During the summer, you don’t have to look hard to find a food festival somewhere in Canada. There seem to be fests for everything from tacos to jerk to pickles to garlic. If you can eat it, someone will add a “fest” suffix and charge an entry fee.
The quality of the experience, however, can be even more varied.
Guests at Brewery & the Beast had high expectations when they bought tickets to the buzzy food fest, which rolled into Toronto late last month. The festival has been operating on the West Coast since 2012 and this was its first foray into the city’s fickle food scene. It came in with an assured roar, attracting a sold-out crowd of 800 eager to sample flame-cooked meats from big-name chefs such as Lorenzo Loseto (George), Nuit Regular (Pai) and Matt Basile, who were serving up at their booths.
Co-owner and chef Nuit Regular of PAI Northern Thai Kitchen serves up northern Thai pork sausage in a lettuce cup with dyed vermicelli, herbs and edible flowers.Galit Rodan/The Globe and Mail
Call it honesty in marketing, for there was a lot of meat – all grilled over an open flame – and a lot of beer. Wafts of smoke blanketed the parking lot at Henderson Brewing in the city’s west end, the DJ spun suitable tunes (The Message by Grandmaster Flash, and a fair amount of Abba), and happy carnivores ambled about gnawing on huge rib bones. There was pulled duck, roast pig and all manner of burger and sausage.
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Top-tier Toronto restaurants were well represented, with notables such as big-bucks steak haven Black + Blue, hard-to-get reservations Liliana and perennial favourite Cherry Street Bar-B-Que. One of the few long lines – and there were not many, given the number of options – was for a duo of bivalves and a Caesar from the venerable Rodney’s Oyster House. The other long line was for Bar Mordecai, where co-owner and cocktail rockstar Christina Veira personally mixed drinks for her fans.
Not bad for a first assault on Toronto, but then again, the team behind the event seems to have found the secret sauce for pleasing attendees and chefs alike.
Executive chef Lorenzo Loseto of George restaurant speaks with guests at the food festival.Galit Rodan/The Globe and Mail
Organizer Scott Gurney started the festival in Victoria, eventually spreading the gospel of the grill to Vancouver and Calgary. He had his eye on Toronto for years but held back while searching for the right venue. He also wanted to connect personally with local chefs, and he invited some to attend his West Coast events to see how the show operates.
The rules are simple. The festival does not invite chain or multi-outlet corporate restaurants. Ingredients must be locally sourced or, at least, Canadian. For the Toronto fest, proteins – such as duck, beef, bison – came wholly from Ontario, their provenance boasted by posters dotting the venue. Chefs are encouraged to serve at their booths – something George restaurant’s Loseto welcomed. Normally, he stays well hidden in his kitchen.
“I’m not even friendly,” he says, laughing. “But it’s my chance to talk to people. Especially outdoors, I actually like it when the guests can come right up to you and talk.” There are other benefits, he notes, such as the opportunity to focus on a single dish and expose his kitchen staff to new experiences. Call it professional development.
From there, the festival formula includes meticulous planning, ample onsite support and white-glove treatment for the chefs. For the guests: a ticket price of $149.99 plus tax, unlimited food and drink (which, at the Toronto event, never seemed to run out over its four-hour run), plenty of places to sit and easy-to-find water stations.
Gurney and his team are steeped in event-planning experience, and it showed.
“If you’re going to watch the Rolling Stones or U2 … well, chefs are like that. And so we take care of them,” Gurney says. “We provide as much as we possibly can for them so that when they show up, they just have to do their job.”
Chef Matias Sallaberry of South Fire, a Victoria-based open-flame catering company, grills on a custom steel and chain fire structure.Galit Rodan/The Globe and Mail
Chefs do not pay to participate. Neither are they out of pocket for ingredients – which eliminates shortages and chintzy portions. Gurney sources ingredients from local suppliers and gives each chef credits to purchase what they need.
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Jonathan Gushue, formerly the chef at Langdon Hall, Elora Mill and Fogo Island Inn, was impressed enough to sign on for the fest. He brought his team from his Collingwood restaurant the Judge, which opened in January, recognizing a marketing opportunity in getting up close with some of the city’s most discerning eaters. Maybe some of them will make the roughly two-hour drive out of the city to check out the restaurant in person. (Gushue also runs the Gate in nearby Flesherton, which was named one of the top 10 new restaurants for 2025 by Canada’s 100 Best Restaurants magazine.)
The chef estimates he’s cooked at hundreds of festivals and events over his career, and he’s seen the dark side. “The tendency of a lot of events is … to make as much money as they can, so they get overcrowded.” That money grab hits consumers hard. “Most tickets for these events run about $250 and up. I wouldn’t go to that. I couldn’t afford that.” Some events even charge for tokens needed to “buy” samples, over and above the entry fee.
But the festival’s $150 ticket price, Gushue says, makes high-end food accessible to attendees and industry workers alike. “At a lot of these places, $150 wouldn’t be enough to eat dinner there … I love that opportunity.”
The buzzy food festival offering flame-grilled meats sold out its Toronto event in July.Galit Rodan/The Globe and Mail
Festivals that crashed and burned are still fresh in the memory of some chefs and it makes them wary. The Toronto Grilled Cheese Fest, which flamed out at Toronto’s Roy Thomson Hall in 2014, should be a case study in hospitality programs. Organizers oversold the 1,500-capacity event by 700 tickets, leaving hundreds stuck outside in frigid February weather while the promise of all-you-can eat cheese and bread for $39.99 coagulated in the frosty air. Inside, there were power failures and a dearth of food. This was during the adolescent era of Twitter, and the organizers were berated into oblivion by the social-media lashes of foodies scorned. It made the news.
Brewery & the Beast has made headlines of a different sort. Its solid reputation impressed Amanda Bradley, a Toronto hospitality consultant who was hired by the festival to recommend top echelon chefs to participate. She suggested both Gushue and Loseto give it a try.
“There was really something beautiful about the way it unfolded,” she says, of the Toronto event. “You walk around, and all the chefs or owners of the business were at that booth. People were like, ‘Oh, my god, the chef was there!’ I thought that was really beautiful.”
Upcoming Brewery & the Beast events: Calgary on Aug. 23, Vancouver on Aug. 30; and Langford, Vancouver Island, on Sept. 27. breweryandthebeast.com
Eat it and Reap: Upcoming Food Festivals
Feastie
Aug. 22
For fans of Toronto small businesses owned by BIPOC and women – and anyone who loves dogs (the event is in partnership with Doggie Fest Toronto) and good eats that lean toward snacks and street-food. feastie.ca
Vancouver Island Feast of Fields
Aug. 30
Vancouver Island’s top chefs, bakers, food artisans, vintners, brewers and distillers dish it out at this gourmet harvest festival designed for wandering and chilling. farmfolkcityfolk.ca/feast-of-fields
Roots, Rants and Roars
Sept. 16-19
Newfoundland and Labrador’s food culture goes on display in Elliston, a UNESCO site recognized as the root cellar capital of the world. Yes, there will be cod. rootsrantsandroars.ca
PEI International Shellfish Festival
Sept. 17–20
Celebrating 30 years with dining events, competitions and tasting opportunities involving oysters, lobster, mussels and anything else local fishers can pull from the ocean. peishellfish.com
Canadian Great Kitchen Party
This series of culinary competitions hosted in major Canadian cities throughout the year offers exposure to dishes from top Canadian chefs, with wines to match. greatkitchenparty.com
