With Sausage Partners, Kyle Deming plans to contribute yet another chef-run fine food shop to the Leslieville strip
First there was the Leslieville Cheese Market, then the Foodist Market, then Hooked, and now Sausage Partners. Leslieville is rapidly becoming the east end’s go-to ’hood for gourmet food shopping, and with many of these places being run by pro chefs, it’s easy to see why. This new meat shop will open in June in the former Inspired Cook space, with Kyle Deming (head chef at Starfish and Ceili Cottage) and his wife Lorraine at the helm. “We’ve been thinking about doing this for a long time,” explains Lorraine, “but we really got the push about two years ago when we made sausages for Patrick [McMurray]’s 40th birthday. Everyone was asking, ‘Where can we buy these?’ So we just kept thinking about it and it feels like the right time now.”
The couple will be working closely with Kawartha Ecological Growers (K.E.G.), buying whole animals from the collective’s farmers and butchering them into prime cuts and sausages with clever names (Naked Pig, Smoked Naked Pig, and, for the one with offal, the Organ Grinder). “We’re not adding a ton of spices. We just want to show off the flavour of the meat,” says Lorraine. Chef Deming, who intends to keep his day jobs, will be experimenting with Mark Trealout of K.E.G. on pre-seasoning the animals. “I’m hoping to feed one pig huge amounts of Kernal Ontario peanuts and see if that enhances the flavour of the pork.”
The shop won’t just be a sausage party, however. Kyle plans to house-smoke salmon and bacon over Ontario and Newfoundland peat, as well as make haggis (the recipe a gift from Stravaigin restaurant in Glasgow, Scotland) and bake Scottish meat pies based on his grandmother’s recipe. Lorraine will be busy stocking shelves with her preserves and pickles—jams made from K.E.G. fruit and her famous Brampton Pickle, a play on the classic British Branston Pickle—many of which are already on the menu at Ceili Cottage.
The pair are also promising a fish counter selling Purdy’s Ontario lake fish, Jim Giggie’s Ocean Wise trout and sustainably farmed halibut from Nova Scotia. Game meats from Ontario Harvest, local veggies and, yes, Deming’s famous sticky toffee pudding will also be on offer.
Sausage Partners, 1378 Queen St East, 647-227-0031, sausagepartners.com.
LOL Sausage Partners. How very Leslieville.
Sounds wonderful. Just be sure to alert customers about the peanut-fed pig – allergies!
Peat moss is a non-renewable resource that acts as a huge carbon sink. Many European nations (if not the EU itself) are looking to phase out its use this decade. I’m no eco-warrior, but I wonder their uber-local, uber-ecological sausages, meats, fish, etc. reconcile with using non-renewable peat in the production process.
There are more than 270 million acres of peatlands in Canada. Of that, only one in 6,000 acres (or .016 percent) is being used for peat harvesting. Canadian sphagnum peat moss is a sustainable resource. Annually, peat moss accumulates at more than 70 times the rate it is harvested. Harvested bogs are returned to wetlands so the ecological balance of the area is maintained.
Looking forward to trying this. Hopefully, the taste will speak for itself.
I mourn the days when family dinner out was at a cafe that served Canadian/Chinese fare (hot beef sandwich with fries) and there were no “servers” and you would have to frequent the establishment before you found out your wiater/waitress’ name but you walked out with a full stomach. The food “industry” went into the toilet when they stopped serving halibut and chips in newspapers.
When I read that the head “chef” at Ceili Cottage is behind Sausage Partners, my heart sank. The food there is just plain awful, and overpriced to boot. If I was Mr. Demming, I would seriously consider dropping the attachment to Ceili Cottage for this business… not a good idea at all.
@Phillip
Well thank you sir for pulling out your wet blanket. Must you eco types micturate on everything? Enjoy your hair shirt all you want sir, but do not expect others to wear it.
@Roger
If your numbers are correct, I stand corrected.
@Rusty
I shall stop the micturition if you cease and desist the bombast.
Is Peat related to Kate Moss? Leslieville doesn’t need any more sausage partners. Send them to the Beach where they can dong their sausage thongs.
I am so surprised at all the negativity in these comments. I for one welcome this new enterprise in my neighbourhood and intend to go there as soon as it opens and enjoy trying new things to eat. Good on you Sausage Partners and I look forward to welcoming you to Leslieville in person.
Wab,
Any “negativity” in the comments comes from people who actually ate at the Ceili Cottage. The food blows (to put it mildly) and while I will certainly try Demming’s Sausage Partners, my hope is that their food and service are infinitely superior to the poor-quality food and substandard service at the Cottage. Hey, I want to be wrong on this one!
Hey FrItz you don’t know what your talking about. The cottage has great food and oysters . You probably just wanted some black Tie waiter to serve you with a towel on his wrist . Go to the west end. I’m sure that’s more your style
“Hey FrItz you don’t know what your talking about. The cottage has great food and oysters . You probably just wanted some black Tie waiter to serve you with a towel on his wrist . Go to the west end. I’m sure that’s more your style.”
Hey “D” (pick something more imaginative there next time, Kyle/Patrick. Pathetic).
“Food” at the CC is inedible and overpriced. The “buried treasure” is crap (who charge $12 for awful mac and cheese and serves it in a baby-size ramekin?) Likewise, there is absolutely NO CONSISTENCY with the champ, the mutton (fatty and gross), and even the chips are inconsistent — what, do you salt one batch, and forget to salt the next?
Don’t even get me started on service, which is somewhere between inept and intolerable.
No, “D,” I’m not looking for a black-tie waiter there, bub… I’m looking for REAL food and service, like, oh, at The Roy which — shocker — is ALSO in the city’s east end!
Time for the Ceili to break out the Betty Crocker cookbook, and start from there.
On a constructive note, might I suggest you actually READ reviews of you restaurant, as in Toronto Life, EYE, Chow, BlogTo, and try to improve on what could (should!) be a decent restaurant? If I hear someone else say, “Ooo, but you go there for drinks, not food!” I will scream! You OFFER FOOD, SO SERVE DECENT FOOD!!!
@Philip
Well played sir, well played.
@Fritz “the food blows”
Shame you didn’t enjoy it, I’ve been there several times and although the menu is limited, all of the items I’ve tried were very good to extremely good. Don’t let Fritz’s experience scare you off folks, it’s pretty decent grub. And the Caesars are fantastic!
This place was supposed to open in June…what happened? There’s nothing but yellowing paper covering the windows.