culture
Spice City Toronto: Brit Brews and Bangladeshi Bites
Flavourful curries, serious beers, and cool tunes boost Bloordale's Stella above its dive-bar past.
Vincent Pollard (left) and Ronti Hosen run Stella, in Bloordale.
“It’s all about curry, beer, and music.” That’s how Vincent Pollard, the charming barman at Stella, describes his establishment. It’s no surprise that he’s from England, a country enamoured with all three.
Pollard handles the music and beer, while back in the kitchen his business partner, Bangladeshi immigrant Ronti Hosen, tends to the curry in the kitchen.
Stella is a bar in the newly cool Bloordale area that attracts a reggae- and indie music–loving set in their 20s and 30s. Just a year ago, Stella was yet another divey sports bar attracting ne’er-do-wells on the run-down Landsdowne strip.
But Pollard, who was then just an occasional customer, was gradually enticed to run events at the bar in exchange for regular doses of Ronti’s curry. Pollard liked the social atmosphere so much that he quit his job as a web designer a couple of months ago to run the bar with Ronti full time.
And the curry? For $8 to $10, you can pick between beef, shrimp and okra, butter chicken, or fish. All the choices are good and quite distinct, but the fish is the must-have dish here.
As a Bangladeshi curry, it’s less saucy than its Indian counterpart. The turbot is made with freshly crushed coriander and cooked with tamarind, ginger, garlic, tomato, and onion. The result is a wonderfully smooth and tasty meal with much more flavour than a typical fish curry. (However, Spice City readers be warned: if you like it hot, you’ll need to “superspice” your order by asking for a little more kick.)
Before the transformation of Stella, Ronti spent his days doing food prep for fancy restaurants like Scaramouche, while his own bar served nothing but chicken wings. But after seeing Landsdowne begin to shed its sketchiness in the last year or two, he decided to bring his passion for cooking to his own establishment. He hopes one day to open a Bangladeshi restaurant, something that would be a welcome addition to Toronto’s food scene, as many Bangladeshis serve Indian dishes in their establishments rather than their own cuisine.
Ronti just returned from a four-month stint in Bangladesh, where he gleaned culinary secrets from his kin. He had immigrated to Canada as a teenager, so he only started cooking after he came here. “When I was back in Bangladesh, I got recipes for curries and dahl from my mom, my grandma, my relatives, anyone in town who was a good cook,” he says. Ronti even spent a couple of weeks there working helping make food for large 500-person events. “I wanted to know the real Bangladesh flavour.”
Stella (1261 Bloor Street West), 416-655-7142, open Tuesday and Wednesday 6 p.m. to 1 a.m.; Thursday to Saturday 6 p.m. to 2 a.m.; Sunday 6 p.m. to midnight.
Spice City Toronto explores Toronto’s great hole-in-the-wall restaurants and strip-mall joints serving food from all corners of the world. Find more photos and details about Stella here.