The culinary minds at Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment (MLSE) revealed a meaty new list of concessions yesterday, just in time for the Toronto FC home opener against the Portland Timbers tomorrow. The inspiration behind BMO Field‘s new barbecue-driven menu is “comfort food,” says Tony Glitz, executive chef of Real Sports Bar and Grill, who helped put the menu together. Fans of beef, pork and porchetta will be impressed.
Many of BMO Field’s new offerings are adaptations of favourites from the Real Sports menu, like the deliciously daunting triple threat sandwich ($10.95, at right): a thick, six-ounce stack of smoky barbecue beef brisket and pulled pork finished with two slices of peameal bacon.
Glitz’s personal favourite, the beef brisket sandwich ($9.50) – made according to his secret recipe – strikes a perfect textural balance, its tender chewiness topped with a tangy slaw that lightens its meat-heavy load. The pulled pork sandwich ($8.25) is a delightful, seamless blend of sweet and savoury paired with the same crunchy, citrusy slaw. The secret to any good barbecue, Glitz explains, is dry heat cooking. It may prolong the process, but it’s sure worth it.
Most of the off-season was devoted to perfecting cooking methods and tweaking condiments to allow this season’s most promising concessions to shine through. “Barbecue is starting to get a strong foothold here in Toronto” Glitz says. “It’s really getting the fans interested.” And porchetta, all the rage these days, hasn’t been left by the wayside. A 
sandwich of tender, slow-roasted Tuscan porchetta on a mustard-slathered ACE Bakery bun is $8.95 (at left).
And, of course, a frosty beer accompaniment can’t hurt. “Beer is the center of our beverage universe,” says Chris Zielinski, executive chef of The Air Canada Centre, who collaborated on the new items. Accordingly, BMO Field’s concessions are designed with double-fisting in mind: “food in one hand, beer in the other,” a mantra that fans will no doubt continue to adopt entering into TFC’s fifth season with MLSE. After all, what else screams sports more loudly than barbecue and beer?
Other new BMO Field offerings include the chicken and black bean empanada ($4.95), a mixture of pulled chicken, red rice, beans and cheddar cheese encased in a golden, house-made pastry crust, and a chili bowl ($6.95, at right), featuring slow-cooked chili prepared with fresh ingredients and topped with sour cream and cheddar.
TFC’s new menu might seem disproportionately carnivorous – unabashedly masculine, even – to some, but the truth of the matter is that it sells: “we sell a lot of meat here,” says Robert Bartley, executive chef of MLSE. “We’re not strictly catered towards men, but we try to know our customer.” Zielinski agrees. “Everything we do here is based on demand.” No one can argue with that; BMO Field is touted as offering one of the most diverse concessions menus, a reflection of both Toronto’s multiculturalism and a tribute to the international game of soccer which it so boisterously hosts.