The best
food and wine Ontario has to offer will be
served up at the Eat, Drink & Give benefit for Haiti relief on February 9.
The
event, hosted by CityNews anchor Gord Martineau, will take place at Roy Thomson
Hall and promises to be a lively night for chefs and foodies alike in support
of Doctors Without Borders’s relief efforts in the earthquake-ravaged nation. The
idea came about via Twitter conversations among Toronto food and wine lovers, organizer Joel
Solish tells CityLine.ca.
“Such an
impoverished nation going through such a troubling experience, we felt that we
needed to do something,” Solish explains. “It’s logical for us to pair some of
the great restaurants that we have in the city with some of the most
magnificent wines found around the globe. We have Ontario wines as well as some really strong
international brands that are participating.”
Auberge du
Pommier, Splendido, Cava and Grano are among the Toronto restaurants taking part, and their delectable
offerings will be paired with wines from more than a dozen local and international
wineries including Fielding Estate, Ravine Vineyard, Cave Spring Cellars and 13th Street
Winery. There will also be sweet treats from The Sweet Escape Patisserie, Sugar
Baking, For Goodness Bakes, and more. For a full list of participants, click
here.
“The
support has been tremendous, I think many of us are actually quite surprised at
how quickly we’ve been able to gather the troops and support,” fellow organizer
Paolo Berard says. “I think through the network of people that we’ve been able
to reach out to on Twitter, many of them in turn reached out to people they
knew in the community. As soon as word got out, we started getting responses
literally within days that people were delighted to help out and do anything they
could, be it supply food, supply wine, attend, help out, and we took it from
there.”
In
addition to the fine food and drink, there will be a silent auction, and
Doctors Without Borders spokeswoman Isabelle Jeanson will speak about the
relief effort thus far.
Two hundred early bird tickets will be available for $75,
and the remainder will be sold at $100. One hundred VIP tickets will also
be available at $150 which will give attendees the opportunity to taste premium
wines.
“Many of
us were connected by food and wine initially and that’s how we all came to be
friends,” Berard notes. “It’s nice to see that we’re able to leverage that
experience and say, ‘You know what? It’s time to take something that we all
take for granted and give a little bit back.’”
For more details on Eat, Drink & Give and to buy
tickets, click here.