What’s on the menu at Black and Blue, a two-storey, 9,000-square-foot steakhouse in the old Toronto Stock Exchange space
Including seafood towers, smoking cocktails and ultra-rare Miyazaki Wagyu
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Name: Black and Blue Steakhouse
Contact: 130 King St. W., 647-368-8283, blackandbluesteakhouse.ca, @bandbsteak
Neighbourhood: Financial District
Previously: Toronto Stock Exchange
Owner: Emad Yacoub, founder and CEO of Glowbal Restaurant Group
Chef: Executive chef Morgan Bellis (Jump, Lavelle, Bisha, Constantine)
Accessibility: Accessible washroom on the main floor
After more than three decades in the restaurant industry, Emad Yacoub has come full circle with his new Toronto steakhouse. The founder and CEO of Glowbal Restaurant Group first came to Toronto from Egypt when he was just 18 years old. “I started from the ground up, working in restaurants and making $4 an hour in the beginning,” Yacoub says. He got his start as a kitchen assistant at the Westin Harbour Castle, then worked his way up the culinary ladder, eventually landing executive chef and chef de cuisine positions at Aqua Dolce Supper Club and the King Edward Hotel, respectively.
Yacoub’s first foray into restaurant ownership was in the late ’90s with the Brownstone Bistro, but he handed off the reins to his brother when he was recruited by Joe Fortes Seafood and Chophouse in Vancouver. The west was kind to him—it’s where he met his wife and where he started his restaurant group. But he considers the opening of Black and Blue a homecoming of sorts. “For me, Toronto has always been home—my brother, sister and 15 cousins live here. This restaurant has been a long time coming.”
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The food
The menu features meat-and-potato steakhouse staples with glorified upgrades, but also sushi, sashimi and seafood towers. Old-school service means a handful of the dishes—caesar salad, steak tartare, crêpes suzette—are prepared tableside.
Naturally, the stars of this show are the premium cuts of steak, all of which are housed in a Himalayan salt–lined aging-room-slash-shrine. Nearly 1,000 custom-cut salt blocks were imported for the purpose of accelerating the aging process. “We break down everything in-house, wet-age cuts for 28 days and then dry-age for another 28 to 45 days,” says Bellis. He and his team have curated a menu of heritage and coveted breeds, including Kobe and Japanese A5 Wagyu (including the ultra-rare Miyazaki Wagyu) alongside Canadian and USDA Prime beef.
Cutting back on red meat? There’s also wild mushroom risotto, roasted Haida Gwaii halibut, coq au vin and lobster carbonara.
The drinks
The cocktail menu is made up of classics with a contemporary tweak or two. The Black or Blue?, for example, is a play on a Penicillin that blends Johnnie Walker Black with lime, ginger and pandan kocha tea umeshu; finished with a toasted sesame mist. And a list of house martinis includes one made with ocean brine.
It wouldn’t be a steakhouse without wine, though. While the list here is expansive and global, there’s a focus on bottles from the west coast, like special varietals from Mission Hill winery and Martin Lane Boutique.
The space
The old TSX space needed a complete overhaul to make it suitable for restaurant use. Ken Lam of Navigate Design conceptualized the design, and no expense was spared to realize the vision. “The budget went from $6.5 million to $10 million,” says Yacoub. “It’s the most expensive restaurant I’ve ever built.”
The two-storey, 9,000-square-foot space with a built-in mezzanine and more than one private room also has a sweeping patio with capacity for a whopping 275 diners. While there are your typical steakhouse flourishes—rich wood panelling, marble flooring and plush banquettes—there are also fun, contemporary touches that pay homage to the building’s former occupant: a ceiling gilded in actual 24-karat gold and a mural of duelling bulls composed of steak knives.
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Tiffany Leigh is an award-winning freelance journalist with degrees in business communications and education. She has a culinary background, is a recipient of the Clay Triplette James Beard Foundation scholarship award and has worked in restaurants such as Langdon Hall. In addition to Toronto Life, her pieces have been read in publications such as Forbes, Vogue, Eater, Dwell, Elle, Business Insider, Playboy, Food & Wine and Bon Appétit.
