Cupcakes are for kids. Indeed, mini cakes with colourful frosting dance in our happiest childhood memories, where we recall this bake sale or that birthday party, a walk down memory lane only complete with a debate on what icing was best.

But today is a new age: Cupcakes were for kids. Now they are something else, the new raison d’etre for charm, sophistication and nostalgia all at once. A short decade ago it would have been damning to have both a cupcake and a driver’s license; now the pastries are delicious conversation starters, geared toward the kid in all of us. Retro is in, and it’s cool to be young again.

They’ve grown up with us, though; they had to. After all, adults still pride themselves on their mature sensibilities. So if there is any mystery as to how cupcakes became a sensation overnight, their success is crystal clear. We have no shortage of specialty cupcake shops, or their new availability in big box grocery stores; bakeries offer them, and brides request them. But where most present the basic cake, frosting and perhaps cute decorative topper, Eini & Co. has taken the process a step further, and created The Luxury Cupcake.

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How often can kids have their cake and eat it too, Mom and Dad approved?

This past March, Tracey Manna opened the doors to the Rising Chefs Culinary Centre and Toronto has never quite been the same. A unique space where kids and their parents can create healthy meals together, Manna has taken the centre and its concept a step further with the launch of the Rising Chefs Club.

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The Olive Pit
805 Queen Street West
647 430-7085

Shirley Bougourd knows olive oil. She tells me she’s still learning, that the past three years of running The Olive Pit, haven of oil and good taste in general, has been quite the experience; that she’s still taking in new information each day. But to the average lay person, Shirley knows her stuff. Thus, she knows olive oil.

The Olive Pit is situated directly underneath The Spice Trader, and opened on the same day in fact; the purveyors of the above storefront are her son and daughter-in-law. Shirley’s not so much into spices as she is into oils, but then spices and oils do go hand in hand. It’s a nice combination, and makes for a pleasant space.

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The Spice Trader
805 Queen Street West
647-430-7085

To walk into The Spice Trader is an anomaly in the nicest of ways. Part Parisian emporium, part Moroccan bazaar, it is all earthy wooden shelves, warm shades of green and a black & white art deco floor wrapped up in the scents of far off places. Its contrasts work well though, this balance of exotic yet charming, creating the kind of scene where cell-wielding power suits can shop in blessed harmony beside hemp-clad hippies.

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Selsi Salt Bar
92 Front Street East
St. Lawrence Market, Lower Level
416-854-9088

Food and Wine magazine hails St. Lawrence Market as one of the top 25 food markets of the world, and we Torontonians honour it as such. A jewel of our fair city, bursting to the weekday seams with students and construction workers indulging in the generously piled $5 veal sandwich, it is one floor meats, cheeses and fish mongers alike, over another floor of gourmet snacks, treasures and uncommon goods. The market is more than a food institution; it is our icon.

On the east side of the lower level, beside a walkout to the street, is a kiosk well stocked in both gourmet calibre and the exceptional find. Selsi Salt Bar isn’t unique in that it carries salt, but unmatched in that salt, with all its different colours, flavours and boundless varieties, is the main product.

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