Ever wondered what happens behind the scenes at your favourite restaurants? Now you can find out with a unique culinary experience which will see participants working alongside Toronto’s most esteemed executive chefs.
With Into The Kitchen, participants will spend three hours ahead of dinner service in the dynamic kitchen of some of the city’s top restaurants. Enthusiasts will gain an authentic hands-on experience in an informal learning environment, while gaining an appreciation for fine dining service.
“The participant is fully immersed and has the opportunity to both observe and actively participate alongside the culinary team and gain valuable insight into the restaurant’s distinct expertise and specialties,” says Into The Kitchen founder Lou Borins. “They get to observe not only mastering specific arts, but they observe the comradery around the kitchen stations.”
Borins ran the experience for a decade beginning in 2001 after first gaining the opportunity to see the dynamics of the kitchen at Centro with chef David Lee.
“I became part of the culinary team, which was exhilarating and educational and has stuck with me,” she says, adding that people have been asking her for the return of Into The Kitchen which inspired her to relaunch the experience at the end of 2023. “Now, after all these years, the concept resonates even more profoundly in an ever-evolving experiential culinary landscape.”
Restaurant kitchens that can be visited are helmed by some of the city’s top chefs and include, Bar Koukla (chef Shu Zhang), Bar Prima (chef Craig Harding), Bymark (chef Brooke McDougall), Capra’s Kitchen (chef Massimo Capra), DaiLo (chef Nick Liu), La Palma (chef Craig Harding), Mamakas Taverna (Rafael Freitas da Rocha), The Chase (chef Cory Vitiello), Vela (chef Kim Haugen and chef Marvin Palomo).
“These are top restaurants in the city that specialize in cuisine where, in most cases, chefs are notorious or on cooking shows or infamous in the industry,” says Borins. “It’s still evolving, and we just love that we have levels of different cuisine, different locations and everybody brings something different to the table.”
Clients interested in learning hands-on in the kitchen are able to select the chef they want to learn from, or they can connect with Into The Kitchen to find the kitchen that best suits the techniques and skillsets they would like to learn. Whether its honing knife skills, pastry plating or a specific time of cuisine, there are endless opportunities and a range of kitchens to learn from.
“We really want to match the interest with the client. For instance, if they have an interest in, say, Italian risotto or making egg truffle pasta, they might choose Capra’s Kitchen,” explains Borins. “Each kitchen has their specialty, and that makes it very easy to match based on what they’re interested in.”
Into The Kitchen offers three distinct experiences, each starting with an immersion into the restaurant’s kitchen. Clients have the option to enhance their experience by adding a chef’s menu while inviting a guest to join them for a dinner they have helped prepare. The third experience includes a wine pairing to complement the chef’s dinner.
“The chef’s menu is customized, and it would be very specific to the client as they would be prepping a little bit of the entire menu in the kitchen,” says Borins, noting that clients could pick their preferences on tastes. “Obviously the wine pairing would be very specific to the course that has been selected for the client.”
In addition to the culinary experiences, Into The Kitchen offers bespoke group experiences in the new Mamakas Food Group dining room, Trapézi. Under the culinary direction of Chef Benny Chateau of Mamakas Taverna and Bar Koukla, these bespoke experiences are curated to suit the size and objectives of events.
“Trapézi is a gorgeous and fun private dining room and just ideal for various occasions, ranging from corporate to team-building events and family gatherings,” says Borins.
Borins notes that the participants do not have to have had a formal culinary education in order to enjoy the Into The Kitchen experience.
“The kitchen is so open and excited to teach anybody the craft that they specialize in,” she says. “It’s such a unique opportunity to just imagine as a regular at a favourite restaurant, who has only ever been in the dining room, getting a chance to go behind the scenes with the crews. It’s exhilarating.”
More information on Into The Kitchen can be found here.