Indholdsfortegnelse for January 2025 i Toronto Life

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I first met my ex, whom we’ll call Carl, on November 21, 2020. It was the night before another round of Covid lockdowns. A girlfriend and I went out for dinner at Kasa Moto, in Yorkville, as a last supper before everything closed again. At the restaurant, we ran into a mutual friend who invited us to his friend Carl’s house afterward. I was introduced to Carl when we arrived, but we didn’t talk much. I spent most of the evening playing with his mini goldendoodle. A week later, Carl texted me, saying he’d gotten my number from a friend. We messaged back and forth over the next few weeks. He would send me pictures of his dog and ask when he could see me again, but I was busy…

THIS TIME OF YEAR leans heavily into all things sparkly—twinkling lights, glittering tinsel and dazzling fireworks. The festive gilding extends to drinks, and Charlemagne, Café Renée’s moody second-floor speakeasy on Portland Street, understands the assignment. Here, bartenders use the French sparkling in more than one menu item, including the very literally named Champagne Cocktail, a recipe that dates back to 1862 and combines sugar, bitters, cognac and champagne. Order one and the bottle is popped and poured tableside. “The acid in the champagne breaks down the sugar, resulting in an intense bubbling effect,” says beverage director Angus Edmundson. For something less boozy but still big on bubbles, the Gilded Rose is a low-octane, high-flavour highball made with rose-infused fino sherry, house-made gentian, Strega (a herbal Italian liqueur), agave and verjus…

AFTER STUDYING theatre and touring with a puppetry company, Mara Zigler worked as a picker at Toronto vintage stores. In 2015, a childhood friend brought her along to help style a music video, and Zigler quickly saw the potential of using her particular set of theatrical and sartorial talents for film. Two years later, Zigler designed the quirky, youthful looks in Jasmin Mozaffari’s TIFF debut feature, Firecrackers, and she’s since made a name for herself in low-budget, high-acclaim indie films. Her resumé includes recent festival circuit darlings Matt and Mara, Measures for a Funeral and the short film Motherland, an Oscar contender. This month, Zigler is heading to Vancouver to design the costumes for her friend and collaborator Kelly McCormack’s new experimental film, which stars Tatiana Maslany and Tess Degenstein.…

La Reine-garçon Jan. 31 to Feb. 15, Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts This show is loosely based on history. Did you do any research to prepare? I read biographies of Queen Christine and tried to find out as much as I could about her life. Then I filled in the gaps with facts from the letters she wrote to her mother and her cousin, the man who eventually replaced her as monarch. From there, I added my own layers of interpretation. It’s neat having other historical figures involved—Christine was tutored by Descartes, and every time he says a line like, “I think, therefore I am,” I’m like, Aha! What’s new for you in this production? The coolest thing about it, which I’d never heard in any opera before,…

The Big Squeeze Real estate has become a blood sport in Toronto. Blame jaw-dropping prices for the tiniest of shoeboxes. Our feature on the extreme lengths people will go to extract an extra square foot of living space out of their properties tapped into the frustration residents share. “I recently read and appreciated your various articles on Torontonians making the most of their extremely cramped accommodations. It got me wondering why Canadians have to live like this. It occurred to me that, hypothetically speaking, if you divide Canada’s land area by its current population, everyone would have about a square quarter kilometre of space all to themselves. “Why do the inhabitants of the world’s second-largest country have to shoehorn themselves into spaces barely big enough for a cat? I’ve obviously…

Your company, Fitzrovia, just launched a $1-billion fund to build new rentals, which includes tearing down a 24-storey office tower at Yonge and St. Clair and replacing it with a 49-storey apartment building. Did you consider converting it instead? No, it would have been too expensive and complicated. Most offices don’t lend themselves to residential conversions—they’re large, with a central core, which results in either bowling-alley-style suites with very little natural light or oversized units, which drive down the rent per square foot that developers can charge. That doesn’t apply to all offices, but it does to many in the city. As a real estate man, you must be disheartened to see all that stock sitting cold. Is there business potential there? Somewhat. The trophy offices are downtown, and there’s…

On November 13, Toronto Life hosted its annual celebration of the city’s most influential people at Canopy by Hilton Toronto Yorkville Hotel. The night began with a Rising Stars cocktail reception powered by ROOM for the 26 ambitious up-and-comers who were chosen for this year’s Rising Stars list. Then the party moved upstairs to Día Restaurant and Lounge to celebrate the occasion with the players from the Toronto Sceptres—Sarah Nurse, Natalie Spooner and Blayre Turnbull—who snagged the No. 1 spot for blazing a trail for women in professional sports. Also in attendance were Mayor Olivia Chow, federal NDP leader Jagmeet Singh and other change makers in politics, tech, media, sports, culture and real estate. FOR FULL PARTY COVERAGE, VISIT torontolife.com/events/most-influential-party-2024 THANK YOU TO OUR EVENT PARTNERS…

HINTERLAND’S BLANC DE NOIRS 2020 METHOD TRADITIONAL Hinterland does one thing very well: bubbles. The Blanc de Noir, made with PEC-grown pinot noir, is rich, rosy and a third of the price of real champagne. $39.95, hinterlandwine.com LAST HOUSE VINEYARD’S JOIE DE VIVRE BLANC DE BLANC This Blanc de Blanc from a small-but-mighty PEC winery spends a whopping two and a half years aging on the lees before it’s released, giving it oodles of body, oomph and elegance. $48, lasthousevineyard.ca STRATUS BLANC DE BLANCS 2016 Made with Niagara-on-the-Lake-grown grapes, this bubbly has a tingling minerality that will match up with everything on the holiday table, from caviar to kung pao chicken. $75, stratuswines.com…

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There, nine justices heard arguments about whether Jordan’s rights had been violated and debated what “reasonably” speedy in this context meant. In a 5–4 decision, the court agreed with Jordan, and his guilty verdict was expunged. It was a stunning turn of events. But the high court went even further. The assenting judges decreed that Canadian criminal cases that go straight to trial in provincial courts should be wrapped up within 18 months, and cases that require pretrial inquiry or are tried in superior courts should take no longer than 30 months. The courts were backlogged, the justices wrote, due to a “culture of complacency” within the legal system. A strict timeline would jolt the system awake and accelerate the administration of justice. The decision received relatively little attention at…

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$0.25 Hourly rate increase for street parking in Toronto, which is projected to generate an additional $5 million for the city in 2025. $26 Minimum living wage for residents of the GTA, up 3.8 per cent from last year and $8.80 more than Ontario’s minimum wage. $350,000 Amount Geoffrey Hinton is donating—half of his Nobel Prize winnings—to Water First, a Creemore-based charity that helps Indigenous communities secure access to clean water. $2,000,000 Emergency funds needed to save this year’s Caribbean Carnival. CEO Mischka Crichton is imploring all three levels of government to up their annual contributions, which currently stand at a combined $1 million. $92,000,000 Value of the provincial government contract awarded to Elon Musk’s Starlink. The new deal will bring high-speed internet to 15,000 customers across rural Ontario. $179,000,000…

1 Nut Job COSETTE COFFEE’S MILKY WALNUT This nutty, milk-chocolatey cookie contains a multitude of textures: crispy, crunchy, chewy, creamy. Despite its heft, it’s perfectly delicate, light yet substantial and possibly the best delivery mechanism ever devised for walnuts. Ingredient-wise, this may be the simplest cookie on our list, but the care with which it’s prepared puts it in a league of its own. $4.50. 1715 Bloor St. W., instagram.com/cosette_coffee 2 Open Sesame DEAR GRAIN’S SESAME SOURDOUGH The sourdough starter used at this Ossington bakery adds depth to the kamut and wheat flour dough and results in a lighter crumb. Tahini, a dash of sesame oil and an eye-catching two-tone sesame seed shell give it some serious halvah vibes while keeping it surprisingly moist and light. $3.95. 48 Ossington Ave., deargrain.com 3 Meet…