zoomer, Financial Post magazine, Toronto Life and enRoute, amongst many others. He wrote a regular food column for Saturday Night magazine and then the National Post, where he was also the restaurant critic for five years. He now writes a food column for Maclean’s. He has written two cookbooks with Mark McEwan,
Ursa’s majors: Jacob (third from left) and Lucas (far right).
The stars align By Dick Snyder
Nutrition, balance and superb taste at Ursa “Come in, have a drink, great to see you.” That’s Lucas Sharkey Pearce speaking, a welcome lilt on a cold Friday eve. Ursa’s just opened on Queen West, and they serve what I’m looking for: wild foraged mushroom soup expressed as an intense mahogany-coloured reduction, bitter sweet with Asian nuances. Lucas and brother/chef Jacob have owned Two Brothers Catering since 2006, designing performance nutrition for pro basketball players. They’ve snagged the old Bar One spot on Queen West and remodeled it as a celestial oasis: tiny globes dot the dark room, and walls are impossibly black, so all else shines. As does the food, cleanly crafted, every entity made in-house, from vinegar to pro-biotic cultured butter. The menu changes, but expect beautiful things like white-tail deer tartare. Ursa Vancouver import Clayton Cooper commands the bar and wine 924 Queen St. W. list, and mixes sublime and gimmick-free cocktails, with banter 416-536-8963 ursa-restaurant.com that makes you feel good. Word is getting out, so call now.
and in September, Penguin will publish his book on Canadian cuisine, My Canada Includes Foie Gras. He documents a recent adventure in Panama with the article Fishing for Dinner on p. 26. Greg Bolton No stranger to CityBites, Greg Bolton interviewed Rush frontman Geddy Lee for the inaugural issue in 2005. In a former life, he was co-owner of Pantry, a specialty food store in Toronto’s west end. Instead of selling food, he now just eats it, cooks it, and thinks about it morning, noon and night. He lives in Toronto with his two young sons and a crap-ton of arcane specialty oils and crazy vinegars and stuff, which he applied to the debut of Cookbook Cookoff feature on p. 22.
photos: Ann Gagno
Do Stay in Touch!
Salad of black kale, greens, roasted apple.
Bar manager Clayton Cooper.
Send email to info@citybites.ca or snail mail (and cool stuff) to CityBites, 24-26 Dalhousie St., Toronto, ON, M5B 2A5. Letters will be considered for print, and may be edited for accuracy and space. Early Spring 2012
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