Dear reader,
Around 15 years ago, after returning to the GTA from a stint in Taiwan, I was living in a basement apartment in Lakeview, around the corner from Dixie Outlet Mall. It might have been 100 square feet and I was visited by spiders and centipedes every single day but it was $500 a month, utilities and parking included. And while that’s a very fun-slash-sad fact, it’s not the point of this story. The point is, I wasn’t even living in Toronto, nor had I been anywhere near the city since the very early aughts, and I was employed at a school in Etobicoke (my current line of work barely a twinkle in my eye) when I first heard about the Black Hoof.
And now, here I am, almost two decades later, still talking about the Hoof—even though it’s been closed since 2018—and the person responsible for it. In that time, Jen Agg opened Cocktail Bar, Rhum Corner, Grey Gardens, Le Swan and Bar Vendetta, all of which survived the pandemic. Somewhere in there, she also wrote a best-selling memoir. Her newest baby, General Public, is a British-ish pub on Geary open from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m., offering a menu that includes breakfast sandwiches, a cheeseburger, New York strip steak and caviar service. Given Agg’s track record, this won’t be her last restaurant and we’ll still be talking about her another 15 years from now.
In this edition of Table Talk, Courtney Shea catches up with Agg, who dishes on the challenges of opening a restaurant in today’s economy, how she handles rude customers and why General Public is only making 21 burgers a day.
Also in this week’s newsletter, what’s on the menu at Pizzeria No. 900 and what’s in the home kitchen of Top Chef Canada host Eden Grinshpan.
For more of our food-and-drink coverage, visit torontolife.com or subscribe to our print edition.
