Winterlicious kicks off Friday (January 28) with two weeks of great restaurant deals right across the city and more than a dozen special events like Saturday’s cast iron chef competition at Fort York National Historic Site where local culinary stars Ted Corrado (C5 Restaurant), above left, and Scott Vivian (Beast), above right, battle for bragging rights and a $2,500 prize.
Both chefs maintain that the Fort York Food Fight will be a friendly competition but Vivian states his intention loud and clear when he says his goal is “to wipe the floor with Teddy Corrado!”
The Food Fight will be the highlight of an afternoon that features an interpretive tour of the historic site from a foodie perspective (1 – 2 pm), and two workshops: Eat Green Through the Seasons, exploring the ecological benefits of eating seasonally and Growing Food Indoors, highlighting alternative gardening. The chef contest runs from 3 – 5 pm.
Working in the Fort’s makeshift version of TV’s kitchen stadium — the event is modeled after the Iron Chef series — Corrado and Vivian will be given two secret ingredients, a protein and one other item that would have been available in 1812-era Toronto. Fort York will be at the heart of next year’s bicentennial commemoration of the War of 1812.
The chefs will each prepare a main course and either an appetizer or a dessert: their efforts will be judged by the dean of Canadian cooking, Elizabeth Baird, chef Nick Liu of the Niagara Street Cafe, and by audience members, five of whom will be selected at random to sample the dishes and cast a collective vote. TV chef Christian Pritchard is the competition host.
“I’ve been trying to do some research into what people were eating back then and there’s not a lot of information available,” says Corrado. “I’m pretty much going into this one blind.”
“Both of us are going for the win,” he adds, “but we’ll just let it play out and see what happens.”
Vivian, at least, won’t have far to go to compete — his restaurant, Beast, is just across the train corridor to the north on Tecumseth Street.
“I’m so close and yet I had never been to Fort York before our walk-through,” he confesses. “It’s nice to see history like that. I did an event at Campbell House before where we roasted a pig in the open hearth and cooked the whole thing in the open kitchen. This food fight will be lot faster so we’ll be using a proper kitchen. Both Teddy and I are proponents of the slow food movement but we won’t have time for that on Saturday — I have to get back to my restaurant for the evening service!”
WHERE/WHEN: Fort York Food Fight, Saturday, January 29 at Fort York National Historic Site (416.392.6907 ext. 221) 1 – 5 pm; tickets $30.
Photo of Fort York by ETTML
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