The Drake Hotel’s Anthony Rose dishes on the Dining Roadshow and the secret to his famous burgers

Later this month, The Drake Hotel is hitting the road but isn’t leaving its backyard. Beginning June 23, Chef Anthony Rose and his audacious posse of cooks are taking the dining room on a field trip to a mess hall and Chinatown. The “restaurant-within-a-restaurant” concept will come complete with ketchup and mustard squeeze bottles, cafeteria trays and tomato alphabet soup. In September, the restaurant will transform yet again into circa 1940s Chinatown in Los Angeles. Just in time for TIFF, The Drake Hotel will be dishing out pork belly fried rice, firecracker maple shrimp and oxtail wontons.

The devil is in the sweet details: Q&A with cake master Bonnie Gordon

Intricate, detailed and fussy. That’s how master cake artist Bonnie Gordon loves her cakes. Over the years, as a cake instructor and decorator, Gordon has paid her dues, putting in serious time with precision pastry cutters, paint brushes and her trusty turntable. Now serving as the director of the Bonnie Gordon College of Confectionary Arts, it’s Gordon’s turn to have her cake and eat it too.

On Sunday (May 15), the college will host its annual Cake Show at the Artscape Wychwood Barns in Toronto’s St. Clair and Christie Neighbourhood. The event will be a battling ground for ardent cake artists to showcase their sweet stuff in various competitions. One competition, the Cake Star Face-Off seems especially grueling – 3 contestants (accomplished cake decorators in their own right) will have 6 hours to create a cake that evokes the four seasons. For the faint of heart, another competition will feature 3 designers who will be given one hour to create a mere 6 cupcakes.

On a recent afternoon, Gordon invited OurFaves to visit the college for a behind-the-scenes peek into a real cake factory. With furrowed-browed students working carefully on their final cake projects in the background, Gordon let us in on the cake the brought her out of her self-imposed cake-making retirement, her favourite dessert (it’s not cake!) and the first baking cookbook she ever owned.

BIXI bike share program launches in Toronto

It wasn’t quite bike weather on Tuesday morning in Toronto as rain fell, puddles formed and the clouds obscured the sun. You wouldn’t know it, but a new biking revolution was brewing on Yonge and Gould Streets. BIXI has rolled into town and today marked the launch of its bike sharing program. With 300 shiny new black bikes lined up neatly in their docking stations, it’s going to get a lot easier for Torontonians to hop on a bike and take a tour of their city.

Q&A: Illustrator Jack Dylan preps for the Drake Spring Market

Hailing from Montreal but now happily entrenched in Toronto’s Trinity Bellwoods neighbourhood, Jack Dylan is an illustrator whose work has graced the pages of Toronto Life, The Walrus, Maclean’s and The Globe and Mail. Best known for poster art reminiscent of what you’ll find on the cover of The New Yorker on any given week, Dylan’s wares are on display this weekend at the annual Outdoor Drake Spring Market. Alongside handmade jewellery, one-of-a-kind art pieces and vintage furniture, Dylan’s posters depicting the Trinity Bellwood’s gate and a Mount Royal beach scene are up for grabs.

If you’ve ever wondered what went on inside the head of a talented illustrator with a penchant for podcasts and sandwiches, look no further. We cornered the busy artist recently and asked him about the most scathing criticism he’s ever gotten and his favourite place in the city to put pencil to paper.

Where to go on St. Paddy’s day in Toronto

Chris Taylor was already decked out in his St. Paddy’s day garb on Thursday morning as he worked feverishly behind the scenes fielding phone calls and making last minute arrangements for the biggest day of the year for Grace O’Malley’s pub in Toronto’s entertainment district. Taylor, O’Malley’s general manager has been in the bar business for the better part of 20 years. He sat down with OurFaves half an hour before the bar’s doors opened to welcome St. Patrick’s Day revelers to talk about green beer, St. Patrick and the Irishman’s drink of choice…Guinness.