A well-placed source tells us that Toronto-born chef Amanda Cohen has leased a space near King and Portland and plans to open a local outpost of her hyper-popular, all-vegetarian restaurant Dirt Candy.
Perhaps to prepare her fans, Cohen has been showing her Canadian roots in 2017 with an ongoing menu focus on maple at her NYC restaurant. They've done several Instagram posts on the theme, including:
The original opened in Manhattan in 2008 at 430 East 9th St. and moved to 86 Allen St. in 2014. At 60 seats, the new location is three times bigger than the original.
Throughout its run, Dirt Candy has met with critical acclaim and been very popular with both locals and tourists alike.
Cohen grew up in Toronto's Rosedale neighbourhood and moved to New York City to study cultural anthropology at NYU. In 1998, she enrolled in the training program at the Natural Gourmet Cooking School. Her star rose in the New York City dining scene as she worked in a variety of kitchens, including the one at Teany, a tea house in the Lower East Side owned by Moby.
For Post City's 2011 profile, Cohen said that she “had worked in many vegetarian restaurants in New York, but there were no restaurants that embodied how I like to eat. Oftentimes at restaurants, vegetables are an afterthought, and most vegetarian restaurants aren’t really vegetarian. They’re vegan, and that’s not my kind of food. I like cheese and dairy. They are more or less supporting a lifestyle and a diet. I’m not trying to do that. I’m just trying to make good vegetarian food.”
Cohen’s team has not yet responded to repeated requests for comment over several days. No word on when Toronto’s sister restaurant to Dirt Candy will open or what it will be called.
