Toronto’s 50 Most Influential: #33, Anthony Rose
Our annual ranking of the people whose smarts, connections and clout are changing the city as we know it
Anthony Rose
Chef
33 Rose, a chain-smoking yoga enthusiast with a decade’s experience in the city’s best kitchens, is Toronto’s restaurant oracle. His mini-empire on Dupont—which includes the new-wave diner Rose and Sons, the backyard smokehouse and party patio Big Crow, the Israeli–eastern European restaurant Fat Pasha and the modern Jewish deli Schmaltz Appetizing—is a catalogue of every recent foodie obsession. Rose builds restaurants for here and now: he doesn’t bother investing in fancy decor or pricy accoutrements, which means he can nimbly adapt his restaurants’ focus overnight. In July, Rose ventured south of Dupont, opening Swan by Rose and Sons on Queen at Crawford (it was a return to familiar grounds—he ran the kitchen at the nearby Drake Hotel for five years). By giving vegetable-focused mains equal play on the Swan menu, Rose is on the leading edge of the veg craze that has swept through vogue kitchens in New York, London and San Francisco.
Up Next:
Rose’s dominion on Dupont will expand further with Bar Begonia, a cocktail bar with a backyard bocce court.
More of Toronto's Most Influential People
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