This year, Pearl Chinese Cuisine marks its 40th anniversary since opening its Harbourfront location, introducing Toronto to authentic Chinese cuisine with a touch of elegance. The award-winning restaurant has recently opened a new location at the corner of Yonge and Charles, bringing its delicious flavours to Yorkville.
As the operations manager of the Yorkville lo- cation, Andrew Lai, points out, Pearl isn’t aiming to broaden its customer base across the city. Instead, they are strategically setting up shop closer to their existing loyal customers.
“We know that our potential customers and existing customers live in the area,” says Lai. “So we wanted to open up something a little closer to them.”
Though the new restaurant maintains the same white-tablecloth sophistication and comfortable seating, it also sports a more contemporary interior. While the floor-to-ceiling windows at the Harbourfront location create a bright, well-lit dining space, the dark ceilings and black marble countertops at Pearl Yorkville gives it a more intimate feeling.
The dining room’s artwork beautifully blends Chinese tradition with iconic 20th-century Canadian landscapes.
The restaurant offers an extensive menu of authentic Chinese cuisine, including noodles, stir-fry, dim sum and cooked fish. Despite just recently opening over the Labour Day weekend, some of the most popular dishes from Pearl’s four other locations, like the two course Peking duck, have already become a hit. The Peking duck includes one course served with steamed flat buns, veggies and a sweet sauce and another course featuring the duck in a salad.
Other crowd-pleasers include the deep-fried lobster and Pearl’s renowned deep-fried Hockey Pucks. These Hockey Pucks, much like the wall art, seamlessly blend authentic cuisine with its Canadian roots.
“Many of our longtime customers won’t say ‘chive and shrimp dumplings,’ they’ll say, ‘Hockey Pucks,’” says Lai. “They are a very famous dish.” Lai says that Pearl Yorkville is eagerly awaiting its liquor licence before hosting a grand opening celebration to warmly welcome the Yorkville neighbourhood to its newest upscale dim sum destination.
Pearl Yorkville is located inside Charles Street Promenade at 730 Yonge St.
