Toronto’s culinary scene is constantly evolving. From new restaurants and bars to crazy and innovative concepts, there is something new popping up nearly every week. The latest addition to the city’s ecosphere looks to the future and the confluence of dining and retail.
Trinity Market, an interactive retail space located at Queen Street and Bellwoods Avenue, is set to open in mid-December. While the word “trinity” might lend itself to the location of the space, it uniquely fits in as the proper descriptor of the venue as well, as it is going to house three different concepts under one roof: a retail tableware store, a snack bar and a bottle shop.
The brainchild of three experienced culinary professionals — Javier Castillo, Matt Dean Pettit and Milosz Malycha — with over 80 years of combined experience in the industry, Trinity Market was born to fill a gap in the Toronto market and bring the city closer to the rest of the world.
“We looked at best practices across the world and how we like to eat, how we like to dine, how we’d like to shop — and we created Trinity Market,” Pettit said.
Having three different concepts in one space might sound like a nightmare from a logistical and even a marketing point of view, but the idea and execution are simple. Having three different avenues allows for a varied clientele, and with the owners controlling all three verticals, it ends up being quite streamlined.
The first is the owners’ tableware company, Spirit Wares. It already has an established client base across North America and has become Canada’s leading independent tableware company. The company has sold wholesale to chefs and restaurants across the continent to date without ever having a retail outlet, until now.
It fits in seamlessly with the space, for all the food at the establishment will be served on plates and in bowls from the company, creating a great avenue of free advertisement. Outside of browsing the shelves, if a customer likes a specific plate or bowl on which their food was served, they can purchase it on the spot with the price being tacked onto their meal total.
The second vertical of the interactive retail space is the wonderfully-curated bottle shop. It will sell wines, craft beer and craft spirits — stuff that you can’t just walk into an LCBO and pick up. Curated by Pettit and professional sommelier Castillo, the bottle shop will support and elevate the drinks program at Trinity Market, allowing you to purchase any of the beers, wines, or spirits enjoyed with your meal.
If you’re unsure of what you want to purchase, highly-educated staff will be present and willing to guide you through selecting something you’d enjoy.
Even with retail space, the focus seems to be on trying and sampling, ensuring the consumer has a well-rounded experience and the ability to make educated choices.
“You know, it's all about value add. I'm giving you the ability to try,” Pettit said. “You go across the world, whether it be in Latin America, Asia, anywhere in Europe — you try. You can always sample before you go.”
The dining part of the space, the crowning glory in the middle with a long bar/pass featuring a glass encasement showcasing the food, also continues the theme. It will feature a lot of small plates, encouraging patrons to try multiple things in one sitting and eliminating the need for committing to one dish or bottle of wine for the entire night.
This concept comes partly from the owners’ knowledge of how food is served across other parts of the world and is also largely influenced by their dining preferences.
“We said, “Okay, what kind of style of dining and eating and snacking do we like?’ Well, we love snacks. We love wine, we love beer and we want small bites at all times. When we go out we order five different things and everyone tries a little bit,” Pettit said. “So, cool, that sort of style of putting the food in front of you [at a] snack bar counter was born.”
If you were to go to a proper sit-down restaurant, a full meal consisting of an appetizer, a main, dessert and a bottle of wine could easily cost you about $200, Castillo said. It’s not something they want to do because they want the consumer to experience different types of food and drink without having to go to different places.
For example, instead of buying a whole bottle of wine, you can buy it by the glass, regardless of which wine you choose. Every single offering would be available to be sampled without any commitment.
Since Trinity Market is not attached to a particular menu, it has no connections to a specific area, place, or country, giving it the freedom to provide a smorgasbord of food from all over the world — much like the city in which it resides.
“Like Toronto, you can take a look out the window and you can see 20 different nationalities,” Castillo said. “What if you can eat those 20 different foods in one place and try them all without being like, 'Oh, you know what? I didn't like this.' That's fine. You tried it, [at least] you're not on the hook for $80, right?"
The owners have curated a food program where everything will be different. From empanadas and arancini to chicken and pizza, there will be a wide range of food for the curious consumer to try. The wine and cocktail program will also be paired with the dishes consciously, creating an over-the-counter service that is customizable, holistic and intimate.
With the space purposefully not set up as a full-scale restaurant and Trinity Market wanting to act like a community hub, the place will partner up with local vendors and “community partners,” creating a menu around the local food entrepreneurs they love and respect.
“What we want to do is showcase those small businesses that either have a very small store, or they're working from home, so we're not buying anything frozen from outside,” Castillo said. “Anything that we can get from a person in Toronto that is [locally made], we want to showcase that because it's our community, so we want to make sure that we look after each other after, you know, everything that has gone down."
Food will be brought in from all the participating outlets and will be finished at the pass in front of the customers right before serving, Pettit said. That includes heating, saucing, plating and garnishing, with a healthy dose of information regarding the dish’s origin as well. This process helps control the style of food being served and shines a spotlight on all the local businesses involved.
“At the end of the day, we get to showcase what other cool people are doing in the industry," he said.
While many dishes will rotate, key offerings like pizza by the slice will always be available. Working amongst the community is very important to the crew, and Trinity Market will be catering to the market in which the store stands, which includes serving pierogies made by Ukrainian aunts and grandmothers at the church across the street.
The offerings will also depend on what time you hit up Trinity Market. Mornings will have a host of baked goods — in partnership with Blackbird Baking Company — coffee and breakfast sandwiches.
The space will not be serving traditional coffee by choice. The owners want to shed light on the community around them and will direct people looking for the traditional cup of joe to their neighbour, The Roasted Nut, with whom they literally share a wall.
Instead of traditional coffee, Trinity Market will serve an alternative in the form of functional coffee powered by mushrooms, meaning options like Chaga, Reishi and Lion's Mane, which are types of functional mushrooms providing one with vitamins.
A cafe by morning, the space will turn back into a more lunch/dinner-style venue starting mid-afternoon/early evening, offering more food options. Depending on the time of day you visit, you might have a totally different experience.
Taking the space from literally four walls and breathing life into it was, in no way, a small feat. Littered with red tape, bureaucracy, permits and your run-of-the-mill construction woes, it was a real rollercoaster of emotions for the team. But they all persevered and went through the motions, letting their passion and experience fuel them at each step.
"We've had multiple, like, you know, coming to moments where it's like, crying, fighting, cheering, hugging. We've had all the emotions,” Pettit said. “If you filmed this, this would have been the best reality TV show.”
As the project nears completion, the partners are really excited to showcase the diversity that Toronto brings. Castillo said he's looking forward to showing off the food that local businesses in Toronto make daily.
"I am excited about showcasing the entire package that we're going to have when it comes to attitude, the food and the wine — the synergy that we have,” he said.
On top of that, Pettit is looking forward to amplifying the style of dining that Trinity Market is applying. It is a prevalent concept in many countries as one keeps moving East, and he's excited to introduce that concept to the people of Toronto.
"We want to create a very warm, inclusive space where you can try everything,” he said. And that's exactly it because I like to eat that way, Javier likes it that way, and our partner, Milos, likes to eat that way.
Although still under construction, Trinity Market is edging nearer and nearer to its opening day. The partners hope to have everything ready to open the doors by mid-December. Once functional, it can be found serving snacks and drinks to the people of Toronto on the corner of Queen Street and Bellwoods Avenue at 768 A Queen St. W.
For more information, follow Trinity Market on its Instagram and TikTok page.
