Geraldine, Parkdale’s favourite absinthe spot, is no more
When the Parkdale restaurant Geraldine opened in the summer of 2013, it immediately commanded notice. It was an elegant throwback to La Belle Époque, with its gorgeous white marble bar top, elaborate light fixtures and antique dinnerware. The complex cocktails, absinthe fountain and excellent raw bar drew raves—and our restaurant critic Mark Pupo named it one of his best new restaurants of 2014. Then, earlier this month, co-owner Alexandra Albert announced that she was closing the restaurant. Its last day in business was August 20th. “Sometimes,” Albert tells us, “immediate success and long-term financial success aren’t tied together.”
Albert opened Geraldine with Peter Ramsay, a former sous chef at Cowbell, but she herself had no industry experience and now says she’ll seek an education before opening her next place. “Geraldine was definitely a project of love,” she says. Alex Molitz, who was the chef at the time the restaurant closed, laments that the city has lost one of its most interesting rooms. “For a moment in time, it was a very special place.” He’s leaving Toronto to work at a restaurant in Tortola, the largest of the British Virgin Islands. No word yet on what might open in Geraldine’s place, but Albert says that her former bar manager, Michael Mooney, is at work on a new project elsewhere in the city.
![](http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https://torontolife.com/food/parkdale-restaurant-geraldine-closed/&title=Geraldine, Parkdale’s favourite absinthe spot, is no more&picture=https://torontolife.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/parkdale-restaurant-geraldine-closed.jpg&description=[caption id="attachment_323670" align="alignnone" width="656"] Geraldine. (Image: Dave Gillespie)[/caption]
When the Parkdale restaurant Geraldine opened in the summer of 2013, it immediately commanded notice. It was an elegant throwback to La Belle Époque, with its gorgeous white marble bar top, elaborate light fixtures and antique dinnerware. The complex cocktails, absinthe fountain and excellent raw bar drew raves—and our restaurant critic Mark Pupo named it one of his best new restaurants of 2014. Then, earlier this month, co-owner Alexandra Albert announced that she was closing the restaurant. Its last day in business was August 20th. “Sometimes,” Albert tells us, “immediate success and long-term financial success aren’t tied together.”
Albert opened Geraldine with Peter Ramsay, a former sous chef at Cowbell, but she herself had no industry experience and now says she’ll seek an education before opening her next place. “Geraldine was definitely a project of love,” she says. Alex Molitz, who was the chef at the time the restaurant closed, laments that the city has lost one of its most interesting rooms. “For a moment in time, it was a very special place.” He's leaving Toronto to work at a restaurant in Tortola, the largest of the British Virgin Islands. No word yet on what might open in Geraldine’s place, but Albert says that her former bar manager, Michael Mooney, is at work on a new project elsewhere in the city.){kind=link}
I approached the Geraldine as a potential wedding site. It was such a beautiful space for a small wedding dinner. After waiting a couple of weeks for the restaurant owner to send us sample menus and quotes, we never heard back so we decided to go to a competitor. Our interpretation was that she wasn’t that interested in winning our business. So we were happy to go to another great restaurant nearby and had a great wedding.
West: 136
East: 11
Get a life, loser.
Darren… seriously… this is not funny.
Chef Alex Moliz will be back (or so I hear)… he’s just taking a wee break.
You seem to have missed the point. Darren isn’t trying to be funny. He’s trying to point out the limited scope of Toronto Life’s food coverage. It’s a legitimate issue and is more substantive than many of the comments here (case in point — the troll-like comments of The Bolo Punch, who seems to take offense by Darren’s efforts and thinks the best way to address them is by way of adolescent insults, which you can see below).
Fair enough… It just gets so damn tedious to read again and again.
I believe that is the point, to be a constant reminder of Toronto Life’s navel gazing approach to food coverage. Not sure how it adversely impacts anyone, though.
Agreed. I would love it if every time the scorecard came up at least a suggestion of a comparable east end establishment was offered. Obviously the public shaming of TL is not working. Add to the discussion rather than just be an annoyance?
if Darren Robinson feels that the east end is unjustly represented in Toronto Life, then maybe he could be proactive instead of trolling. If the east end is so under-served by TL, then start your own site. Don’t limit yourself to one publication and get off your horse and actually do something constructive.
Really, Peggy? It’s the job of the readers to provide the basis for the coverage? Media criticism is not permitted unless one starts throwing story ideas at the source of the criticism? I can’t, for example, be critical of the right-wing bias in the Toronto Sun’s political coverage, and point to examples of such bias, without rolling up my sleeves and giving their columnists and journalists concrete suggestions on what/how they should be writing?
And, if you’ve been following the comments since Darren started this, there have been some such suggestions. They appear to have been ignored. So, what, people should just keep throwing those suggestions out into the ether? I’m sorry, Peggy, but that makes no sense.
And how does it possibly annoy you that Darren is pointing out that Toronto Life’s food coverage rarely extends outside of a bubble?
Darren’s tally is adding significantly to the discussion.
How is he trolling? He is not being insulting. He is not being adolescent. He is not picking fights. He is not disruptive. He is not posting merely to be inflammatory, but rather he is keeping a tally that demonstrates that there is a hole in Toronto Life’s food coverage. Whether one agrees or not with the conclusions, or what the conclusions mean, he is not trolling.
And nobody is allowed to be critical of media, Alex? The answer to all media criticism is “start your own site”? How odd.
Who said Darren limits himself to only one publication? Personally, I find that other publications do tend to venture beyond the bubble to which Toronto Life limits itself. Even the stodgy Globe and Mail will venture to other parts of the City, and Chris Nuttall-Smith has recently done some good work on that front. I have no idea what Darren does or doesn’t read, as I don’t know him and have never discussed this issue with him. But I would never assume that someone who is critical of some aspect of media coverage must only read that one media outlet. A bit of a logical fallacy there.
As for your suggestion that he do something “constructive”, he’s backing up his criticism of a local media outlet with substantive evidence. That *is* constructive. It seems far more constructive than your unfounded accusations.
What’s absolutely fascinating about Darren’s exercise is not how it demonstrates that Toronto Life’s food coverage is limited, but rather how it oddly seems to get some people’s backs up. It has literally zero adverse impact on them, yet they call him a troll, suggest that he’s annoying them, and complain about having to read the tally “again and again”. Criticisms which are all unfounded or simply puzzling. I don’t know if these people feel threatened by criticism to which they do not ascribe, or merely feel some need to shit on the work of others. Either way, Darren seems to be pushing precisely the right buttons.
nobody forces you to read it ‘again and again’. not to mention, most stories on tl have between 0 and 2 comments. so it’s not like it’s taking the place of any big discussion. plus i notice no complaints about actual spam for uber and many other things on here.
maybe he’s not saying it’s unjustly represented. tl has a reputation for being narrow on where they focus and maybe he’s doing tl a service by showing that nothing in the east end is worthwhile. never assume. in the end, it’s proof, through simple basic numbers that tl deserves the rep they have long held.
No kidding. You’ve got people with a record of being clearly abusive on these forums, but I never see people like Peggy take a stand against them. No, she focuses her attention on complaining about people who make legitimate comments.
where is michael mooney going? he makes THE BEST drinks.