“Last year when I was overseeing the layout and design for McEwan Fine Foods it occurred to me that with 20,000 square feet on hand I could probably spare a few for myself. And so it came to be that this spring, after nineteen years in the cramped basement of North 44, I got my first office with a window on the open sky. I like that — but what I like most about my new h.q. up on the second floor of my store is that whenever I have a spare moment I can take a walk through my kitchen next door, and around the aisles of the shop below, and check in on how things are coming along. So far as I can tell they are coming along pretty nicely.
McEwan Fine Foods has been a huge project and it will always continue to be. But whenever I take a walk-about, one of my tours of inspection, I try and focus on the original idea, on what got me started on this course. As you might suspect it’s not laundry detergent or cat litter brands that get me excited — it’s our food offerings, and above all else our prepared foods. This is the product category in which I always thought Torontonians were badly underserviced. And this is where I thought that our restaurant and catering experience would help us excel, and set us far apart from the crowd.
Other supermarkets sell sliced “home-style” roast beef; we roast the finest USDA Prime Black Angus beef we know how to source, season it the same we do at any of our award restaurants and slice it to order. You fancy a curry for lunch and you’ll find a half-dozen varieties stewed that morning in our kitchen upstairs.
Our take on the panini-on-the-go is a crisp sandwich stuffed full of our succulent veal-and-beef meatloaf dressed up with melted cheddar, caramelised onion and our rich barbecue sauce. And if you want something a little more elevated our “Restaurant Meal Replacements” — or “RMRs” as we call them around here — run the gamut from a rustic roast chicken to a spring lamb stew executed with the lightness and precision you might well expect from a group of chefs who also do time at the kitchens of One, Bymark and North 44.
McEwan is a work in progress. There is a lot more to come. But as long as I’m having lunch here every day — and sometimes breakfast, and even dinner too — we’re going to keep building on this great base really fast.
Celebrity chef Mark McEwan is the force behind some of Toronto’s finest restaurants, including Bymark, North 44 and One Restaurant. His latest venture, McEwan, is a gourmet food market at the Shops at Don Mills.