Name: Kiin (Thai for “eat”)
Contact: 326 Adelaide St. W., 647-490-5040, kiintoronto.com, @kiintoronto
Neighbourhood: Entertainment District
Owners: Jeff and Nuit Regular (Pai, Sabai Sabai, Sukhothai) and Janet Zuccarini (Trattoria Nervosa, Gusto 101, Pai)
Chef: Nuit Regular
Nuit Regular says that for years now she’s been obsessed with learning the techniques behind Royal Thai cooking: delicate, beautifully presented dishes painstakingly prepared (seeds removed from fruits and veggies, bones removed from fish) using the freshest of ingredients. “It’s such an intricate, delicate cuisine that was going extinct,” Regular says. “When I was growing, up there were no schools teaching it and it was too time-consuming for most restaurants to prepare, so the cuisine was being abandoned.” So she spent some time during a visit to her home country learning Royal Thai techniques. There are only four traditional Royal Thai dishes on offer, but Regular has taken the same attention to presentation and applied that to the rest of the menu, which includes dishes from all over Thailand.
“Chardonnay is the most basic grape we have,” explains bar manager Emily Robertson. Her international wine card stops in the Azores for a volcanic rosé and includes some esoteric varietals like Albariño from northeast Spain. The cocktail program sticks to the classics (negronis, paper planes) but with Thai garnishes.
The 35-seat room is decorated to look like the gorgeous high school Nuit attended in Phrae, Thailand. She was keen for designer Katherine Gudov to capture some of the subdued opulence of the colonially influenced mansions in her hometown—this translated into marble floors, stained glass shutters, glimmering gold accents and a collection of framed Thai Royal Family photographs. Lush potted plants add some extra tropical breeziness to the space.
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Caroline Aksich, a National Magazine Award recipient, is an ex-Montrealer who writes about Toronto’s ever-evolving food scene, real estate and culture for Toronto Life, Fodor’s, Designlines, Canadian Business, Glory Media and Post City. Her work ranges from features on octopus-hunting in the Adriatic to celebrity profiles.