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And/Ore
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Be warned: when you walk off Queen West into And/Ore, you’re going to lose it.
Big time.
You’re going to gasp and exclaim, rave and rhapsodize, shriek OMG and WTF. You’ll forget to breathe. Your jaw will drop. Your mind will be blown.
Then, once you’ve begun to get over the beautiful initial shock of it all, you’ll take a seat.
Oh, will you take a seat...
You might take it in And/Ore’s main room, which is nothing less than a sprawling garden (party), planted with hand-painted rococo-style flowers, trees, birds, bugs, and skies, inspired by Fragonard’s racy 1767 canvas, The Swing, and executed with pastel verve by muralists Tisha Myles and Jack Phelps of New Love Collective.
Or you’ll take it upstairs on And/Ore’s outrageously ornate mezzanine, whose tables overlooking the garden below are surrounded by frescoes of baroque clouds framed by gold velvet curtains and topped by a golden circus tent.
If you’re really in the know, so much so that you reserved 48 hours in advance, you’ll take an elevator downstairs and take a seat in And/Ore’s dim, moody, romantically lit cave – yes a cave! – where amid the glint of precious metals and warm flickering lights, a six-course mystery tasting menu ($150) of modern Canadian cuisine is served.
Incidentally, the “cave” is the real deal, or about as real as a cave in a Queen West basement can be. Fashioned by expert Grant Curle (who was brought onboard by Solid Design Creative), the limestone walls’ jagged tips are sharp enough to rip your blouse and authentic enough to garner amazed comparisons to the likes of Lascaux.
The cave was the main must-have for Australian mining engineer, Jaimie Donovan, when, during the pandemic, she decided to switch countries and careers. Apparently, you can take the girl out of the cave, but you can’t take the cave out of the girl, which is why her dream restaurant (thankfully) has one.
To make the dream real, verging on surreal, Donovan surrounded herself with a trio of accomplished industry figures: director of operations Kailey DeRubeis, head chef Missy Hui and general manager and barwoman extraordinaire, Abby Rubiales
“Although it’s just a fact that we’re all women, it’s also a fact that there are not a lot of female-owned independent restaurants in Toronto,” notes DeRubeis, adding that what really amazes her about her partners is less their gender than their synchronicity. “If you put all four of us together, we have such a different brain, but we’re all so aligned, and inspired by each other. If Abby comes to us and says she wants to make a cocktail with a cloud, we say ‘Yeah! Make a cocktail with a cloud.” (More on that cocktail with a cloud later).
This collaborative ethos also reigns in And/Ore’s kitchen. If you get a chance to tell Hui that you love her food (and you will), she’ll understatedly chalk it up to the fact that she and her staff of 15 are “having a good time.”
“When you find people you like and have a symbiosis with, a certain magic happens. It’s creative and everyone has something to contribute.”
In other restaurants, this kind of multi-faceted, transnational culinary mash-up might be referred to as “fusion”, but not at And/Ore. “I hate the word fusion,” admits Hui. “So I call our menu ‘modern Canadian.’ I’m a modern Canadian and all my cooks are modern Canadians. We’re all from different places and had different experiences with food growing up. We want to make sure that’s reflected in our menu.”
With the Below Ground tasting menu, Hui’s experiences merge with those of senior sous-chef Milo Beaubien-Wright, both of whom contribute to the rotating and highly seasonal menu of unconventional but approachable dishes that emphasize local ingredients, farmers and purveyors.
Similar precepts apply to the regular menu of snacking and sharing plates, available a la carte, or – in keeping with the Above Ground garden party vibe – as a cleverly curated Chef’s Picnic, albeit a picnic where you’re ensconced in a plush velvet chair or a whimsically reupholstered, Victorian-style sofa.
Hui wasn’t considering inviting olives to the picnic until DeRubeis confessed that she always orders them as a reflex. Glistening in a marinade of garlic and herbs, the mixed bowl, served warm with a zing of orange, will surely activate your can’t-stop-popping-these-olives-into-my-mouth reflex.
Hui confesses that’s she never met a devilled egg she didn’t like. That said, when she and her team were taste-testing dozens of them, one stood – way, way – out. Channelling jian bing, the Chinese breakfast crepes made by her grandmother (whose English name was Jane), Jane’s Egg starts with a perfectly boiled egg that’s hatched anew thanks to the pungency of fermented bean paste, chili crisp, scallions and cilantro and a showering of crispy fried wonton flakes. For maximum pleasure, use the gem lettuce leaf it’s served upon to scoop the egg into your mouth and demolish it in one (admittedly large) bite.
Two things will occur after you swallow Jane’s Egg: First, you’ll immediately order another. Second, you’ll realize that every devilled egg you eat from now til eternity will be a letdown.
It’s hard to imagine a picnic without sandwiches. Hui, however, stretches the limits of most imaginations with a vegefied katsu sando that you’ll wolf down – and then weep. First, with joy. Then with sorrow that it’s gone so fast. Proof that size isn’t everything; this small, but impressively thick tea sandwich features king oyster mushrooms that are roasted, pressed, chopped, breaded and fried before being sprinkled with furikake, topped with brined slaw and wedged between two fluffy slices of Wonder Bread slathered with Kewpie mayo and Bull-Dog Tonkatsu sauce.
Potato chips? Potato salad? At And/Ore, these starchy standards are present in a painstakingly prepared pave in which sliced Yukon Golds, anointed with olive oil and salt, are pressed down and slow baked, then cut and fried. Creamy and crunchy in all the right places, it’s dolloped with a bracing malt vinegar aioli (Explains Hui: “My mom used to collect those little malt vinegar packets”).
Equally warm, creamy, crisp and comforting, with the bonus of gooey and stretchy, is Hui’s riff on mozzarella sticks. FeaturingQuality Cheese’svirgin mozzarella, “one of the most underrated and stunning pizza mozzarellas we make in Canada” it’s accompanied by piquant gochujang and a zingy white kimchi.
One of the “seasonal proteins” regularly rotated onto the picnic menu, the pan-seared trout with fennel, radishes, oranges and dill is a simple dish, executed with flair. As Hui admits, “it’s something you could make at home, but don’t because so many things could go wrong.”
Also ripe for rotation is the selection of meats and cheeses. Expect to find unusual local cheeses (nettle gouda!), most of them from 100KM Foods, as well as the underrated likes of mortadella (one of Hui’s faves). Some sausages, such as the delicate Italian cotechino, are made in house as is the cold-smoked salmon, cured with citrus and dill. Briny pickles, crunchy nuts, sweet slices of melon and voluptuous Muscat grapes round out the banquet on a board.
No self-respecting picnic is complete without drinks. Designed by Grape Witches' Krysta Oben, And/Ore’s wine program leans heavily into natural wines from small, sometimes obscure vineyards.
There’s also Champagne – and the good news is that you don’t have to splurge for a whole bottle. Served by the glass as well as in flights, the idea is to make Champagne more approachable. As Rubiales sensibly argues, “Why can’t we just all have a nice glass of Champagne every day?”
In creating the cocktails – and mocktails; a beautiful, colourful triad of them, each inspired by and named for one of Donovan’s daughters – Rubiales has worked off Hui’s modern Canadian vision. “To pair with Missy’s food, the drinks had to be cleansing and familiar, with a lot of herbal notes and citrus. At the same time, I wanted to keep it innovative.”
The result is an ingeniously simple, double-columned cocktail menu, with Classics on one side and, on the other, Signatures that take the Classics and run wild with them, going places you never imagined possible.
Already viral beyond belief is the signature Old Fashioned, the OG version of which is beloved by Rubiales’ husband. Since he also loves peach pie and Earl Grey tea, Rubiales added Earl Grey syrup and peach bitters to her revisionist version, also featuring Signal Hill whiskey and amarena cherry. The drink has a rich glow, but it’s the garnish that takes your breath away: a baroque cloud of house-spun cotton candy billowing up from the glass.
Playing into the iridescence of the reflective glass tables and mirrors, the re-imagined Cosmo is a delightfully fruit-forward mix of Laneway Vodka, peach schnapps, white cranberry and calamansi with glitter adding an an extra shot of magic.
The signature Paper Plane shares all the same components as the classic version, but milk clarification imbues the drink with a creamy luxuriousness, not to mention a bonus aftertaste delightfully reminiscent of Juicy Fruit gum. The perfect garnish is a literal paper plane made of golden origami paper, the folding of which reportedly keeps the bar staff up at night.
And/Ore’s G&T is “the most refreshing gin and tonic you’ll ever have,” promises Rubales and it’s hard to not to feel a(n agreeably) revitalizating jolt as you take an opening swig of Laneway Gin, elderflower liqueur and fizzy tonic, perked up with fresh blossoms and swirls of sliced cucumber.
Playing into the garden decor, the revamped Negroni is particularly bloom-worthy, with Empress Gin, made from pea flour, infusing the blend of white vermouth, Aperol and grapefruit juice with a lovely lilac hue. Fresh rosemary and dried roses add extra floral flourish. Then there’s the ice: look carefully and you’ll notice the cubes are hand-cut and stamped with “and/ore.
Yes, ice is a big deal at And/Ore. “It’s a good percentage of a cocktail,” points out Rubiales. “You swish it around and look at it so it should be as visual appealing and intentional as the rest of the drink.” For this reason, the owners – self-confessed ice obsessives – make their own ice blocks, which are then hand-cut and carved into pure, crystal cubes with intricate detailing.
Recalls DeRubeis with a laugh, “the other night a customer told us, ‘You have really cool ice,’ and we all just kind of lost it.”
While cocktails are usually forgotten by the time you reach a meal’s end, And/Ore’s after dinner libations are a reminder that a liquid dessert can make for a great finale. A case in point is the Violet Beauregard, a melange of limoncello, Galliano, mint and thyme along with blueberries that honour the drink’s namesake Willy Wonka heroine.
Equally nostalgia-inducing is the Sunny D, whose ingredients – creme de cacau, Galliano, Laneway Vodka, orange, mango and cream – conjure up a melted Creamsicle (albeit one that induces a buzz).
That many of the drinks and food will transport you to another another time or place is what And/Ore is ultimately all about. As DeRubeis remarks, “To us, the biggest compliment of all is when someone says, ‘We don’t feel like we’re in Toronto at all.’ Because that was our intention from the start.”
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