/
1x
Advertisement
Proudly Canadian, obsessively Toronto. Subscribe to Toronto Life!
Food & Drink

A gourmand’s guide to haute dogs for the grill

By Eric Vellend
Copy link
Links
(Image: Christopher Stevenson)

Innovative butchers are digging up old family recipes and mixing exotic meats with offbeat flavourings

Links

Olliffe’s butchers mix ground Ontario lamb from a Bruce County farm with piquant Stilton and fresh mint. $10/lb. 1097 Yonge St., 416-928-0296.

Lean, gamey pheasant is balanced with fatty Berkshire pork. Rosemary adds a piney perfume, honey lends sweetness, and a chicken demi-glace sauces it from inside. $15/lb. Cumbrae’s, 481 Church St., 416-923-5600; 1636 Bayview Ave., 416-485-5620.

Butcher Johnny Di Benedetto of Di Liso’s Fine Meats uses his family’s 80-year-old Barese recipe from the Apulian town of Bari. Ground beef, veal, lamb and pork are blended with mozzarella, Parmesan, parsley and garlic, then stuffed into natural lamb casings. $6/lb. St. Lawrence Market, 91–93 Front St. E., 416-601-9780.

Jorge Plaza Sr., at Meating on Queen, uses his mom’s recipe for hot Ecuadorian sausage to create a fiery blend of pork, beef, sweet peppers, roasted onions, garlic, cilantro and secret spices. $5/lb. 1160 Queen St. E., 416-461-7500.

An ode to the original hot dog from Denmark, the red pølser is made from double-ground organic pork and spices. Its hue comes from a splash of beet juice. $8.79/lb. The Healthy Butcher, 565 Queen St. W., 298 Eglinton Ave. W., 416-674-2642.

Lean Ontario elk is enriched with pork fat, sweet­ened with wild Saskatoon berries and flav­oured with mustard seed, allspice and thyme. $13.40/lb. Provenance Regional Cuisine, 800 Dundas St. W., 416-504-9889.

At Medium Rare, Frank Del Gobbo blends meaty duck legs with vermouth-soaked dried cherries, roasted red peppers and fennel seed. $12/lb. 5241 Dundas St. W., 416-231-1500.

Peter Sanagan of Sanagan’s Meat Locker combines wild boar from Perth County with roasted pistachios and Montepulciano d’Abruzzo red wine. $9.99/lb. 206 Baldwin St., 416-593-9747.

NEVER MISS A TORONTO LIFE STORY

Sign up for Table Talk, our free newsletter with essential food and drink stories.

By signing up, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy.
You may unsubscribe at any time.

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Advertisement
Advertisement

Big Stories

Dancing Queens: Patrons, staff and performers share their wildest memories of Crews and Tangos, Toronto’s most storied drag bar
Deep Dives

Dancing Queens: Patrons, staff and performers share their wildest memories of Crews and Tangos, Toronto’s most storied drag bar

Inside the Latest Issue

Inside the Latest Issue

The April issue of Toronto Life features the anatomy of a Bay Street fiasco at RBC. Plus, our obsessive coverage of everything that matters now in the city.