Last year, we tempted you with burgers from five of our mostfavourite culinary destinations across the region. This year, we’re at it again. So buckle up. But not before loosening your belt a notch or two. You’re gonna need the extra room.
There is a little yellow house on York Road in Guelph, just before the intersection at Victoria. It wasn’t always yellow – it used to be red brick, home to a small Portuguese Piri Piri restaurant. After the ownership changed hands, a new sign went up on that freshly painted yellow house, which read ‘Na-Ha-Thai’s Kitchen,’ and it wasn’t long before everyone was telling me about ‘the new Thai place’ in Guelph. After my first visit I pledged to join those growing ranks of loyal Na-Ha-Thai patrons who declare this to be really good Thai food.
‘This really did seem like a good idea when we first came up with it,’ I comment to Elora Brewing Company’s Jenna Harkness while we tread ever so gingerly across a thin column of slippery rocks toward a larger cluster of boulders in the middle of the river. A biting wind surges up my sleeves and down my neck.
‘What should we grab?’, I ask TOQUE Partner Cai Sepulis as we work our way closer to the front of the line – a line that keeps growing behind us. ‘The Matcha Mint White Chocolate looks fantastic,’ she says. ‘I’ll probably get one of those - and maybe a Beeramisu.’ I peer through the glass case at the donut Cai’s pointing to - a gorgeous specimen with rich mascarpone cream filling infused with Hamilton brewery Grain & Grit’s double chocolate stout and topped with cocoa dusted cream cheese icing capped with a chocolate- covered espresso bean. My mouth begins to water.
WE EAT WITH OUR EYES FIRST. AND, IN TODAY’S SOCIAL MEDIA AGE, I’D HAZARD A GUESS THAT QUITE OFTEN WE EAT – OR INGEST – WITH OUR EYES ONLY. NEED PROOF? DO A CURSORY SEARCH OF THE HASHTAG #FOODPORN ON INSTAGRAM AND WATCH YOUR (APTLY-NAMED) FEED FILL WITH ALMOST ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY MILLION BITE-SIZE IMAGES OF VISUALLY-TITILLATING, DROOL-INDUCING EATS.
‘If I didn’t know better, I’d say this amazing place has a bit of a speakeasy-type vibe going on,’ TOQUE Partner Cai Sepulis whispersas we tuck into our booth for lunch. I nod affirmatively - even though I’ve never actually seen a speakeasy. But I’ve heard enough to have a pretty good idea of what Cai is alluding to.
Bakeries smell good. It’s a universal truth. Walking in to the smell of warm bread isa soul cleansing experience that everyone should have on at least a weekly basis. And when you open the door to Polestar Hearth,a sourdough bakery in Guelph, this sensory phenomenon is heightened to such a degree that you might never want to leave. In the words of my girlfriend, Sidey, whom I brought to Polestar for the first time the other week, ‘it smells so good you could die in here.’
Pie By Night is a pop-up pizza joint that happens every Sunday at Polestar Hearth. It is a passion project started by Connor Ross (who is a full-time baker at Polestar during the week) with the help of Abby Ritcher, Brooke Howard and Jesse Wallace. Living and working in Guelph’s restaurant industry, Connor and his friends noticed there was no one focusing solely on serving high-quality pizza.
DAWN OWEN, CURATOR OF GUELPH CIVIC MUSEUM, RECENTLY NOTED THAT ‘IT’S NOT AN OVERSTATEMENT TO SAY BEER BUILT THIS TOWN.’ INDEED, EVEN A CURSORY GLANCE AT GUELPH’S CURRENT BEER LANDSCAPE ONLY SEEMS TO STRENGTHEN DAWN’S SUGGESTION. WELLINGTON BREWERY. SLEEMAN BREWERIES. ROYAL CITY BREWING CO. FIXED GEAR BREWING CO. THE RECENTLY-DECEASED STONEHAMMER BREWING. (RIP STONEHAMMER.) NOT TO MENTION GUELPH’S GREAT BARS AND PUBS WITH BEER LISTS THAT CAN MAKE EVEN THE STODGIEST HOP HEAD WEAK AT THE KNEES.
Has it ever occurred to you that there is more to Japanese food than the refined and delicate flavours of sushi or sashimi? Does simple, soul-satisfying comfort food cometo mind (ever?) when you decide to go outto eat at a Japanese restaurant? Who knew there was such a thing as hearty, home-style Japanese cooking? Donburi, a dish consisting of meat, fish, or vegetables simmered in sauces and served atop a heaping bowl of rice is what you would most often find on the table of a Japanese home, and recently opened Izna Donburi House is putting Donburi (or ‘Don’) in the spotlight, alongside a number of other traditional comfort foods such as gyoza (Japanese dumplings or potstickers) or ramen and udon (hearty Japanese wheat noodle soups).
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.
