SEPTEMBER 21, 2024

Dear reader,

Few Toronto restaurateurs have the staying power of Jen Agg. Sixteen years ago, she transformed Dundas West with the opening of the Black Hoof. Since then, she’s created a culinary mini-empire and become the city’s patron saint of high-end casual service, chalkboard menus and snackable sharing plates.

Agg’s latest restaurant, General Public, on the industrial-chic Geary strip, is something between an English pub and an American brasserie. On opening week, she dryly captioned an Instagram post of the behind-the-scenes bustle: “Impressions of the kind of week I’m too old for.” 

The candour is typical of Agg. As writer Emily Landau put it in a 2016 Toronto Life profile, “Her fame has as much to do with her reputation for bluntness as her culinary clairvoyance.” She calls out everything from sexism in the restaurant industry to her customers’ bad behaviour—and she has no intention of apologizing for it.

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—Madi Haslam, digital editor

Her trendsetting, cocktail-slinging mini-empire includes the Black Hoof, Rhum Corner and soon Grey Gardens. She didn’t get where she is by playing nice. Meet the incredibly talented, occasionally savage Jen Agg

BY EMILY LANDAU | FEBRUARY 18, 2016

When it comes to restaurants, Jen Agg seems to have psychic powers: every few years, she reimagines the way we eat and drink in Toronto. Each time she declares a trend, diners and other restaurateurs trail her with slack-jawed reverence. She’s just as well known for her bluntness, which has earned her a reputation as the restaurant world’s Maleficent—a characterization she’s largely embraced. When other people call her a bitch, she skewers them. But she also uses the label herself, to reclaim its power, weaving it into her provocateur persona and redefining it on her own terms. 

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