A popular Toronto butcher just opened a new 6,000-square-foot shop with a sit-down restaurant
But you’ll have to take a road trip to get there
Iconic butcher shop Cumbrae’s has been synonymous with high-quality meat and poultry since the mid-’90s. Sourcing from small family farms, the business has grown from a modest shop on Church Street into a full-scale fine-food emporium, offering farm-fresh produce, prepared foods and quick-service sandwiches.
Now, founder Stephen Alexander is extending the brand’s reputation beyond Toronto, transforming a tiny shop in Dundas, Ontario, that he purchased in 1999 from fellow Australian expat Steven Bennett into something of a Cumbrae’s 2.0.
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“The Dundas shop was the second store I ever purchased, and it was the only one we still hadn’t transformed,” says Alexander. “We had plans to renovate it all drawn up, but then the neighbouring property—the old Majestic Theatre—came up for sale.”
Unable to resist the nearly 6,000-square-foot heritage building, Alexander snapped it up and transformed it into a one-stop destination for all things delicious. The sprawling space now houses both a production kitchen and a quick-service kitchen, allowing it to offer more goods than any of its Toronto counterparts.
There’s an impressive selection of cheeses, an expanded range of prepared foods, breads from Spaccio and Dear Grain, a bottle shop stocked with hard-to-find French and Italian wines, and a licensed eat-in restaurant with a menu featuring a prime rib French dip on ciabatta, a mushroom trio pasta with black truffle and burrata, smash burgers and a dry-aged New York strip steak.
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Alexander didn’t abandon the original Dundas location, however. The former butcher’s is now home to La Valle, an artisanal gelato shop named for Dundas Valley, giving the town a sweet companion to its newly expanded culinary offerings. The gelateria is set to open by the end of July.
“We’re trying to build Dundas into a food destination for the Hamilton, Ancaster and Burlington areas. With Cumbrae’s, Detour, Dear Grain, Picone’s Fine Foods and Pinbones Fish Market, it’s going in a fantastic direction,” he says.
In short: Prince Edward County, watch your back.
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.
