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.
Independent boutiques – the ones tucked just beyond obvious routes, curated with conviction, and run by people who know their stock intimately – often reveal more about a city than its manifest landmarks ever could. They signal the things locals carry, the fabrics they favour, the habits they keep. In London – the Forest City – a trio of retailers quietly imbues this urban narrative with heritage, craftsmanship, and discernment. From heirloom watches to Canadian-made outfitter gear to sharply edited vintage, these three stops reward travellers who prefer discovery over convenience – and product with stories built in.
Over the years the TOQUE team has indulged in more than a few of London's irresistible self-guided culinary trails – from a dumpling adventure (TOQUE 20) to a scratch bakery and patisserie odyssey (TOQUE 23) to a beer-and-spirits pilgrimage (TOQUE 21).
Sometimes a development project comes along so bold and ambitious that it promises to transform an entire community. In London’s Old East Village such an initiative is taking shape: the redevelopment of 100 Kellogg Lane. For over a century — from 1913 to 2014 — this million-square-foot factory produced up to twenty-seven different Kellogg’s cereals: from Frosted Flakes to Raisin Bran.
I think I’m in love. No – I know I’m in love. With a small area of London. An enclave, really. It’s called Wortley Village, and it’s the most wonderful amalgam of independently- owned boutiques and galleries and restaurants and pubs and coffee shops – all set against the backdrop of mature tree-lined streets and historic homes and impeccably-dressed flaneurs (many with matching canine pals) in London’s Old South neighbourhood.
WANNA HAZARD A GUESS WHERE JOHNNY PROPOSED TO JUNE? OR WHERE KISS PLAYED THEIR FIRST INTERNATIONAL GIG? HOW ABOUT WHICH CITY IS HOME TO A HAUNTED TOWN-HALL-TURNED-CONCERT- VENUE THAT’S HOSTED THE LIKES OF THE SADIES, JULLY BLACK, DAN MANGAN, HANNAH GEORGAS, AND OTHER LEGENDARY CANADIAN ACTS? OR WHERE YOU CAN RENT AN AIRBNB THAT SLEEPS TWELVE AND HAS A FULL RECORDING STUDIO? OR VISIT CANADA’S ONLY CITY- SPECIFIC MUSIC HALL OF FAME? THE ANSWER TO ALL THESE QUESTIONS IS LONDON ONTARIO, OF COURSE – CANADA’S FIRST UNESCO CITY OF MUSIC. SEE FOR YOURSELF.
‘It’s actually amazing that a downtown this size has such a varied selection of world-class bakeries,’ Forest City food savant Bryan Lavery remarks while he leads my TOQUE partner Cai and me past a handful of wonderful culinary booths at London’s Covent Garden Market (and, in balmier weather, Outdoor Farmers’ Market) toward our next stop on this culinary tour: the Sehovac family’s ‘Hot Oven’ station. Specializing in fresh-baked hand-rolled phyllo pastries, this Covent Garden booth is like a love letter to Balkan cuisine. Especially the family-owned business’ bureks – spinach and cheese, plain, or meat-stuffed savoury pastries in a buttery, flaky, unleavened phyllo dough – have a reputation for tickling the tongue.
It’s Tuesday. Middle of May. Just past eleven in the morning. And when my TOQUE Partner Cai and I pull up to the main entrance of Anderson Brewing Co there’s already a long lineup of people waiting in a queue out the front door. ‘This place is absolutely hopping,’ I remark to Cai as we join the back of the line, ‘there must be something big going on.’
‘The pierogies are my mom’s recipe,’ Barb tells me as I bite into the potato- and meat-stuffed Polish culinary staple. Covered in fried onions and served with a side of sour cream, the savoury treat is wildly flavourful – and instantly familiar. While I relish the mouthful, my head fills with memories of my late Oma’s vereniki (Mennonite ‘pierogies’ stuffed with cottage cheese or stone fruit and served with white sauce), which she would spend entire afternoons making from scratch for dinner whenever she and my Opa visited from Winnipeg back in the eighties.
‘Our goal has always been to move toward one hundred percent Canadian production,’ Daniel tells me as I thumb through a rack of heavy duty plaid button-ups – searching for my size. ‘These shirts, for instance,’ he remarks as I pull a sweet green and black-patterned piece off the rack, ‘are pretty much an all-Ontario affair – with just a little help from America.’ When I glance quizzically at Daniel, he elaborates. ‘All design was done in-house,’ he tells me. Fantastic.
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.
