For a decade, Fat Pasha has been a staple in Toronto, praised as one of the top places to find Middle Eastern cuisine. The Dupont Street restaurant’s menu — offering both traditional Ashkenazi and Sephardic flavours — speaks volumes to why customers return, but it’s chef and owner Anthony Rose’s dedication to Toronto, and the people within it, that makes it stand out among others.
“One of the things that I love doing now and have for the past ten years with my restaurants is thinking about what did my mom cook? What did my grandmother cook? What did my ancestors cook?” he says. “It’s really diving into where I came from with food and making that delicious. I think the food that we do is very simple and it’s something that my mom or anybody can make, but I try to do it better.”
This last weekend, the chef, entrepreneur, and published gathered with his family for his parents’ wedding anniversary to which he brought a chunky beef chili. He says his whole family is comfortable in the kitchen — a confidence that was instilled at a young age growing up in Toronto, given that his mother was an “amazing cook” and his grandmother “a fantastic baker.”
“My mom would pretty much make every meal at home, and we also went out quite a bit,” he says. “My parents loved to eat and loved to travel, so I was very, very fortunate to be able to eat at some cool restaurants all over the world. I came by it naturally for sure.”
Despite this, however, Rose admits he didn’t always cook with his family because he wanted to do things on his own terms and be messy. Instead, he waited for his parents to leave home before he would cook for his older sister and younger brother, both of which he often played restaurant with.
“I would be the chef, my sister would be the maître-d’ and my brother would pretend to order,” he says, admitting it was likely grilled cheese and mac ‘n’ cheese on the menu. “I got into barbequing on our custom charcoal barbeque in the backyard, and it could be salami or Miami ribs—certainly not very vegetable based.”
Despite the early passion and getting experience as a dish washer and doing some prep work at Marc Thuet’s Centro and Mark McEwan’s North 44, Rose ultimately went to Montréal’s Concordia University to study geology and cartography. Though he thinks he wanted to be a forest ranger at the time, he admits he “famously” didn’t go to class.
“I still love the outdoors and spend a lot of time camping with my family in Algonquin Park, I tap trees for maple syrup, and I go foraging — all of that is still a part of me, but school wasn’t a part of me,” he says, noting it did help him hone his passion and explore restaurants more. “I would cook for my roommates, and everyone would come over and eat food at my place.”
When he finally sharpened his skills at San Francisco’s California Culinary Academy, he graduated top of class, before launching his career and moving to New York City for some time before relocating back home to Toronto.
Though he eventually would launch and find success with an empire of restaurants including, currently, Fat Pasha and Schmaltz Appetizing, some of his fondest memories continues to be sharing food with others — including the time in San Francisco when he cooked for and talked with well-known chefs and tv personality Jacques Pépin and Julia Child.
Other career “highlights” have included “pushing the envelope” as the executive chef at The Drake with Jeff Stober and meeting his business partner Rob Wilder.
He notes that while making the shift from chef to entrepreneur — and for up to seven different venues at one time — was a “huge learning process,” but one that taught him a lot and reminds him about the personable approach to food.
“All of a sudden you’re just in it and you have to surround yourself with amazing people — bookkeepers, chefs, servers,” Rose says. “People are the hardest thing to nurture but it’s the most important part of what we do.”
Despite his busy personal life visiting his son in Alabama, making regular trips to the cottage and gathering for regular dinners with his family, Rose does not slow down in the kitchen and customers have lots to look forward to.
In the spring, Fat Pasha will be expanding operations by opening for lunch throughout the week in addition to its current hours on the weekends. On the flip side, Schmaltz Appetizing is also expanding operations to be open in the evenings beginning in the summer.
“We’re an appetizing restaurant, but we’re going to be appetizing and delicatessen,” he says. “We make some of the best pastrami in the city, we’re working on chopped liver, gefilte fish, matzah balls. I’m really looking forward to having the best Reuben in town, that’s for sure.”
