ARTS & CULTURE
10 Obiter Dicta
Jurisfoodence: In Search of Toronto’s Best Brunch
Food Adventure #12: Lady Marmalade
kate henley & karolina wisniewski ›
staff writer & editor-in-chief
Lady Marmalade
(898 Queen St. East)
K ate: For our last foray into the Toronto brunch
scene, we chose Lady Marmalade. In my four years
living in Toronto, I had never been to this area (or
many places east of Yonge, to be honest—I can count
the number of times I’ve crossed the Don River on
one hand), and holy shit it is far. It took me fortyfive minutes to get there from my apartment, and
an hour and a half to get to York afterwards. I have
to be honest though: I am a (not so?) secret yuppie:
my Masters paper (completed the day before this last
brunch adventure!) was about local food, and one of
the reasons I wanted to check this place out was that
it sources it’s food locally, and they only use grassfed meat.
K arolina: WHERE AM I? Seriously, this trip into
Leslieville was like stepping into an alternate reality. Despite all of the weirdness, I have to say I fell
in love with the neighbourhood, which I had never
bothered to explore before. So quaint and yuppie,
but somehow more tolerable than its counterparts to
the west.
Although our final brunch resto choice was dictated by our scheduling constraints (do you know
how hard it is to find a place that serves brunch on a
weekday? Before 11 am? It’s basically mission impossible), Lady Marmalade was on our collective radar
for months, so I’m glad we were able to try it out.
Brunch Hours
Lady Marmalade is open on weekdays from 8 a.m.-4
p.m. and weekends 8 a.m.-3 p.m..
Wait Time/Service
K ate: Karolina was already seated when I arrived
(again: this place is so far out of the way, and the
Queen streetcar is so slow and unreliable that I was
about ten to fifteen minutes late), and the server was
ready to take our order right away. The food came
really quickly, and the server was nice, though a bit
standoffish—something I would expect at The Drake,
but not at a place like this.
K arolina: The server was attentive and accommodating, if a little stiff. There was no chatting, and
when asked for recommendations or opinions about
certain dishes, our server just sort of looked at me
blankly and choked out a two-word response. But he
was polite enough, and the food came quickly, so no
major problems here.
Atmosphere
K ate: Sadly, Christina Aguilera et al were not blasting through the speakers upon arrival. In truth, I’m
not sure if any music was playing at all. Though F