Brad Long’s new spot in Bloor West Village will have four floors, luck and tourtière
Chef and Food Network star Brad Long has a quick answer when asked what will be on the menu at his new Bloor West gastropub: “Canadian food.” He pauses. “What the hell is Canadian food?”
Long has been trying to answer that question for a while, from his days at the CN Tower’s revolving restaurant, 360, to his current gigs as executive chef at King East’s Veritas and sometime-guest on Restaurant Makeover. The quest will continue when the new joint, officially named My Place: A Canadian Pub (subtitled “like a bad movie,” says Long), opens in early September. It will be the pub yin to Veritas’s bistro yang, but the grub will still hinge on Long’s stock-in-trade: seasonal, local ingredients.
So what is Canadian food? We can’t offer a definitive response, but Long is certainly on the right track. Expect a menu with all-Canuck inventions (like tourtière), mash-ups from cultural enclaves around the city, and a few dishes spun purely from Long’s imagination. Everything will take advantage of Ontario’s fish, game and wildlife abundance.
This may all sound familiar—who isn’t serving fresh and local these days?—but that’s only because it’s a popular act. That’s lucky for Long, considering he has many seats to fill. The four-floor My Place seats 75 on the rooftop patio alone (its former incarnation was Billy Bob’s Bistro and Saloon). Long isn’t worried: My Place sits snugly between Bloor West Village, Swansea and the Kingsway, and he expects to draw enough foot traffic to easily cover rent. “The trick is to get people to come back,” says Long.
Isn’t it always?
My Place: A Canadian Pub, 2448 Bloor St. W. (at Jane).
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