Freshman’s Food Boutique
627 Mount Pleasant Road
416-484-0040

Are you a Toronto foodie too tired to slave over a stove after a day spent slaving in your cubicle? Are you unwilling to provide take-out pizza or rotisserie chicken for your clamouring family? Well, in uptown Toronto, Freshman’s Food Boutique offers gourmet prepared foods for those with a discriminating palate but a busy schedule. Here the weary but hungry gourmet can take out and take home Kafta Tajine or Lamb Dijon.

Stew Cohen, the affable owner of Freshman’s, moved to Toronto from New York five years ago. In Manhattan, where he worked as a financial planner, Cohen was accustomed to bringing home meals from top-notch prepared food places like Dean and Deluca and Yura and Company.

While he admires Toronto’s vibrant food culture, Cohen felt the absence of businesses that offered high quality ready-to-go meals. “I think of lot of these prepared food places do some great catering,” Cohen says. “But what they have offered in the retail display cases is just not up to the quality or the creativeness that I was used to.”

And so Freshman’s Food Boutique was opened ten months ago. Cohen’s goal is to make delicious, creative and healthy foods for people to take home directly to their dinner table or freezer as well as providing a “gourmet lunch express.” To that end, Cohen, who doesn’t cook himself, has hired top people to take charge of the kitchen. Freshman’s chefs have worked in such high end restaurants as Avalon, Oro and the Oban Inn at Niagara on the Lake.

And in keeping with Cohen’s philosophy everything on the menu is all-natural and chemical free. “There’s a lot of bad all natural suppliers out there,” Cohen says, “but there’s a lot of very good all natural suppliers. We know our suppliers and when we get all-natural we’re confident that we’re getting a chemical free product.”

The quality of the ingredients is evident at first bite. The Slow Roast Coke Brisket is time-consuming to make but not to eat. The AAA Alberta beef is cooked overnight, ready to face the day in a tender and juicy mood.

The rotating menu is eclectic and creative. Chicken Galantine, rolled chicken stuffed with chicken mousse, spinach and caramelized onions will meet the demands of the most sophisticated gastronome. Yet one of the most popular creations - for children and adults alike - is the playful Gringo Pie, a pasta-less lasagna. This popular main course consists of seasoned, lean ground beef between layers of corn tortillas and Mexican cheeses.

The side dishes are particularly imaginative. Caramelized Brussels Sprouts are an exciting new take on those boiled green balls of misery that blight so many Christmas dinners. These sprouts are sautéed in a super hot pan to bring out their natural sugars. And the little sprouts, bless their souls, are transformed into something crispy, sweet and eminently lovable.

Orzo (pearl pasta) with roasted vegetables might seem slightly greasy but in fact very little oil is added. The sauce is prepared from the drippings of the roasted vegetables. It tastes rich but it isn’t. Dauphinois Potatoes, on the other hand, are as rich as they taste -thinly layered organic russet potatoes that are gratinéed with melted gruyere.

Vegetarian options abound for those who eschew meat: Egg Plant Pie, Vegetable Tian and Tsimmis, which is a sweet potato, carrots and prunes in a delicate honey and orange sauce; very healthy, very tasty. Cohen prefers to speak of healthy food rather than health food, which has unfortunate connotations for him.

His main goal is to provide “amazing, delicious” take home meals but he insists they be prepared in the healthiest way possible. “Healthy food doesn’t have to be bad tasting,” Cohen remarks. “Healthy food can be wonderful. I think we’ve accomplished our goal in a big way. We’re making healthy food that is delicious.”

And the philosophy of healthy eating extends beyond the meals. No aluminum or Teflon pots are ever used to cook the food and no Styrofoam is used to package it. Even the cleaning products, as far as health regulations allow, are non-toxic.

Freshman’s Food Boutique is succeeding nicely without a lot of publicity. The food, while not cheap, is reasonably priced. And nearly everything is available by weight – buy a little or buy a lot. Cohen intends to open four or five more stores in the next few years. “People who love food love our food,” Cohen proudly declares. And he’d love people to come and see how he is taking “prepared food to a different level” on Mount Pleasant Road.