Toronto Life’s 10 most popular food stories of 2018

I got hooked on booze, coke, heroin and fame

10 Greg Couillard’s memoir about cooking in some of the city’s best restaurants—Emilio, Stelle, China Blues—and getting hooked on the fame and the glamour before crashing spectacularly in a blaze of booze, coke and heroin.

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Inside Toronto’s first Reserve Bar, Starbucks’ new 3,200-square-foot shrine to coffee

9 A peek inside the coffee giant’s biggest location in the Shops at Don Mills, the second of its kind in the province. The massive addition serves the core coffee and espresso-based drinks found at every other Starbucks branch in the city, but also offers Reserve Bar–only beverages that use the brand’s small-lot coffees, and various coffee “experiences” led by company’s trained “coffee masters”.

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Ten places to take in afternoon tea in Toronto

8 We rounded up the best spots in the city to indulge in a little afternoon delight of the English kind. The experience range from traditional (crustless sandwiches and fancy hats) to not-so-much (gluten-free pizza and board games).

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Where (and what) you should be eating in the PATH right now

7 While we have a more-encompassing guide to the best eats in the city’s underground labyrinth, this roundup from earlier in the year did gangbusters. It turns out there are a lot of hungry people wandering the PATH.

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Toronto’s secret pasta speakeasy is now officially open for business

6 Leonardo Baldassarre’s little pasta shop is not even close to being a secret anymore, and this story might have had something to do with it. (Well, that and Matty Matheson recently paid the already popular place a visit for Vice.)

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Inside Toronto’s first Farm Boy, Etobicoke’s new 20,000-square-foot supermarket

5 Farm Boy’s 25th location, but the first in Toronto, opened in March and people were pretty damn excited about it. The supermarket, which is kind of a like cross between Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods, sells only edible stuff (so don’t try looking for toilet paper, you won’t find any ) and focuses on local suppliers.

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What’s on the menu at Jollibee, Toronto’s first location of the Filipino fast-food chain

4 Speaking of being excited, the award for the most-anticipated opening of the year goes to Jollibee, the Filipino fast-food chain with a sizeable following in Toronto and the GTA. On opening day, people lined up for hours (and hours and hours) for Jollibee’s fried chicken, sweet spaghetti and mango pies.

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The 20 best reasons to brunch in Toronto right now

3 Torontonians have a love-hate relationship with the weekend’s mid-morning meal—they love it, but they hate lining up for it. But line up they do. And with our brunch package, we gave them 20 more reasons to do just that.

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The massive Assembly Chef’s Hall is finally open. Here’s everything you should order

2 Downtown Toronto’s first real food hall, which opened last January, houses 18 vendors from some of the city’s top restaurateurs, plus a beer hall and a wine bar. It’s so much more than a food court.

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Toronto’s top 10 burgers, according to a guy who has tried 187 of them, and counting

1 And the year’s most popular new post was about burgers. More specifically, it was about one man who ate a lot of burgers. Much like this guy, who also garnered a crap-ton of clicks.

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