Goodbye Hoof Café, hello Black Hoof and Company
After just over a year of bone marrow doughnut holes and lineups out the door, Toronto’s most unabashedly carnivorous brunch spot, the Hoof Café, will be closing up shop on February 28. As co-owners Grant van Gameren and Jen Agg explain to Corey Mintz (on a guest post on van Gameren’s blog), the space will be reborn in April as the more upscale Black Hoof and Company.
The new restaurant in the Hoof empire will be the first to take reservations for its 18 seats (two seats will be held open for same-day reservations), and will serve two different tasting menus each day, with no a la carte ordering. Van Gameren will move across the street from the Black Hoof’s cramped kitchen to take the reins along with Geoff Hopgood, the current Hoof Café chef, and Colin Tooke will take over as chef of the charcuterie bar that started it all. Although he confessed to Mintz that closing such a popular location is “scary as shit,” van Gameren’s reason for making the change should be obvious to anyone who has followed the Hoof’s meteoric rise: “I am bored of having it easy.”
Meanwhile, we’re bracing ourselves for even longer lineups at Dundas and Gore Vale for the rest of the month.
• Black Hoof & Company [Charcuterie Sundays]
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After just over a year of bone marrow doughnut holes and lineups out the door, Toronto's most unabashedly carnivorous brunch spot, the Hoof Café, will be closing up shop on February 28. As co-owners Grant van Gameren and Jen Agg explain to Corey Mintz (on a guest post on van Gameren’s blog), the space will be reborn in April as the more upscale Black Hoof and Company.
The new restaurant in the Hoof empire will be the first to take reservations for its 18 seats (two seats will be held open for same-day reservations), and will serve two different tasting menus each day, with no a la carte ordering. Van Gameren will move across the street from the Black Hoof’s cramped kitchen to take the reins along with Geoff Hopgood, the current Hoof Café chef, and Colin Tooke will take over as chef of the charcuterie bar that started it all. Although he confessed to Mintz that closing such a popular location is “scary as shit,” van Gameren’s reason for making the change should be obvious to anyone who has followed the Hoof’s meteoric rise: “I am bored of having it easy.”
Meanwhile, we’re bracing ourselves for even longer lineups at Dundas and Gore Vale for the rest of the month.
• Black Hoof & Company [Charcuterie Sundays]){kind=link}
So no more brunch? :(
officially the saddest news ever. Now where will I get bbq riblets and ham hock hogie’s? I don’t like it, not one bit.
Sad to hear about the closing … I love those little brown bag ribs and local Ontario wines. But I am keeping my fingers crossed that they new place will feature the fabulous food that Hood has come to be known for, as well as the wines, the ambience and the quality. Can’t wait.
The place is good, but is it that great? I think it’s a little overrated.
People are acting like the ONLY brunch restaurant in the city is closing. There are tons of good brunch joints around. VanGamerin and Hopgood working together in the same kitchen will undoubtedly produce some deadly inventive and delicious food. I am ecstatic for BHCO to open it’s doors.