Assembly Chef’s Hall is joining the growing list of food halls in Toronto.
by Axile Gerona
A food hall offering handcrafted and fresh dishes is opening this fall in the Financial District.
Assembly Chef’s Hall is an 18,000-square-foot indoor food hall that will be featuring offshoots of 17 Toronto-based restaurants.
“Food halls have better products, better chefs and restaurateurs,” said Paul Marshall, owner and chef of Love Chix at 1588 Dupont St., one of the restaurateurs to be featured in the Assembly.
Assembly Chef’s Hall will be joining Adelaide Eats, formerly Front Street Foods, and Eataly in the growth of food halls’ popularity in Toronto.
Food courts are the places where you already know what kind of restaurants to expect, said Marshall on the difference of a food hall and a food court.
“The Burger King, the Thai food, the Subway, the fast sushi place, it’s very corporate. Food halls are more glorified,” said Marshall.
The Assembly has been signing off its social media posts with the hashtag #EatResponsibly.
This hashtag garnishes on the social responsibility of chefs to feed their guests high quality and healthy food as much as they can, said Marshall.
“Granted that we serve fried chicken, we only use the best chicken without it being overpriced.”
Love Chix uses antibiotic and hormone-free chickens in their dishes, said Marshall.
The restaurant will be featuring their various fried chicken dishes at the hall and signature items from their main restaurant’s menu, like their fried brussels sprout.
Assembly Chef’s Hall, located at 111 Richmond St. W., will be open seven days a week.
The booths in the hall are significantly smaller than typical food stalls, and will only accommodate no more than five staff members at a time, said Marshall.
“We had to think of a way to pull the attention away from our kitchen staff who are handling raw chicken. There is nothing sexy about that, unlike the romance of chefs kneading pizza or rolling sushi.”
Love Chix at 1588 Dupont St. has a “modernized farmland” theme for their interior design, whereas their booth in the Assembly will have graffiti art on the front wall to give off an urban Toronto vibe, as well as to hopefully take away attention from the open kitchen space, said Marshall.
Logistics are the biggest concern for Marshall.
“We got a refrigerated van to bring and store our stuff downtown while we are working in the hall,” he said. “Making the food is the easiest part. We got that down.”
The food hall has a 3,000-square-foot outdoor patio, a 205-seat-beer hall and an indoor marketplace with live music and chef-led events.
“You go to food halls for the experience,” said Marshall. “The Assembly, for example, has a full liquor license where you can walk around with your Ontario craft beer, cocktail or a nice bottle of wine.”
StoryMap by Urbi Khan
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