In my view as a long-time traveler, a food tour is the best introduction to a city’s culture, cuisine, and heritage.
In Toronto, Canada, the one food tour all foodies should sign up for is the VIP Early Access Tour of St. Lawrence Market by Culinary Adventure Co. The tour is a small group trek that lasts over 2 delicious hours, almost entirely indoors. The maximum number of guests per tour is eight. More than a dozen generous portions are served by long-time family-owned food merchants in a historic setting. Leading the tours is the convivial company owner Kevin Durkee, whose title is “Big Cheese” — really!
“We love expanding the culinary imagination of our guests through the vendors we celebrate,” he says. Read on and you’ll see why I rave about this food tour.
I was hosted by Toronto CityPASS during a media visit, but all opinions are my own.
1. Get An Early Start On The Day
The food tour starts at 8:30 a.m., before the market opens, so you’ll see the vendors preparing for their busy days ahead. Your first stop is at Balzac’s Coffee Roasters across the brick-lined, pedestrian-friendly Market Street for a beverage and a bite. Balzac’s is a European-inspired coffee café with 16 locations in Ontario. On the menu are handcrafted hot and cold coffee drinks plus tea, cider, cocoa, and fresh-from-the-oven pastries like muffins and croissants. Savor your choices at indoor or outdoor bistro seating areas. The tour ends at 10:30 a.m. or thereabouts, so you’ve got the rest of the day for sightseeing.
2. Stroll A Historic Marketplace
St. Lawrence Market is in the Old Town neighborhood, one of the oldest in the city, since the days when Toronto was called “York.” (The name change took place in 1834.) A public market has operated on the site at Front and Market Streets for more than 200 years. During the early years, farmers drove their horse-drawn wagons inside the market building, which was then open-air. A roof was added in 1903 and very little has changed since then, other than a few modern conveniences like air-conditioning and elevators. Listen carefully and you can imagine the clip-clop of horses’ hooves in the cavernous marketplace.
Today, more than 100 farmers, fishmongers, butchers, bakers, and other specialty food merchants occupy two levels of the building. The market, frequented by locals and tourists alike, is open daily except Mondays.
3. Eat Your Way Through The Market
We were told not to have breakfast before our tour and it’s a good thing we didn’t. We made eight stops to dine and chat with different vendors.
After our caffeine and sugar infusion at Balzac’s Coffee Roasters, we gathered around Carousel Bakery. The pastries looked divine, but we came for their widely acclaimed peameal bacon sandwich. Reportedly, celebrity chefs Bobby Flay and Emeril Legasse are fans. (More about peameal in my section about Canadian cuisine.)
Then it was on to Mike’s Fish Market, where we noshed on Atlantic smoked salmon, gravlox, and freshly shucked sexy peques oysters. Yes, that’s really the name of the oyster.
Ponesse Foods, which purveys fruits and vegetables from around the world, specializes in berries. Kevin passed around a carton of humongous blackberries, each bigger than a quarter. I didn’t want to stop eating them, but he had other plans. At our next stop, Kozlik’s Canadian Mustard, he instructed us to dip black raspberries into Kozlik’s Balsamic Figs and Dates mustard. It’s one of 36 small-batch blends handmade from Canadian mustard seeds. The result was a surprising but tasty burst of sweet and tangy flavor.
We weren’t done just yet. Scheffler’s Delicatessen & Cheese served a charcuterie board of Canadian cheeses and prosciutto. European Delight presented two types of plump pierogies with a side of sour cream. Our final treat was a yummy Portuguese egg tart spiced ever so slightly with cinnamon from Churrasco’s of St. Lawrence.
Needless to say, we skipped lunch that day!
4. Gain Insights From A Local Insider
Kevin bought Culinary Adventure Co. from its founders in 2014, but he was no stranger to foodie tourism. At the time, he owned a (since closed) fast-casual restaurant called Cheesewerks that specialized in all things, well, cheesy. The menu featured grilled cheese sandwiches, mac and cheese, and the perfect accompaniments like tomato soup and craft beer. Cheesewerks was a regular stop on Culinary Adventure Co. tours.
As an aside, Kevin’s resumé also includes a stint in marketing at The Walt Disney Company, so there’s a bit of showmanship going on.
He keeps up an engaging pattern interspersed with historic anecdotes and cooking tips. To name a couple: Substitute a house-made crabcake from Mike’s Fish Market for the English muffin in your eggs Benedict. Add a dollop of Kozlik’s Triple Crunch Mustard to your favorite potato salad recipe for a pop of texture and flavor. Everyone on my tour bought mustards to take home as gifts and souvenirs.
5. Learn About Canadian Cuisine
I had never heard of peameal bacon, but at the St. Lawrence Market, it’s a very big deal. Peameal bacon is a thinly sliced salt-cured pork — sort of like a pork chop without the bone, as Kevin describes it. During the late 1800s, before refrigeration was a thing, the meat was coated with ground yellow lentils as a preservative for shipping across the ocean to Great Britain. Later, cornmeal was used instead, but the original name stuck. All you have to do is ask for a “peameal” and everyone knows what you’re talking about. Layer it on a soft country roll and add an egg or cheese to make a satisfying breakfast sammy.
Fun Fact: Did you know that 57 percent of the world’s mustard is grown in Canada?
6. Support Small Independent Businesses
All vendors at the St. Lawrence Market are small, independent, family-owned businesses that have existed for generations. Culinary Adventure Co. helps to support them by using the same ones for every food tour. That way guests know they are in for a consistent experience and the tour company provides the vendors with a regular income they can count on.
Booking With Culinary Adventure Co.
Tour reservations must be made on the Culinary Adventure Co. website rather than on those of third parties. By not spending money on commissions, the company can pay the vendors higher rates for their hospitality.
Schedule your food tour at the beginning of your Toronto visit. You’ll get a great sense of the city and recommendations for top-flight places to visit (and eat!), so you’ll have time to add them to your itinerary.
Related Reading:
