Dear reader,

These brisk, fall-ish mornings have got me thinking about the only redeeming quality of the colder months: the food. Say all the good things you will about salad, it can’t hug you the way a bowl of soup or stew can.

Last weekend, I cooked up a one-pot wonder: pasta e ceci, a satisfying Italian stew of blessedly few ingredients, all of which are very affordable. It’s like a lazier pasta e fagioli but no worse for it. It also calls for a half-cup of dry white wine. Coincidentally, a quiet Sunday of meal prep calls for a glass of—let’s be real—the rest of the bottle.

If you’re looking for comfort from someone else’s kitchen, this week’s newsletter has you covered. In it, you’ll find stories about an under-the-radar restaurant and wine bar on Dundas West doling out Eastern European dishes (hello, cabbage rolls), a petite patisserie that does—wait for it—all-dessert tasting menus, and a long-standing Italian restaurant in Etobicoke with a new Claudio Aprile connection. Happy reading (and eating). 

A few patio tables on the sidewalk and a sign with a hand-drawn cat in the window are the only markers for Stop, a restaurant and wine bar in Little Portugal that deals in Eastern European comfort food. Here, chef-owner Denis Ganshonkov turns out Polish cabbage rolls, Ukranian borscht and Georgian dumplings—but also French crêpes, Lake Huron–caught fish topped with caviar and a beautiful heirloom carrot tart. “I am this restaurant. This restaurant is me. I just cook what I like to eat,” says Ganshonkov. “It’s Denis cuisine.”

At Castle and Coal, her bakery on Dovercourt Road, pastry chef Junelle Casalan doesn’t believe in having to finish dinner before eating dessert. In fact, her newest offering is a tasting menu of nothing but sweets, including a baked Alaska that she torches tableside. Know what’s better than a bonfire? Flaming meringue.

After 27 years of cooking up Italian classics, Etobicoke’s Via Allegro Ristorante has been given a menu glow-up courtesy of celeb chef Claudio Aprile. Now, alongside wood-fired pizzas and house-made pasta (including a short rib agnolotti finished in a big old wheel of parm), guests can order things like scallop crudo that comes to the table with a side of dry-ice razzle-dazzle.

AI has made it easy for university students to fake their way to a degree. They argue that ChatGPT is just another study tool. But professors are panicking, and the system is unravelling. In our September issue, an inside look at the education revolution. Plus, the untold story of the Bellaria massacre; how a Toronto woman started a popcorn business in prison; where to eat, drink and party at TIFF; and more. Still not receiving Toronto Life at home? Subscribe today.