
Donna's – No 3 – Canada's Best New Restaurants 2019
We’re calling it granny chic. The owners of this brick-clad, fuchsia-trimmed local hangout named it “Donna’s” to evoke hip grandma vibes, like a bohemian lady-of-a-certain-age with retro style and serious cool factor. And they nailed it with the 1970s rec-room decor: rows of houseplants, vintage art posters, a vinyl collection and a logo straight from The Mary Tyler Moore Show. It’s all a perfect fit for the slightly shy cooking from a trio of Momofuku alums that, paradoxically, stands out for its polish and precision.
The mix of backgrounds here – chef Peter Jensen is a Dane married to front-of-house boss and Canadian Ann Kim, and chef Jed Smith is British – might be the reason it’s hard to pin down the provenance of Donna’s dishes. A speckled stoneware plate of blushing slices of cold roast pork is topped with a buttercream-coloured stripe of shaved endive. Dressed with a light hand, they’re topped with tarragon and sprat-oil aioli and dusted with black pepper.
It’s what I imagine eating at a picnic in the Scandinavian countryside. The salad of petits pois, frisée and sugar snap peas resting on a bed of puréed peas and spiked with a bright pickled-jalapeño-juice vinaigrette, charred onions and a squeeze of lemon, could be part of a French Sunday lunch.
And just like a seriously kick-ass granny, there is a rebellious undercurrent and wisdom that comes with all these homey feels. Wanting to break the brutal mould of the top-tier-restaurant lifestyle, this trio has intentionally created a workplace with a better work-life balance that’s family-friendly and promotes diversity and tolerance in the kitchen – with the hopes it will trigger a neighbourhood effect. With a framed manifesto in the window that begins “Zero tolerance for transphobia, homophobia, physical harassment…,” Donna’s is taking it to the streets. Respect to the elders.