Today is the kickoff for another year of Winterlicious. The festival, originally designed to help boost tourism after the SARS crisis, runs until February 11. 

The analysis on whether the programme is beneficial for diners, cooks, servers and restaurant owners has been hashed and re-hashed over the past five years. 

Some restaurants interpret ‘licious as an opportunity to flip their revenue model from adding value to pushing through as much volume as possible. They have created the reputation that this will be ten days of rushed service, sub-par ingredients and dishes that don’t represent their usual menu.

A select minority see the opportunity to introduce their establishment to new customers and do a good job of putting together options might appear on their usual menus. 

With participating establishments like Canoe, Luma, Auberge du Pommier and Jump, the O&B group has earned a well-deserved reputation for doing ‘licious right. I sat down with Miheer Shete, the chef de cuisine at their Oliver and Bonacini Café Grill at Bayview Village to find out what he has planned for this year’s menu.

 

Shete gained an appreciation for the inherent hospitality expressed by the food of the American South when he lived in Memphis. He took the cooking of New Orleans (and surrounding areas in the US South) as his theme, but put a Canadian twist on many of the dishes. That means the gumbo is thickened with split peas instead of roux, the grits are served with a house-made take on pea meal bacon and the buttermilk cake for dessert highlights the flavour of pumpkin.

Since 2013, the website the City of Toronto puts together for Winterlicious has featured a Today’s Reservations feature. If planning in advance and calling repeatedly for that coveted Canoe reservation isn’t your ballgame, the spontaneity of being able to book the day of will come in handy. Gems on the list today (as of about 11 a.m.) include Colette, District Oven, Bistro Tournesol, Jump, Nami, The Chase and The Shore Club.