Introducing Ayla, a restaurant that only works in Toronto
This new restaurant is a "love letter to Hong Kong" with flavours from around the world.
When I think about the restaurants that I love, they all have a really strong sense of place. I don’t mean the actual spots themselves are in a good location, or are immaculately decorated—though that helps too. I mean that they have a strong identity that can be linked back to a place in the world, maybe even a particular time. To me, a great restaurant can telegraph the perspective of a chef through the food and space. And often, a chef’s point of view comes from where they’ve lived, where they grew up, and where they consider home.
That’s why I love Ayla so much. The intimate restaurant sits above Patois on Dundas West and is owned by Patois owner/chef Craig Wong, his wife and partner Ivy Wong, and couple Kevin Shawcross and Danvee Kwok who serve as executive chefs. The two couples met when Craig and Shawcross collaborated on a pop-up in Hong Kong.
It’s a dream for Shawcross and Kwok, both Canadian, to come back home and open a restaurant inspired by their travels. The two met in Vancouver and have worked in restaurants in Toronto, Barbados, and Hong Kong, working in restaurants serving a variety of cuisines from French to Vietnamese to Japanese to Italian to Caribbean. “I love learning from different cultures,” Kwok says. “Knowledge is power, why not learn from all the countries?”
The menu at Ayla reflects that background and philosophy, with menu items like char siu ($28) slathered with a cassareep glaze on top of a Bajan green seasoning. The dish “really exemplifies what we’re after,” Shawcross explains. “Classic Cantonese barbecue pork from when we lived in Hong Kong and then a Caribbean glaze with the green seasoning underneath. It’s an example of how we want to weave those stories together.”
But the locale Ayla is most indebted to is Hong Kong. The restaurant is described as a “love letter to Hong Kong,” with most of the menu including nods to classic Cantonese fare—aside from the char siu dish, Ayla has a beef tartare ($22) that’s wrapped in cheung fun, for example. There’s also a prawn toast ($22), a dim sum classic, that’s dressed up like Okonomiyaki. Even the decor, which Ivy created, screams Hong Kong, with the moody red walls evoking Wong Kar Wai and the speakeasy culture there.
What makes Ayla so special, however, is that marriage of cultures evident in each dish. It’s what makes the restaurant unique to Toronto. While other places around the world have fusion food, no other city in the world is as receptive to it—or receptive to such a diverse combinations of cuisines. Most places have fusion cuisines that are created when a singular influence arrives on the scene, transforming local food. Hong Kong, for example, has a history of fusing Cantonese cuisine with western influence, given their long history of British colonization. Places like Peru have Chifa food, a mix of Chinese and Peruvian cuisines born out of the country’s Chinese diasporic population. But there are over 160 different languages spoken in Toronto, and people from all over the world call the city home. It’s a whole other game here.
“In Toronto, everything is so interwoven, culturally and cuisine-wise. It’s not separated into different parts of the city, like in a lot of other places,” Shawcross says. “It’s a great foodie city because diners here appreciate [different cuisines] and they’re so readily available. It’s all next door to each other.”
Going forward, Kwok and Shawcross want to continue to iterate on the menu and constantly add new, seasonal dishes. In fact, Toronto’s seasonality is something the couple are most excited about. “Hong Kong is just hot and rainy,” Shawcross says. “But when we first got back, it was so nice to go to a store and be like ‘whoa, nectarines and in season,’ so we’ll definitely change up the menu with the seasons and whatever crazy ideas we come up with that lean into the stories we want to tell.”
“Plus, we’re our own bosses now,” Kwok says. “We can create anything we want, according to the season, or trend, or whatever.”
Ayla, 794 Dundas Street W., 2nd floor, @aylaupsairs , aylaupstairs.com.
Three bites I can’t stop thinking about:
🦞: The butter lobster fried rice at Yeuh Tung. Creamy and full of those delicious seafood flavours.
🐔: A stuffed chicken wing from MIMI. It’s stuffed with sticky and soft glutenous rice and mushrooms, which counterbalances the crunchiness of the wing.
🍜: The special at the newly-opened Pho Anh Vu. Maybe it’s because I haven’t had pho in a while and this was the perfect week for a hot bowl of broth, but the generous green onion on this bowl made it hearty and warming without feeling heavy.