A veteran Toronto chef just opened a kosher restaurant at the Windsor Arms Hotel
Dinner service at Chagall launches this weekend
A year ago, long-time Toronto chef David Adjey stunned bandwagon foodies with his viral Yorkshire pudding burrito at the Distillery’s Winter Village. With his latest project, Chagall, the often-divisive restaurateur is going a lot more niche.
Tucked inside the Windsor Arms, Chagall offers an all-encompassing menu including dishes inspired by the cuisines of Korea, Mexico and Thailand. Think braised short rib mini tacos, Korean meatballs with soy-chili glaze and pickled daikon, and Thai-spiced chicken lollipops with honey-garlic marmalade.
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But Chagall sets itself apart from other continental hotel restaurants in one very distinct way: the food is completely kosher.
While Adjey isn’t Jewish, this isn’t his first rodeo with a rabbinically driven menu. He cut his teeth creating kosher food as executive chef of the Windsor Arms’ kitchen back in the early aughts, when the hotel briefly housed a kosher restaurant. After that, he found himself working with kosher birds once again at his fast-casual fried chicken chain, the Chickery—simply because he liked the poultry better.
While kosher dining has been part of the Windsor Arms’ story since 1999, Chagall—which lands somewhere between a flapper-era speakeasy and Bubbe’s Miami condo—marks a new chapter in the rule-laden world of kosher gastronomy. Here, nothing is meant to feel restrictive, even though bacon is never in the cards.
“Chagall is about more than just what’s on the plate,” says Adjey. “It’s about creating moments—whether it’s the art of tableside service, the surprise of globally inspired dishes, or the feeling of dining somewhere intimate and refined, with a fresh approach to kosher cuisine.”
Chagall opens to the public for dinner service Sunday to Thursday, beginning November 16.
Erin Hershberg is a freelance writer with nearly two decades of experience in the lifestyle sector. She currently lives in downtown Toronto with her husband and two children.
