To this day Toronto chef Anthony Rose admits he still gets nervous cooking while his mother is around. She penned the foreword to his book, The Last Schmaltz, and claims that he makes the best pastrami—ever—but that she never imagined him becoming a successful cook, despite his culinary school degree. Rose’s cuisine is more akin to his grandmother’s cooking than fine dining—with one major difference. In spite of undeniable guilt as a child when he first tasted forbidden bacon with his Uncle Irv (“I just ordered as he did,” he recalls), from then on, he has never looked back. Now the owner of seven restaurants, including the famed Rose and Sons, he serves an eclectic mix of cuisines that are definitely not kosher.
Rose’s career first took off as the head chef of Alias, a Manhattan bistro on the Lower East Side. After getting rave reviews, he “promptly moved to upstate New York where no one cared,” he recalls. He returned to Toronto, his birthplace, became the head chef at the Drake Hotel for five years, and, afterward, began testing Jewish food. He opened his first place and hit it big: “Jewish food was so hot and I was the Canadian poster child. My mom is very proud,” he says.
Rose isn’t much of a stickler for orthodoxy. That’s why he can serve up matzo ball soup from his mom’s recipe at Rose and Sons, and then squeeze a barbecue joint, complete with pork ribs, into its backyard. He is unapologetic in his cultural mash-ups and comic overtures. His newest venture is a bakery, which turns out such over-the-top sweets as banana split layer cake. Rose’s quick puns often leave him the butt of his own jokes. The translation of his newest restaurant, Fet Zun (Fat Son), isn’t lost on Rose. Overweight and awkward as a child, he explains his love of food this way: “I can eat one patty melt every year, but the fat kid in me eats one per day.”
Rose’s kitchen is the kind of place where you don’t know where to look first. Memorabilia, vintage concert posters, and framed photos—his girlfriend is a photographer—cover the walls; kilims blanket the wood floors; and photos of his son plaster the refrigerator door, spilling over to the cabinets.
His home fridge is equally eclectic, filled with easy takeout and convenience foods like potato salad and coleslaw. But root around and there’s a hot sauce shelf to bring tears to your eyes, a noteworthy assortment of legalized marijuana goods, and a camouflaged box of fudge. Rose got excited when a Cabela’s, the sporting goods store, opened about twenty minutes from his cottage in north Canada: “I started buying things that I didn’t need—like little lures or camp equipment,” he explains. “Then I noticed they make two dozen different types of fudge. So now I just go for the fudge.” That same fudge made an indulgent addition to the bread pudding recipe he recently concocted with his son.
CURRENT HOMETOWN: Toronto, Ontario
RESTAURANT THAT MADE HIS NAME: Alias, New York City
SIGNATURE STYLE: Comfort food with Jewish roots
BEST KNOWN FOR: Being dubbed the “King of Comfort Food” by Toronto Life; Rose and Sons, a diner turned deli and six other restaurants in Toronto; and his cookbook The Last Schmaltz
FRIDGE: Jenn-Air
- SOUR PICKLES—“I fermented them for two months.”
- HIS MOM’S MATZO BALL SOUP
- SOOM TAHINI—“I’m going to use it for a tahini ranch recipe which I’ll pour over tomatoes with lots of red onions. I also like making club sandwiches with it.”
- POTATO SALAD AND COLESLAW, from Rose and Sons
- HENDERSON BEER—“That was made specifically for Rob Wilder, my business partner, and has his face on it. It’s absolutely delicious BUT the image is amazing.”
- DATES
- SMOKED TURKEY AND PASTRAMI
- CABELA’S FUDGE
- SAUERKRAUT
- BLUE CHEESE
- DRIED TUNA
- AGED MIMOLETTE
- JERK SPICE, made by a friend
- SAUVAGINE RAW COW’S MILK CHEESE
- CAULIFLOWER SOUP—“My son’s fave.”
- HENDERSON BEER
- LOCAL CIDER
- BANANA SPLIT SCHMAKE, from Rose’s deli Schmaltz Appetizing
- TOMATO SAUCE WITH SAUSAGES—“I make huge batches once a week and pull from the freezer to make dinners for my family.”
- BRAISED HAM HOCKS
- BREAD PUDDING—“My son was eating French toast and he said this is like bread pudding. So we baked a bread pudding. We don’t eat a lot of sweets. It’s more about the process of making them.”
- BEAN SOUP
- STRAWBERRIES AND RASPBERRIES—“I only buy fruits my son is actually going to eat.”
- FLOUR AND CORN TORTILLAS
- SAUSAGE, from an agricultural exhibition—“I picked it up when I did a demo at the fair.”
- ANCHOVIES WITH CHILIES IN OIL
- HOT DOGS
- DOUBLE-SMOKED BACON
- CLEARLY CANADIAN SPARKLING WATER—“This is what I drank as a kid.”
- KARNATZEL (dry aged beef sausage)
- PEAMEAL (CANADIAN) BACON
Q & A
There seem to be a lot of Canadian specialties in your fridge. That is what Americans call Canadian bacon or what we call peameal bacon, as it used to be rolled in crushed yellow peas on the outside. We use it for the famous peameal bacon sandwich. That’s breakfast around these parts. It’s so good. And right next to that we have hot dogs, which I like to have with my Kraft mac ’n’ cheese. Which is also very Canadian.
You literally slice up hot dogs and throw them in? It’s one of my dirty meals. I would eat it with extra Kraft cheese slices, extra butter, and hot dogs on top. It reminds me of when I was a very fat kid.
How often do you eat this? I’d say once a year I go back to that place.
When did you lose weight? You seem to be in great shape. I had always fluctuated. But it’s since I started yoga, the gym, and eating paleo.
Is paleo a big thing in Canada? I’m not sure. I do it most of the time, except when I’m around my son. We went to Baskin-Robbins once and he ordered peanut butter chocolate ice cream—which is also my favorite. And I ordered nothing. He got bummed and said it wasn’t fun. He wanted to eat ice cream with me. So ever since then, when I’m with him I don’t really say no—although he has started to eat healthier.
What don’t you have in here? I use everything! I have too much mustard, though. Here is the mustard shelf, with a little bit of other things thrown in, including marijuana gummies. Those are a little intense; you just have to eat a little.
What’s a little? Like a nibble, a quarter. It’s funny, at the store they say take one, then you’re like, what the fuck, man! Feel free to help yourself.
What is in your freezer? As of this morning I have absolutely nothing in my freezer. My sweet and lovely girlfriend left it open a crack and everything completely thawed. Usually I cook once a week and freeze the food for later. I am so mad—I was very much looking forward to tomato-braised beef shank. I babied this sweet meat for a good week with a beautiful marinade and then a crust before slow roasting.
Tell me the one premade item that is indispensable for you. Clamato—one of the most important things in the fridge. You can’t make a Caesar cocktail without it.
Is that like a Canadian Bloody Mary? It’s similar, but it has Clamato (clam and tomato juice blend) as well as vodka, Worcestershire, Tabasco. I like it shaken and then strained. I don’t drink Caesars after two p.m. It’s a morning or brunch cocktail. You know—when you wake up and you just need to drink something?
It looks like you also eat pretty healthily. Any superfoods in here? Dandelion greens. I think this is the most impressive product: it’s the greatest thing for you. The more bitter, the better, and then you make that into a kimchi—that’s a superfood right there.
What are the dates for? I was trying to make a granola bar or ball for my son to eat for breakfast. And this was holding it together.
Is this Mimolette [a cheese from France]? Check it out—it has black skin! For years it was the same way here as in Europe. Then there was a massive shipment of Mimolette that was infested with mites as well as fleas in the crevices. The government said, You can’t send this cheese here. So they started dipping it in wax for export. The other cheese is a raw cow’s milk—Sauvagine, that’s a very sexy cheese.