When we asked chefs whom they depend on the most, one name came up more often than anyone else: Afrim Pristine. The third-generation cheesemonger at the helm of Etobicoke’s Cheese Boutique (45 Ripley Ave.) supplies roughly 125 restaurants in the city with 500 or so types of cheese—not to mention hard-to-find jams, jellies, olive oils, house-made sausages, breads and meats—from his family-run shop. If he doesn’t have what a chef is looking for, he’ll find it; if he can’t find it, he’ll make it. Although Pristine and his staff process 40 restaurant orders a day, on top of serving the public, he has an encyclopedic knowledge of all his customer orders. “I don’t remember what I ate last night but I know what people ordered
from me nine years ago,” he says.
The Grid asked him to rattle off some of his regular orders.
Queen Margherita Pizza
45 pails of fior di latte mozzarella: “A week’s worth of pizzas. Each pail contains 12 mozzarellas.”
Great Cooks On Eight
» ½ pound each of oven roast turkey, ham, prosciutto, kielbasa and krakowska sausage
» Chévre noir
» Aged cheddar
» Head cheese
» Lemon pasta
Langdon Hall
“We made a special gin-and-tonic and lime-infused goat cheese for chef Jonathan Gushue. I’ve known Jonathan a long time, and I proposed to my wife at Langdon Hall.”
The Drake Hotel
Nicoise olives, picholine olives, Seranno ham, Parma prosciutto and a lamb sausage specially made for the restaurant.
Brassaii
“Chef Bruce Woods trusts our tastes, so his order will simply say, ‘Two hard cheeses, two soft and one blue.’”
Scaramouche
» Chabichou cheese
» Beaufort cheese
» 3 blocks of Parmigiano-Reggiano, cut into nine pieces
» Iowa Berkshire prosciutto
» Pomegranate molasses
» Buffalo mozzarella
Origin
» 36 buffalo mozzarellas
» 12 burrata
» 12 fior di latte mozzarella
» 500 grams of Fontina
» 1 wheel of Manchego
“That might last Origin a day.”
Harbour Sixty Steakhouse
» Picholine olives
» Parmigiano-Reggiano
» 10 small wheels of Camembert
» 8 logs of Monte Enebro goat cheese
» One half wheel of Moliterno Truffle Pecorino
“A last-minute order, delivered within three hours.”
TOCA
“We stock the restaurant’s entire cheese cave, which contains almost $50,000 worth of cheese, including a specially made maple-cheddar whisky.”
O&B Canteen
» Sliced provolone
» Sliced Fontina
» Peach and blood-orange lemonades
» Grana Padano cheese
