Would you like to know a fun fact about our city? The Gladstone Hotel, which opened in 1889, is Toronto’s oldest continuously-operating hotel! Neat, eh? Fortuitously, as the city diversified, so did the Gladstone, evolving from a simple railroad hostelry into the multi-faceted venue, cultural hub, and esteemed landmark that it is today!
Courtesy of BlogTO
Courtesy of The Gladstone Hotel
Featuring 37 unique artist-designed rooms, contained within a brilliantly-restored George Miller-designed Richardsonian Romanesque Victorian building, The Gladstone Hotel is a creative artist space, live music venue, and quintessential historic landmark. There are also two options for food and drink – the hotel’s classic Melody Bar and the popular Gladstone Cafe – both of which continue to surprise with new menus, chefs, and events. Having been part of the vanguard for Toronto’s explosive arts & culture scene – including the myriad of unique local-artist-designed hotel rooms that they’ve offered for years – the Gladstone now brings that passion for innovation to the dinner table as well.
Here’s what’s causing a culinary commotion at the Gladstone this summer!
Courtesy of WhyILoveToronto
Courtesy of The Gladstone Hotel
If you’ve never been to the Gladstone Cafe, or Melody Bar, we highly recommend! The menus focus on locally-sourced ingredients, and are often paired with some fantastic live musical entertainment! In March of this year, The Gladstone welcomed Toronto-based chef and activist Joshna Maharaj as their new executive chef, who brings big ideas and strong social justice to the establishment. Despite making regular TV appearances, on shows like Steven & Chris and CityLine, Maharaj tends to shift the spotlight off of her own celebrity, and onto her passion projects surrounding food ethics and sustainability issues. On track wth her past initiatives with The Stop Community Food Centre, Scarborough and Sick Kids Hospitals, Ryerson University and various community organizations, the hotel recently revived their Harvest Wednesdays, which is culinary series inspired by the a long-time investment in Community Shared Agriculture and local farms. Exploring how to bridge the gap between urban and rural, guest chefs incite conversations about eating ethically and locally by preparing dishes from seasonal Ontario produce, picked from the land just the day before. How cool is that?! We’re making dinner reservations now (by emailing mod@gladstonehotel.com)!
Joshna Maharaj (Centre) – Courtesy of Ryerson.ca
Harvest Wednesdays – Courtesy of ViewTheVibe.com
The most recent hype surrounding the Gladstone’s culinary ventures is the appointment of a chef-in-residence: Suzanne Barr. Barr just ended a highly successful run as the owner of of Saturday Dinette on Gerrard Street East. Though they recently closed their doors – allegedly due to ongoing rent disputes with the landlord – Barr’s sister restaurant, Kid Chocolate, is slated to open this summer, just a few doors down. Meanwhile, in her new position as chef-in-residence, Barr will be aiming to give Gladstone guests something new and innovative! First and foremost, Barr will be creating an entire ecclectic menu inspired by her mother’s homeland – Jamaica – exclusively utilizing ingredients native to the island. If the calibre of her past ventures as a restauranteur is any indication, we’re in for a real treat!
Courtesy of the Toronto Star
While we applaud The Gladstone’s dedication to food innovation and support of local, sustainable grassroots initiatives, not everything they serve is dipped in social responsibility. They also happen to be masters of simple, dependable comfort food. In fact, The Gladstone Cafe happens to be one of our favourite go-to spots for a superlative Sunday brunch (which is the best meal of the week – hands down!) The offerings are comforting and deliciously hard to beat! We recommend their redux of classic Eggs Benny, replete with house smoked bacon, perfectly cooked soft-poached eggs and braised spinach on freshly baked cheddar cheese biscuit.
Just what the realtor ordered!
The Gladstone Hotel
1214 Queen Street West
Toronto ON M6J 1J6
Front Desk: 416-531-4635 Dinner Reservations: 416-531-4635 x 7106, or mod@gladstonehotel.com
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~ The Urbaneer Team
Bosley Real Estate Ltd., Brokerage
(416) 530-1100
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