Two Toronto Area Stars Who Connoisseurs Will Appreciate

It’s the time of year when stars arrive in Toronto in floruishes of glitter and sequin. Before and after red-carpet premieres at the Toronto International Film Festival, they’ve got to eat and drink.

During TIFF, Toronto becomes home to one of the liveliest dining and bar scenes on earth. No doubt that film industry representatives and cinema lovers attending the festival want to know where to go. At some point during the two weeks of mania, they may seek to escape for an experience that is quieter but no less refined from what’s on the menus in the city’s core.

Two outstanding locations in decidedly different regions of the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) should get the attention of festival-goers and the public in general. The Library Bar at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel is equal parts elegance and cutting-edge, with the decor and ambience providing classic vibes with warm oak walls and velvety seats while the cocktails developed by beverage director James Grant and his team are trailblazingly creative. The Library Bar is in the heart of Toronto, inside of an iconic hotel just steps away from all of the festival buzz. Forty kilometres (24 miles) away in the City of Oakville is Hexagon, a polished restaurant run by 2024 Michelin Young Chef Award Winner Rafa Covarrubias. Known most prominently for its Aged Duck and elevated take on Mexican cuisine, Hexagon has become a destination restaurant for connoisseurs.

What to Expect at The Library Bar

The cocktails are fabulous and constantly evolving. Literary and film themes are obvious and Grant leans eagerly into them. He recently had his team read Michael Oondatje’s “In the Skin of a Lion” in a unique book club-style project that leads to both discussion and menu invention.

“Everyone in the bar read it and it was interesting to see how they related to the book. What I took away from some scenes were very different than someone else on our team. It shows the diversity of the city and we celebrate that here,” says Grant, the winner of the 2021 Global World Class Bartender of the Year challenge.

He describes “In the Skin of a Lion” as “a book about Toronto, a city of immigrants.” In September, it’s also a metropolis of glam. TIFF (September 4 to 14) celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2025 and the bar scene around town figures to be more sensational than ever. The Library Bar in some ways is a throwback, which makes it attractive for festival-goers who want to talk cinema. There’s no loud music or DJ; it’s a place for conversation and contemplation.

TIFF PREVIEW: 50 Years of Cinema

Fittingly, there’s a single portrait in the Library Bar — it’s an image of a man with a top hat, neck tie, and charcoal-coloured clothes;  perfect for a casting in a century-old western. But he’s neither an actor nor a colonial-era politician nor an industry magnate. George Locke was the City of Toronto’s librarian when the Royal York opened and is credited with Toronto’s acclaimed library system. He also helped to curate the hotel’s first book collection. So, it’s apropros that his image has a distinguished place in the room.

The best seats in the house, though, are at the bar, where Grant and his team prepare classics and originals that have been worthy of top-level accolades in their own industry. Watch them work and be mesmerized by the skill, and the variety of products and ingredients within their reach.

What to Expect at Hexagon

If Hexagon had a marquee, it would list its Aged Duck as the nightly feature. It’s a dish that Covarrubias has worked on for more than six years and “right now is the happiest I’ve been with it.”

The canard is aged for three weeks, dipped multiple times in cold water to achieve a crispy skin, and served medium rare. Sourced from King Cole Ducks in Stouffville, Ontario, north of Toronto, it’s a perfect plate and one that shows Covarrubias’s precision and work ethic. A winner of notable chef competitions, he has never settled when he knows the dish could use a bit more of this or a different approach on that.

“I was doing a dish with black mole and typically in Mexico you eat mole with poultry, almost always turkey or chicken, but I thought I would do something that speaks more to Canadian cusine, so I started to work with duck. I obsessed over the concept of making it better every time,” Mexico-born Covarrubias says.

He’s found a partner in perfection in wine director and general manager Martin Watson, formerly of Restaurant Pearl Morrissette. Watson brings storytelling panache to his service as well as an incredibly deep wealth of knowledge about the wines and regions he features.

“He is probably the most knowledgeable person about wine that I know,” Covarrubias says. “The way he thinks about wine and his memory of things, it’s like, ‘Man, I don’t know how you do this.’ He’s a former cook too so he understands food in a little more organic way than a sommelier who only has understanding in wine does. It’s very helpful for me.”

Covarrubias and Watson combine their talents on dishes such as a crab with corn and chili that’s paired with a white Burgundy, or a bluefin tuna serving that’s matched with sake. “He finds a way to tie the ingredients together so you think about their tradition and it’s also a way to introduce the clientele to sake, which is not something they probably know about,” the chef says of the sommelier.

 

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Covarrubias and his team have been making an impression in Ontario and beyond. Sous chef Victoria Rinsma was named Canada’s 2024 Young Chef of the Year and is up for a global award in Milan this fall. Her boss, meanwhile, has been venturing afar to showcase his talents. He recently flew to Washington, D.C. for a collaboration with Spanish chef Danny Lledó of Xiquet, who was impressed by his Canadian counterpart.

“I met him a couple of times in Toronto and saw him as a humble, hard-working person who wanted to make a name for himself,” Lledó said following the collaboration. “He’s a multi-talented guy and I was able to see him do many things in the kitchen. He has a lot of Mexican flavours in his food but also it’s done in a classical way. From that perspective I find similarties with what I do. As a chef who is from an immigrant family, you find your culture and you transform it into something that the local people will understand and appreciate. At the same time, you want to make sure the flavours and essence of the ingredients are there, and he does that.”

As far as TIFF goes, Covarrubias says he doesn’t get much festival clientele. But Hexagon is the dining equivalent of a buzzy star that is turning more and more heads with each new audience interaction. Shrewd TIFF attendees with an interest in food as much as film will want to venture to Oakville to taste one of the GTA’s most talked about hits.

MORE ABOUT ATTENDING TIFF

Tickets: Movie-goers have a few options to purchase tickets for TIFF50 screenings:
Curated Ticket Packages: These packages provide guaranteed access to multiple screenings or events with a common genre or theme, with screening dates, times, and seating locations selected by TIFF. These packages are only available to TIFF Members and Visa credit cardholders. For more information on Curated Ticket Packages, see here.
Individual Tickets: Purchase tickets to screenings one-by-one to get a ticket to the films you want to see the most. Tickets went on sale in August, with TIFF Members having priority access. Contributors Circle and Patron Circle Members can purchase individual tickets on TIFF Festival Account Manager. Individual, Industry, Under 25, and non-members can purchase individual tickets on ticketmaster.ca/tiff.