Café Fiorentina Opens on Danforth

Can it possibly be an entire week ago that I attended the launch party for Café Fiorentina (236 Danforth, east of Broadview, 416-855-4240), the charming new project of Tina Leckie and Alex Chong in the former Dash space? Amazingly so.

The café is one of this city's many lovely little spots where you can find soup and sandwiches, coffee and fresh baked goods. Only difference is that Leckie (daughter of the late councillor Dan Leckie) and Chong have ridiculously high credentials to be running a coffee shop. The roster of places they've worked is formidable: Susur, Didier, Célestin, Dufflet, Opus and Niagara Street Café, not to mention Michael Stadtländer's revered Eigensinn Farm and a stint by Chong at La Petraia in Chianti, Italy.


Not only will the two be offering a range of home baking (a delicious, not-oily carrot cake and chocolate chip cookies will be staples, with other treats, like beignets, tarts, shortbread, bread pudding and cheescake available as well), but they plan to create a changing seasonal menu of local farm-sourced light lunch and weekend brunch items, with some meats cured in-house. I sampled their porchetta on a house-made olive oil and rosemary bun with sauted rapini, havarti and roasted garlic aioli. It was gently sweet, not too salty, and subtly scented with a touch of lemon confit.

They'll also be serving and selling their own house-made preserves. I surveyed the labelled jars displayed around the space and admired their approach to flavour combinations: Cherries in Sambuca; Fig, cardamom and ginger jam; Raspberry mango jam, and Onion fennel jam. (Incidentally, their Faema E61 was praised by James Chatto. I don't know from espresso machines, but who am I to disagree?)

Café Fiorentina had its soft opening at the beginning of August (and sold their house lemonade as fast as they could brew it up throughout the Taste of the Danforth). They're now open Tuesday to Saturday from 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sundays from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Photos courtesy of Café Fiorentina's Tumblr site.