Welcome To Every Corner

Hello? Is this thing on?

My name is Rebecca. By day, I’m a freelance journalist, writing about everything from tech, finance, health and wellness, lifestyle, pop culture… you name it, I’ve probably covered it. But my favourite beat has always been food.

Throughout my career, I’ve had the extraordinary privilege of trying new restaurants early, profiling genius chefs, bonding with restaurant workers over the daily grind, learning new recipes alongside acclaimed cooks, and eating truly life-changing food that’s wormed its way deep into my subconscious. Part of that privilege is where I live: Toronto, Canada’s biggest city and one of the world’s most multicultural urban centres.

Just chasing that Anton Ego feeling, y’know?

Toronto’s food scene is often touted as one of the world’s most diverse. There’s truly nowhere else in the world where you can have a Jamaican Patty stuffed with General Tao Chicken from a Chinese/Caribbean restaurant and then walk 30 minutes to a Palestinian pizza joint for a slice of beef pepperoni ‘za and hop on the subway to end the evening with some excellent and authentic Korean bingsu. So, it’s been frustrating to watch glossy magazines and dailies in the city alike lay off their staff food critics and not invest in diverse food writers and editors. In a city as delicious as ours, readers and diners deserve smart, well-researched and nuanced writing about food.

But the thing is: Toronto isn’t short on food media. Taking a scroll online quickly reveals an entire ecosystem of creators sharing What I Eat In A Day in Toronto and The Best Date Night Spot That Won’t Break The Bank. Often, these creators are more diverse than the staff at a fancy magazine and garnering views that traditional media’s mouths would froth at. But when mainstream media complains about influencers taking over, they’re not accounting for how online creators sometimes speak more directly to diners in this city and better reflect hungry Torontonians. Diners and readers are turning to the internet because they trust people who look and eat like them. Unfortunately, so many restaurants are lost to the churn of the For You Page. And even the most viral restaurants struggle after the initial wave of Internet-driven diners come and go.

I’m hoping that Every Corner can be an antidote to all this. I am by no means an expert, nor am I proposing that I’m “better” than traditional food media or internet foodie culture (like, let’s be soooo real right now). The goal of this Substack is to marry traditional magazine journalism about food (with its fact checking and expert quoting) with the way we talk about food online (in casual, superlative language and based on subjective experience). This newsletter will be home to interviews with chefs and restaurant workers, thoughts on eating out in the city, food recommendations, profiles on mom and pop shops, and, at the end of each entry, I’ll be sharing dishes that are currently haunting me.

I’m hoping that Every Corner will live up to its name: I want to explore every nook and cranny of this great city. Picture me standing just on the other side of a fogged-over window, peeking into a restaurant, chatting with the staff on their smoke breaks, and rushing back to tell you what’s good. I hope you’ll come back for seconds.

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Three bites I can’t stop thinking about:

🐔 Manchurian chicken from Yueh Tung. Deliciously spicy and with a depth of flavour that rivals some of the Michelin-recognized Asian restaurants in the city.

🍋 The Lemonhead pizza from Mac’s Pizza on Dovercourt. White sauce, whipped ricotta, lemon juice, and black pepper go hard on a pizza. Who knew?

🦪 This scallop from Yan Dining Room, chef Eva Chin’s new micro-restaurant serving up neo-Chinese cuisine. Think scallop crudo but with Sichuan flavours.