“I have gaslighted myself over the past 2+ years in my relationship with Rose and Sons and Big Crow,” Anthony Rose wrote in a recent newsletter. It was his very on-brand introduction to some sad news for Toronto’s food scene: the Toronto restaurateur is closing Big Crow and Rose and Sons.
“Rose and Sons was my first baby and Big Crow my second,” he continued. “This is hard. I remember the first review I ever got at Rose and Sons with lines like ‘The bloom is off the rose,’ and ‘glorified stoner food,’ and ‘substitutes pork fat for professionalism,’ and ‘It’s the kind of restaurant that worries me for the future.’ Anyway, I know that this review was meant as a searing takedown, and a personal attack of me and my restaurant. I was devastated. I cried (I recently cry a lot). But then I showed up to work on that fateful Saturday morning to the sight of a line-up around the block with people happily being quoted a 2-hour wait time and they absolutely couldn’t love it more.”
With these closures, Rose notes that he can now focus on the three remaining restaurants in his empire. “All my energy is completely laser-focused on Fat Pasha, Schmaltz and Fet Zun,” he writes, adding that he will not just leave the staff from the two closing spots to dry. “All of the remaining staff at Rose and Sons and Big Crow, and I mean ALL OF THEM are moving over to the other restaurants (ugh, they are just the best).”
The Big Crow and Rose and Sons Instagram page has been quiet since June 19, but it seems that Rose’s side hustle, a flower business, is taking off, with a brick-and-mortar storefront coming on the Dupont strip.
