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Do North

Toronto, Canada’s largest city, is busting out with style, fashion, cuisine, art and this year’s International Retail Design Conference.

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It’s been said that if Montreal is the Paris of North America, Toronto is our London.

Like London, Toronto is a commercial and financial hub with a polite, businesslike surface. And, like London, Toronto has an artsy, creative, fashionable sensibility bubbling just below its stiff upper lip.

The city’s high-fashion taste is best expressed on Bloor Street, at the northern end of Toronto’s downtown core. Sometimes called the “mink mile,” Bloor is home to international brands such as Gucci, Prada, Burberry and Hermes. But it’s also home to a great many local retailers, like Holt Renfrew, Canada’s highest-end fashion retailer; lifestyle brand Roots; and Harry Rosen, the elegant menswear store.

Also on Bloor is one of several locations of The Bay, the department store arm of Hudson’s Bay Co., the trading company started by England’s King Charles II in 1670 to organize commerce in the new world. Its flagship store, several blocks away on Queen and Yonge streets, has undergone significant upgrading, such as The Room, the fine ladies’ department on the third floor recently renovated by Toronto retail architecture and design firm Yabu Pushelberg.

But neither Toronto’s retail nor its culture is defined by large chains, either national or international. It has a long entrepreneurial tradition, perhaps currently best exemplified by Joe Mimran, the Toronto fashion visionary who started the Club Monaco chain in 1985 (and sold it to Ralph Lauren in 1999). Mimran has a brand of apparel, cosmetics, intimates and accessories called Joe Fresh, which is sold in Loblaw supermarkets and now has its first freestanding store on Queen’s Quay, along the lakefront. And his wife, Kimberly Newport-Mimran, produces a line of high-end women’s apparel called Pink Tartan, selling in Holt Renfrew and The Bay department stores as well as its own store on Bloor.

While the Bloor Street corridor between Yonge Street and Avenue Road is tony and chic, a much trendier neighborhood called Yorkville sits tucked in just to the north. Once the hippie enclave of Toronto, the neighborhood still has an edgy, provocative feel. And there are lots of other neighborhoods that also define Toronto, smaller and emerging pockets full of tree-lined streets that are also lined with little shops, cafés and restaurants. “To understand Toronto is to understand that its essence is multiculturalism,” says Tara O’Neil, chief creative officer at Toronto’s Perennial Inc. design firm. “It’s a very open, liberal city with an entrepreneurial spirit.”

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The dynamic Queen West neighborhood and West Queen West, as you go farther out on Queen Street, are examples of Toronto’s emerging corners of culture, home to ethnic restaurants, galleries, late-night clubs and what Paul Filek, managing partner of the Toronto design firm Burdifilek, calls, “fun stores.”

Topshop, the trendy British apparel and accessories brand, made its freestanding debut here with an 800-square-foot shop inside a boutique and gallery on Ossington Avenue called Jonathan and Olivia. In fact, says O’Neil, the Ossington Strip is “one of the most interesting spots in the city right now. There are tons of tiny bars and restaurants, and when it gets hopping, you can jump from place to place like a kid in a candy store.”

John Gerhardt, creative director, for Holt Renfrew, likes the Distillery District, a revitalized, historic pocket with shops, galleries and restaurants, and offers a “special callout to renowned dealer Jane Corkin’s gallery.” For a bohemian mix of cafés and vintages stores, he also suggests Kensington Market between Chinatown and Little Italy.

So disregard everything you might have thought about Canada, about maple syrup and flannel shirts. Think, instead, of cutting-edge fashion and experimental cuisine. Think of a calendar full of world-class film festivals and art shows. Think of progressive architecture and dynamic retail. Then put your passport in your pocket and head north.

LOCAL PICKS: TORONTO

Want to know where local designers hang out in T-O? We asked a gaggle of Canadians for their 2 cents on what to see, where to eat and where to play. Here’s the inside scoop from Glenn Pushelberg and George Yabu of Yabu Pushelberg; Paul Filek of Burdifilek; John Gerhardt of Holt Renfrew; Tara O’Neil of Perennial Inc.; and Robert Ruscio of Ruscio Studio (Montreal).

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ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN

Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO)
317 Dundas Street West
Architect Frank Gehry, who has put his stamp on cities around the world, finally returned to his home town with a design that includes a 600-foot-wide sweep of ribbed glass on the façade and a vertical four-story wing on top of the museum clad in titanium and glass.

Royal Ontario Museum (ROM)
100 Queens Park
Architect Daniel Libeskind gave the renovated museum a jutting angular crystal extension that’s been controversial among the Toronto design community. Filek calls it “amazing” and “dynamic.”

Ontario College of Art and Design (OCAD)
100 McCaul Street
OCAD was expanded by putting a Will Alsop-designed building right on top of another building, due to limited space. “It appears to hover over the street on stilts,” says Yabu.

University of Toronto downtown campus
27 King’s College Circle
Gerhardt proclaims it the “best architecture in the city, a mix of old and new.”

Shops at Don Mills
1090 Don Mills Road
This lifestyle center (northeast of downtown on the Don Valley Parkway) is considered one of the best of its kind across North America.

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RETAIL

Commute
819 Queen Street West
Modern furniture and unusual vintage objets d’art.

Ministry of Interior
80 Ossington Avenue
Conceptual and modern furnishings and accessories.

L’Atelier
1224 Yonge Street
One of many great home stores on this shopping strip north of Bloor.

Holt Renfrew
50 Bloor Street West
“A definite must-see,” says O’Neil. “It’s a family-owned retailer doing what it wants to do, how it wants to do it. Always fascinating visuals.”

CLUBS AND RESTAURANTS

Torito
276 Augusta Avenue
Great Spanish tapas food, according to Gerhardt, in the “very flavorful” Kensington Market.

Scaramouche
1 Benvenuto Place
This established restaurant has “fantastic food and incredible views of the city,” says Gerhardt.

Black Hoof
928 Dundas Street West
A downtown charcuterie with a very hip crowd.

Koko! Share Bar
81 Yorkville Avenue
Japanese meets Korean food in a posh basement setting.

Local Kitchen and Wine Bar
1710 Queen Street West
Serves “only local food, which happens to be fantastic, in a rustic, chic space,” Gerhardt says.

Bohmer
93 Ossington Avenue
A hip place with great food.

Reposado Bar & Lounge
136 Ossington Avenue
Tequila takes center stage at this bar.

The Painted Lady
218 Ossington Avenue
For a quirky good time, says O’Neil, here “you can get an order of trailer trash nachos and watch a mini-burlesque show on the bar.”

Terroni’s
720 Queen Street West
This local chain has “amazing pizzas and pastas,” raves O’Neil, “genuine and authentic and always packed to capacity. They don’t take reservations, so go early or go late to avoid
a long wait to get in.”

2 Cats
569 King Street West
Miss the ’80s? Go here.

Ruby Watchco
730 Queen Street East
This Leslieville place is owned by celebrity chef Lynn Crawford from the Four Seasons Hotel in
New York.

Reservoir Lounge
52 Wellington Street East
An internationally recognized swing and “jump blues” bar where many musicians, including Michael Bublé, got their start.

Park Hyatt’s Roof Lounge
4 Avenue Road
This old-world bar with
literary caricatures lining
the walls offers a great view of the city.

The Drake Hotel
1144 Queen Street West
Gerhardt says the bar at this “hipster hotel attracts a sexy crowd” – which will include IRDC attendees, at the ticketed event party on Thursday, October 14.
 

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