Dear reader,
I’ve always had a thing for convenience stores, be they in suburban strip malls or, as they so often are in Toronto, residential neighbourhoods, where they take up the main floors of old Edwardians or Dutch Colonials and smell of mothballs and popsicle wrappers. I love Quebec’s depanneurs and New York’s bodegas and, most of all, the old-timey general stores of small-town Ontario—one-stop shops that sell snacks and condiments alongside beer, worms, jars of locally made honey and kitschy sweatshirts.
These are the predecessors of Toronto’s new upscale mini marts, which take on the roles of restaurant, deli and bottle shop. Their shelves and fridges are stocked with things like coffee beans and cans of soup as well as tins of razor clams, pre-batched cocktails and fresh Famiglia Baldassare pasta—in other words, some of what we need and everything we want. Read on to learn about seven of our favourite fancy new upmarket markets.
Also in today’s Table Talk: a Scarborough billiards lounge famous for its chicken wings, what’s on the menu at Canada’s first Prince Street Pizza location and a look inside Miss Likklemore chef Lonie Murdock’s home kitchen.
