What’s on the menu at Sunnys Chinese’s brand-new patio in the old Cold Tea space
Including dan dan noodles, boozy slushies and bubble tea cocktails
Name: Sunnys Chinese
Contact info: 60 Kensington Ave., 437-833-5798, sunnyschinese.com, @sunnyschinese
Neighbourhood: Kensington Market
Previously: Cold Tea
Owners: Big Hug Hospitality
Chefs: David Schwartz, Braden Chong, Joseph Ysmael
Sunnys is a great space for a night out—sitting shoulder to shoulder with friends in the cozy, dimly-lit room, sipping baijiu cocktails and eating shrimp toast and mapo tofu.
But we’re in the midst of a hot, sweaty Toronto summer, and the sun doesn’t set until late in the evening. So the Sunnys team decided to expand the space with an, ahem, sunnier locale, reviving the back patio that once belonged to Cold Tea.
It’s the perfect place for an impromptu hang. Stop in after a Pedestrian Sunday and snag a no-reservations-required seat to slurp up noodles and sip on baijiu slushies (yes, baijiu slushies).
While Sunnys is still in its freshman year, chef-owner David Schwartz’s Kensington Market roots run deep. His grandparents moved to the market a half-century ago, running P&K Poultry out of what is now Tom’s Place. Schwartz’s elders grew up selling chickens on Baldwin.
The food
To start off, the menu leans in to snacks—quick, cold dishes to fill up drinkers or fuel passers-by. Think chewy dan dan noodles, skewers of charcoal-grilled chicken wings, Magic Chili (a version of bar nuts) and high doses of mala, the tingly, numbing sensation Sichuan chili provides.
Other dishes pull inspiration from the set menus that Sunnys serves on Mondays. Once a week, the team tests out new dishes or explores different diverse culinary regions within China through an ever-changing tasting menu. (Remember Sunnys’ hyper-localized pop-up tasting menus during the pandemic? They’re back, and this time served on plates, not in takeout containers.) The most successful dishes from each Monday will live on through the patio menu.
The drinks
The drink list captures the essence of summer: there’s a slushie machine operating at full force and plenty of refreshing summer sippers on offer. But what makes the beverage program particularly interesting is the integration of Chinese ingredients. Daiquiris get their sweetness from hawthorn berry, the rum punch has undertones of black tea, and quenching highballs incorporate bunches of bright tapioca spheres for a bubble tea effect. Other than cocktails, there are plenty of cool, crisp drinks of the beer and wine variety, including a collaborative sour pomelo beer made just for Sunnys by Burdock Brewery.
The space
It’s a patio, so expect everything you could want from al fresco dining (plenty of sunny seats, no reservations required) tucked away in a private courtyard and removed from the hustle and bustle of Kensington Market.
The energy of Cold Tea lives on, but instead of dance-on-the-table DJ sets, Schwartz and his team are bringing in guest chefs for collaborations, hosting barbecues (for which they’ll haul out a big Japanese konro grill) and, yes, okay, they will turn the patio’s cold-pass kitchen into a DJ booth now and again.
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Kate Dingwall is a writer, author and photographer covering spirits, business, culture, fashion and travel. By night, she’s a working sommelier. She has worked with Flare, Food & Wine, Wine Enthusiast, Maxim, People, Southern Living, Rolling Stone, Eater, Elle, Toronto Life and the Toronto Star, among other publications. She frequently appears on both CTV and NPR, has co-authored a book on gin, judges Food & Wine’s Tastemakers and has strong opinions on the city’s best martini.
