Toronto Life June 2024

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Prep School Our April cover story on preparing for the apocalypse laid out the likelihood and severity of every imaginable urban catastrophe and introduced readers to Toronto’s disaster planners, who spend their days poring over worst-case scenarios. Readers found it both entertaining and illuminating. “I remember the thunderstorm of 2013 well. My wife and I were trying to make it from the west end to the Beaches after work. By the time I got downtown, the storm had already hit, and we could barely see two feet in front of us. “Experiencing what an extreme 100-millimetre rainfall feels like—and seeing how long it took the city to recover from $1 billion in damages—is partly what fuels my work as a sustainability engineer today, working to design new tools to help…

Red Meat and the Return of the Tasting Menu Our search for the best new restaurants doesn’t really begin inasmuch as it never really stops. All year, we crank out stories on every possible platform about the best openings, the most gifted chefs, the most sonically superior listening bars and more. The entire effort is led by Rebecca Fleming, our food and drink editor, who is, in short, on it. Whenever I get a tip about a new opening and send it her way, she invariably responds, “Yep—I’ve already got someone covering it.” Well, fine. I’ll show myself out. This year, I asked her for some intel ahead of our annual Best New Restaurants issue. And it wasn’t just for reservation purposes: something large-scale and fascinating always emerges about what…

Consider the humble cottage. Traditionally, it was the seasonal redoubt of affluent city folk, visited sparsely in spring, occupied throughout summer, abandoned by fall. Until the pandemic arrived and Torontonians—elbows out, chequebooks open—began fleeing downtown for the dock. Then came the volte-face. Toronto opened back up, and the lustre of the lake was eclipsed by bugs, loneliness and bad Wi-Fi. Now for the third act: the federal government’s 17 per cent rate increase to capital gains over $250,000 means anyone who was thinking of offloading their cottage is incentivized to do it pronto. The place to be just 36 months ago is now firmly in sell mode. “Some men are threatened by young women who are funnier than them” —Ally Pankiw, p. 18…

You’ve written and directed for TV series like Schitt’s Creek, Black Mirror and Feel Good. Now your first feature film is set to debut. Was it difficult to transition between forms? Yes and no. I’ve been spoiled with big budgets, so making an indie was a reality check. But TV taught me how to pivot. I’m not sure I would have survived our gruelling schedule and sparse resources without all that experience. When your film premiered at SXSW, did you watch with the audience? Yes, but I prefer not to. Mostly, I’ll intro my work, go have a glass of wine nearby and then come back at the end for a Q&A. Making a film is like raising a kid: you have all these dreams for them, and they do…

“Groceries are so expensive that I rely more on takeout” BRYANNA PAYNE, 23 WHAT SHE DOES She’s a benefits analyst at an insurance brokerage and a part-time tutor WHAT SHE MAKES $62,000 WHERE SHE LIVES A two-bedroom apartment on Blue Jays Way, with a roommate REGULAR EXPENSES RENT: $1,675 a month. “My bedroom is the smaller of the two, so I pay slightly less.” UTILITIES AND WI-FI: $112 a month. CELL: $54 with Freedom Mobile. “I got it because it covers both Canada and the US, so when I travel, I don’t have to drop an extra $10 a day.” GROCERIES: $100 a month. “Groceries are so expensive that I’ve been relying more on takeout. I may eat a rice cake with peanut butter and a banana as a midday…