SkyLounge
Intercontinental Toronto Yorkville
220 Bloor Street West
416-960-5200

With a name like SkyLounge, I arrived at the Intercontinental Hotel expecting an elevator ride to a rooftop patio. Instead the SkyLounge is a more like a secret garden tucked behind the hotel’s Proof vodka bar (which was a tearoom the last time I was here some 8 years ago, and goes to show how times have changed).

While the space has been open for four years now, offering a Mediterranean-inspired tapas-style menu created by Chef Joe Rabba, this month marks the beginning of Grill Thursdays, a weekly event that runs from 6 to 10pm. The evening finds Rabba and his staff manning a massive barbeque right on the patio where guests can enjoy treats such as wild boar burgers, rosemary skewered lamb chops and Peppercorn crusted grilled pineapple spears.

Continue reading Spirits in the Sky »

The Windsor Arms
18 St. Thomas Street
416-971-9666

“The Windsor Arms has a reputation for being a bit stuffy,” said Executive Chef Stephen Ricci. And then I cocked my eyebrow. And then he caught me cocking my eyebrow. And then I was forced to explain.

Historically, while the 80-year-old hotel does have a reputation for being very “old money”, in recent years that reputation has changed from stuffy to a more modern take on high society, which roughly translated still means rich, but now comes with the glitter (or tinge, depending on your point of view) of celebrity. With a guest list that has included such non-stuffy names as Jennifer Lopez and Drew Barrymore, the Windsor Arms is still saddled with the reputation of being unattainable to the common folks; of being the type of place that everyone talks about, but that no one has actually been to.

Continue reading Revealing the Charms of The Windsor Arms »

EPIC Restaurant, Fairmont Royal York Hotel
100 Front Street West
416-860-6949
Afternoon tea service for two with all taxes and tip: $50

While I generally have a reputation with almost everyone who knows me as being a loudmouth tchoula (Spanish slang for “ballsy broad”), I’ve also got a bit of a fussy girlie side that occasionally requires doses of pink, bouquets of flowers and formal dainty things like afternoon tea.

I hadn’t been to tea at the Fairmont Royal York in almost a decade, back when it was in a little open tearoom in the west end of the hotel just outside the magnificent ballroom. The space was light and pretty, designed to evoke a Victorian garden, with trellises of flowers, a high ceiling and a little railing around the space that I always wished was a picket fence.

Continue reading Tea for Three X Three at the Fairmont Royal York »