Toronto’s sake revival is here, and it’s spectacular

Written By

Sandra Lau

over 1 year ago

There’s an exciting sake movement happening in Toronto right now.

Until recently, the millennia-old Japanese beverage was nothing more than an obvious component of a Japanese dining “experience.” You’d visit Ki or Guu with friends and have a few cups of sakes to complete the vibes. But sake has a place beyond Japanese and Asian establishments, and its experts in Toronto are finally being heard.

I spoke with two of Toronto’s leading sake importers, and the goal was unanimous: help Torontonians realize that sake was made to elevate food—every type of food.

Everyone defaults to wine when they’re having food, but wine actually wasn’t made for that. Sake is.

Especially in the Western hemisphere, wine had long been given preferential status in food pairings. Walk into any Toronto restaurant with an L.L.B.O. sign and you’ll be sure to find at least a House White and a Red to go with your meal, regardless of the type of cuisine. But where on those menus is the one alcoholic beverage that was designed to be food’s mighty companion?

Evans (centre) and his Nippon team members—Akiko Onishi (left) and Amy Lee (right).

With the passion of people like Jay Evans and his Nippon team members—Akiko Onishi and Amy Lee––Toronto’s sake scene is at its most promising time.

When Vivian Hatherell founded her import company back in 2005, it was called Metropolitan Wines & Spirits. Today, they’re better known as Metropolitan Wines & Sakes. With only a handful of staff, including Kaja Altosaar, Carmen Seto, and Noriko Yamada, the Metropolitan team has been getting premium sakes into the hands of Toronto restaurateurs and bottle shop owners over the past decade.

“Compared to, say, 2010, it’s just night and day,” she says. “And I know there’s still a lot more room to grow. It’s exciting—we’re on a really, really good path.”

Toronto’s long-awaited sake revival

In 2010, Hatherell was asked by a US colleague in the industry: “Why is it that Jackson Hole, Wyoming drinks more sake than Ontario?” It was a good question. For a city that’s known for its multiculturalism and, in particular, its variety of Asian restaurants, Toronto’s sake market was surprisingly stale, with only a handful of restaurants willing to carry a handful of the same bottles.

Unfortunately, it was exactly this ease of access to Asian cuisines that kept Torontonians from pursuing sake outside of a restaurant setting. When the pandemic lockdowns started, everything changed.

“Over the past two years, there’s been a huge increase in interest,” Hatherell observes. “Maybe before it was too easy, you could just walk into Miku or Ki and find sake. All of a sudden, that door was shut, and people started paying more attention and became a little more proactive, which translated into much more interest and sales growth.”

For Evans and his Nippon team, however, it was a different story. They had just established their company in 2019, and the pandemic couldn’t have come at a worst time.

“We had just gotten our first modest batch of major products and started chatting with restaurants—then COVID hit and we were flat on our faces.”

While more mature firms like Metropolitan saw greater interest during the pandemic, Nippon’s mission to bring new, rarer sakes to Toronto relied on indoor dining. Their decision to work only with restaurants has two main benefits: to help Torontonians see a closer relationship between sake and food, and to ensure they could evenly spread their very limited supply of craft sakes so that more people across the city could access sakes from these small breweries, whose capacities allow them to produce only a small number of bottles a year.

Today, bottles imported by Nippon can be found in some of the city’s most well-known names, including Alo, Aburi Hana (where Nippon’s Amy Lee serves as Sake Director), Ki, Sakai Bar, and Frilu. Their biggest mission right now? Finding more restaurants that are willing to work with them to change the misconception that sake only goes with Asian foods.

In particular, experience Amy Lee's impressive curation of sake at Aburi Hana, a modern Kyo-Kaiseki restaurant helmed by chef Ryusuke Nakagawa, who delivers an exquisite seasonal menu that changes every two months.

“Everyone defaults to wine when they’re having food, but wine actually wasn’t made for that. Sake is,” Evans explains. “Japan is very regional, and each region competes to produce the best food. Out of that, sake was born and over the next hundreds of years, they’ve been improving their processes to produce the best sake. The drink is really born out of a pairing with food.”

“And in fact, in Japan, it’s coveted and fashionable to have sake in French, Spanish, or German restaurants because they work really well together. To any non-Asian restaurants in Toronto who are brave enough to want to take a chance: I’m 100% confident—not 99%, but 100%—that I could fit the sake with their food in ways that would blow the customer away. French, German, Brazilian—it would go killer with Brazilian meat.”

Sake pairings for every flavour, explained

To show the true versatility of sake with any type of food, both teams at Nippon and Metropolitan put together sake pairings to help you understand the gastronomical science behind this match made in heaven.

Contemporary Canadian: Frilu x Heiwa Shuzou by Nippon Sake

President of Heiwa Shuzou, Norimasa Yamamoto (centre) with the Nippon team.

A few months ago in May, the Nippon team welcomed the president of Heiwa Shuzou, Norimasa Yamamoto, to introduce his KID sakes to Canada for the first time. Frilu’s Owner and Executive Chef John-Vincent “JV” Troiano crafted the menu especially for Yamamoto-san’s visit, highlighting the various KID sakes that Nippon now carries.

Smoky Ontario Rainbow Trout with buttermilk.

Chicken Liver and onions.

Fresh pasta dish with butter, pecorino cheese, fava beans, and spring peas.

The first entrée by Chef JV: smoky Ontario Rainbow Trout with buttermilk. Paired with the KID Junmai Daiginjo’s fruity notes, the lukewarm fish was perfectly complemented by the coldness of the sake. A pure, aromatic, and fresh drink like this one makes it ideal for fish—especially when it has the fattiness of in-season trout with creamy buttermilk. A simply refreshing palate cleanser.

The same Junmai Daiginjo was also paired with the next dish, Chicken Liver and Onions, to bring out the sweetness of fresh onions picked from Chef JV’s homestead Willowolf Farm. Eaten with the sake, the rich liver dish was beautifully balanced, and added an interesting complexity to the iron-y taste of the spinach, which had been washed, dried, and dehydrated.

Next up was the KID Junmai Ginjo, a more natural-tasting sake served cold for Frilu’s fresh pasta dish with butter, pecorino cheese, fava beans, and spring peas. Against the sharp, saltiness of the pecorino, the earthy sake’s fermented notes created a pleasant contrast that simultaneously complemented the dish’s green and vegetal elements from the fava beans and fresh spring peas.

2-week aged Linton Pasture Pork and plum miso dish.

Salted ricotta, caramelized konbu, and lemon curd .

With sake, temperature truly matters. Chef JV chose to pair two vastly different dishes with the same KID Junmai Ginjo. After having it cold to contrast the richness of a creamy and earthy pasta dish, the Junmai Ginjo was then served at room temperature alongside a 2-week aged Linton Pasture Pork and plum miso dish. This time, the alcohol’s natural heat was completely awakened. Alongside the smoky pork and the strong saltiness of the plum miso, the sake pairing created an almost paradoxical balance of spiciness and smooth, light sweetness.

Although sakes are mostly known for their savoury, umami flavours, you’d be surprised how well they pair with dessert. For this pairing menu’s finale, Frilu paired an ice cream-like dessert of salted ricotta, caramelized konbu, and lemon curd with the KID Sparkling Junmai Daiginjo. The sparkling sake’s natural bubbles seemed to break up the salted ricotta’s thick texture, creating an entirely elevated and delightful experience.

Throughout the dinner, Evans, Yamamoto-san and Chef JV took turns explaining every dish and pairing before they were served. The level of intimacy and shared curiosity that could be felt inside Frilu was a promising indication of just how much Torontonians can enjoy sakes with the right amount of education.

“Just ten years ago, customers would come in for a tasting menu and be upset if there was a sake pairing instead of wine,” Chef JV recalls. “Now, with people like Jason sharing the generational labours of sake, it’s really started to take off. People love the stories, and they love how versatile the drink can be. Compared with wine pairings, creating a sake pairing menu is not at all challenging. Everything just goes together.”

Untraditional Japanese: Miku by Metropolitan Wines & Sakes

Another interesting way to test the versatility of sake is with revitalized traditional cuisines. For their sake pairing, the Metropolitan team took us to one of their partner restaurants, Miku. As a modern Japanese restaurant with an east-meets-west history, Miku was the perfect setting to symbolize the union of Japanese and Canadian flavours.

Vegetable nigiri from Miku’s Garden Select dish.

Oysters paired with Gokujo Ginjo from Yoshinogawa brewery.

Miku’s Kyoto Saikyo Miso Sablefish & Lobster.

As one of Metropolitan’s sake experts, Altosaar wanted to showcase sake’s surprising range with less traditional pairings like vegetable nigiri from Miku’s Garden Select dish.

“This just really shows how far you can go with vegetarian ingredients. Sake pairs very well with vegetables, too, and incorporating it as nigiri just elevates it all,” says Altosaar.

With a colourful variety of vegetables like avocado, eggplant, red pepper, shiso, and eggplant, the Dewazakura Yukimegami 48 Junmai Daiginjo was the one for the job. Soft, elegant, and a bit fruity, the Yamagata Prefecture sake brings out just the right amount of sweetness without competing with the food.

Likewise, for oysters, Altosaar recommends something clean, crisp, and dry, like the Gokujo Ginjo from Yoshinogawa brewery.

“If you’ve never had sake or are just starting to try it, you can’t go wrong with something nice and easy—something more delicate and fruit-forward, or clean and elegant,” she suggests.

However, for something on the richer side, like Miku’s Kyoto Saikyo Miso Sablefish & Lobster, you’ll want a bottle like the Hiyaoroshi Junmai Ginjo (or “Sleeping Beauty”) from Masumi Sake. Made using a more traditional fermentation method, the Hiyaoroshi takes longer to brew as the lactic bacteria starts to build naturally within the starter mash. The result is a smooth balance of umami and fruitiness, plus a fun and playful acidity to cut through the richness of the miso, the lobster, and the fatty sablefish.

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