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Ayla
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AYLA, as described by its owners and chefs, is a love letter to Hong Kong, but it’s also so much more than that: it’s a celebration of love, of friendship, and of travels across the globe. Restaurateurs - and real-life couple - Ivy Lam and Craig Wong are very familiar with this little corner of Dundas West - their restaurants June Plum and Patois sit just below their latest venture, and Lam says that the space becoming available was the start of everything just falling into place. AYLA is their partnership with Danvee Kwok and Kevin Shawcross, a husband-and-wife executive chef duo Lam and Wong met in Hong Kong and instantly befriended.
“Everything is serendipitous,” Lam says. “It all just goes together.” Even the name AYLA represents the connectivity behind the venture - it translates to the halo of light around the moon - a fact made particularly special because the culinary quartet met on Moon Street in the city the restaurant pays homage to. “We’re just so inspired by the golden era of Hong Kong,” Lam says. “And me and Danvee are from Hong Kong, so it just felt natural.”
The jade countertops and red lacquer furniture are design cornerstones in Asian culture, and the tropical wallpaper represents the time Shawcross spent cooking in Barbados - and Wong’s Caribbean tie-ins at his other restaurants - and the tiling leading up the staircase is reminiscent of Hong Kong eateries. The details are an extension of Lam, too: They comes from her personal collection, trinkets like a lettuce dog and a fertility buddha that she’s accumulated over the years. The Hong Kong beauty advertisement posters on the walls were in Lam’s possession, she says, for something like two decades. The piece de resistance, the giant arches that serve as the bar shelves, were also a happy accident, Lam says, found through an antique dealer. And of course, everything is intentional, selected to compliment AYLA’s menu.
“This iteration came after many trials,” Shawcross says. “Once we got closer to the opening gates, we just had this realization: why aren’t we telling our story?” Shawcross says. “Instead of trying to be this or that, let’s just tell our story. So when we decided that, everything came very freely.”
“The idea for the okonomiyaki prawn toast came from a very popular restaurant in Hong Kong. They have this dish on the menu, and they put the prawn on the top of the toast, very traditionally, with sesame seeds,” Kwok says. “But for us, we wanted to bring our own plating to it, so we rolled it like a cigar.” It contains all the usuals - crispy bread, minced prawn, and the like. But, as an homage to Canada, it’s topped with everything bagel spice.
“The chrysanthemum caesar was kind of a happy accident,” Shawcross explains. “We wanted to use chrysanthemum greens because we love eating hot pot. But we never see anyone eating them raw. So we tried it out.” They added ingredients - fermented tofu, toasted black sesame, miso and fish sauce, and Shawcross says a lightbulb went off. Red watercress, pecorino cheese, and buckwheat - to replace the croutons - finish off the one-of-a-kind dish.
Drunken sablefish is Kwok’s signature dish - and she says it’s a staple on a lot of Asian dishes, though Canadian menus sometimes swap it out with halibut. “Wherever I go, there’s always sablefish on the menu, so I said you know what? We have to have it on the menu,” she says. “But, to put my twist on it, we did a sweet and sour brown butter sauce and we pickled shimeji, ginger and green onions on it.”
“When you see char siu on a menu, you already know: barbecue pork,” Shawcross says. “But ours is going to look a bit different. We glaze it with cassareep, which is something we learned about in Barbados, and it’s basically a cassava molasses. We serve it with a Bajan green seasoning - its like a Caribbean chimichurri - and it really cuts through the richness. So it’s like we’re telling our Hong Kong story, but peppered with other experiences and stories throughout our lives.”
“Our cocktail program is also an ode to our travels and bars that we love,” Shawcross says. “It incorporates a lot of Asian fruit - classic drinks with a twist, just like the food menu.” The Tokyo Smoke is made with matcha, mezcal and Cointreau to create a smoky profile.
“The Expat is kind of a funny nod to Hong Kong expats,” Shawcross says. “It’s a riff on a drink done by our friend who owns a bar in Vancouver. It’s a mash up of basically an Old Fashioned and a Negroni.” Its concocted with Appleton rum, rye, Campari, and Fernet.
“We do this martini with local sake that’s brewed in Toronto,” Shawcross says. It also incorporates pomelo juice, one of the most popular citrus juices in Hong Kong and throughout Asia. “For non-martini drinkers, it’s very crushable. It’s smooth, it’s not harsh. If you don’t usually drink martinis, this might be the one for you.”
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