The team behind two of the top restaurants in Toronto is gearing up to open yet another, and it may just be totally different from their typical bread-and-butter.
As far as French cuisine in Toronto goes, real-life couple Carmelina Imola and Zachary Kolomeir, cofounders of Dreyfus and Taverne Berhnardt’s (as well as their sandwich shop, Vilda’s), have firmly planted their flag.
In the handful of years since opening, Dreyfus, an elegant Harbord Village French bistro, and Bernhardt’s, a stylish haunt serving more rustic French dishes, have catapulted the couple, who originally hail from Montreal, to legendary status, even resulting in a Michelin recommendation for Dreyfus.
Their more experimental sandwich shop venture, Vilda’s, proved similarly well-received when they opened it in 2022.
You could call it a Midas touch, or maybe it’s just a keen knowledge of what people want to eat and where they want to eat it. In any event, Toronto is about to get an entirely new culinary venture from Zachary and Carmelina, as they recently took to their Instagram to announce a brand-new restaurant coming soon.
It’s called N.L. Ginzburg, and it’s taking over the Little Italy space that formerly held La Carnita’s original location at 501 College Street. Beyond that, they’ve left many of the other details up to the imagination.
In the Instagram post announcing N.L. Ginzburg, the restaurant is described as featuring “a dining room and menu inspired by the simplicity and minimalism of the slow food trattoria, viewed through a diasporic Jewish lens,” teasing, perhaps, a subtle turn towards Italian cuisine — and the restaurant’s name itself seems to suggest that, too.
Following in the naming tradition of their other two restaurants — Dreyfus gets its name from the Dreyfus affair, an anti-semitic scandal that took place in late 19th century France and Bernhardt’s from legendary Jewish-French stage actress, Sarah Bernhardt, N.L. Ginzburg similarly pays homage to historic European Jewish figures.
Named after Natalia and Leone Ginzburg, the new spot honours the Italian husband and wife pair who were instrumental anti-fascist activists, thinkers and writers during the First and Second World Wars, it begs the question of whether the cuisine at their namesake restaurant will be French like Dreyfus and Bernhardt’s, or whether Carmelina and Zachary are headed in a new direction.
The exact opening date for N.L. Ginzburg has yet to be announced, but the restaurant is currently hiring, so the wait shouldn’t be much longer.
In the meantime, you’ve got three spots in the city where you can already prep your palate for a whole new, sure-to-be-delicious selection from Carmelina and Zachary.