The best diners aren't just restaurants. They're home to conversation over bottomless mugs. Purveyers of shared plates of breakfast sausage or toast. Places where spontaneous fits of laughter spill from sun-drenched booths. Ceremonial spaces where lingering mornings stretch into lazy afternoons.
‘So, is there something you enjoyed in particular?’, Chef John Forcier (Director of Culinary Operations at Equal Parts Hospitality) asks us once my TOQUE partner Cai and I have had a chance to sample everything spread out before us on a weighty table at the Aberdeen Tavern – a former-bank-turned-posh-eatery located at the foot of Hamilton Mountain.
‘It looks like they’ve still got the ‘Bee Sting’,’ I remark to my TOQUE co-pilot Cai as we peruse the menu to see what’s for lunch. Unable to suppress a rush of excitement, I add: ‘That was always my favourite pizza at Bread Bar.’ Spicy salami, red sauce, mozza, basil, lemon ricotta, chili oil, and honey (by Thurston Honey Bee Co in Guelph) – what’s not to love?
As I turn the truck down Clinton Street in Hamilton’s Stipley neighbourhood, my TOQUE Partner Chris riding shotgun, I can’t help but feel as though we’ve been transported to another world – to another time. Rows of detached blue collar homes dot both sides of the narrow street – seemingly distinguished only by the colour of their horizontal siding.
REALLY – WHEN IS IT NOT THE PERFECT TIME FOR A GREAT COFFEE? A COUPLE MONTHS BACK, TOQUE CORRESPONDENT CURTIS GRIMBA TOOK TO OUR REGION’S MAIN STREETS AND BACK ROADS TO VISIT THREE OF HIS FAVOURITE LOCAL COFFEE HAUNTS.
Want that big city experience but don’t want to hit up The City? Hamilton’s your perfect option. Next time you find yourself in Steel Town, include one (or all) of these amazing spots to complete a killer daytrip.
While this pandemic continues to rage and the days keep getting hotter, more folks are looking to take a load off with a backyard brew or two. If you want to skip the long lines at the LCBO and support local business at the same time, grab your cold ones from any of our incredible regional craft breweries. Most bottle shops are open (some even have designated curb-side pick-up and / or designated take-out windows) and many offer online ordering with free local delivery.
‘It’s pretty badass, really,’ I remark to my TOQUE co-pilot, Cai Sepulis, ‘that they would put something so seemingly commonplace on their menu.’ My eyes fix on the sandwich plated in front of me. It’s a plain and simple thing, to be sure. Bologna. Sauerkraut. A slice of cheese and some yellow mustard. All pressed together on a grill between the halves of a plain white burger bun.
It’s a quiet morning on James Street North in Hamilton and the air is still damp from last night’s storm. A slight fog lingers in the air. I marvel at the iconic, round Mulberry Street Coffeehouse sign swinging above me and take a few photos before going in. ‘That sign used to be a table,’ managing partner Ella Shepherd will inform me later over food and drinks. ‘And that one,’ she'll add, pointing to a big neon ‘M’ that sits above another door, ‘is from an old Shopper’s Drug Mart sign.’ Handcrafted personal touches – and traces of re-purposing – are everywhere.
FOR MANY OF US, HEADING OUT ON A WEEKEND EXCURSION SO OFTEN MEANS ONE OF TWO THINGS: EITHER ESCAPING TO THE WILDS OF COTTAGE COUNTRY OR DIVING HEADLONG INTO THE HUSTLE AND BUSTLE OF CITIES MUCH LARGER THAN OUR OWN. EITHER OF THESE OPTIONS MIGHT PROMISE GREAT TIMES, TO BE SURE. BUT THERE ARE OTHER POSSIBILITIES.
‘Ok. I definitely need to come back with Chris and the camera,’ I tell my wife Sonia thirty seconds into our first visit. What is this place? Butcher-meets-pantry-meets-bakery-meets- burger joint – all within the size of a small corner store.
Travel tends to sharpen taste. It introduces new ideas, uncovers unforeseen obsessions, and offers the occasional epiphany – nudging your sense of beauty and your grasp of craftsmanship in new directions. For Ryan LeClair, founder of Makoto Watch Company out of London, Ontario, it was travel – and specifically a trip to Japan – that transformed his infatuation with watch collecting into his initiation of a brand built on craft, restraint, and everyday practicality.
Almost nothing we carry defines us more clearly than the books in our bags: tactile objects filled with ideas and stories – testimonies to time well spent. They tag along with us, mark our days, and shape the rhythm of how we move through the world. In Uptown Waterloo, three long-standing independent bookstores – Carry-On Comics & Books (46 years young), Words Worth Books (42 years), and Old Goat Books (25 years) – offer distinct ways to build this bracket of everyday carry: a nostalgia-driven comic haven built for the thrill of discovery, a curated literary hub grounded in conversation, and a densely-packed used bookstore where the search is part of the reward. Together, these enduring fixtures map a reading life – charting not just what we read, but how we come to find it.
In my line of work – as writer, photographer, editor, regional explorer – EDC isn't a trend. It's infrastructure. Most days I'm in motion: tracing backroads toward a brewhouse, mapping my way to an artist's studio, or sliding into the corner of a coffee shop where I turn field notes into final copy and RAW files into photographs that will pop on paper. My office is wherever I set my bag down. My tools make it possible.
Stratford – and, by extension, Perth County – lends itself to takeaway. A coffee to carry, a sandwich in hand, something sweet tucked alongside – then out into the streets for window shopping, into the theatres for a performance, or down to the riverbank for a nosh.
