When he joined the cast of Top Chef Canada in 2017 as a member of the judging panel, it seemed like the former Globe and Mail Toronto restaurant critic, Chris Nuttall-Smith, had stepped out of the food writing sphere and into the television limelight. In the same year, Nuttall-Smith hosted a CBC pilot culinary-focused podcast series, The Fridge Light with Chris Nuttall-Smith, which wrapped this past December.
Today, Nuttall-Smith took to Twitter to announce a new venture (or at least strongly hinted) at one anyway.
"In one of the world’s greatest food towns, we’ve entrusted our restaurant advice, and our meals out, to paid-for-praise 'influencers', out-of-touch puff publications and done-on-the-dirt-cheap listicle farms," said Nuttall-Smith during a series of tweets.
So I’m starting something, along with a few of the city’s best food and drink writers. It’s a new type of food publication. It won’t sell ads. We’ll pay for our own meals, thank you.
— Chris Nuttall-Smith (@cnutsmith) April 25, 2018
The restaurant and culinary expert said he misses his writing position badly and implies that the lack of "in-depth" and "unafraid" food writing is lacking in the city. (We concur, and that goes for most of Canada as well.)
Though the name, branding and details about this new (presumably online) review source are still unknown at this point, he says he has already been overwhelmed by the response.
"It’s been a big day, for sure, and it feels like people are ready for something new in the city."
And we can't wait to see what that something new turns out to be.
Stick to Nuttall-Smith's Twitter feed for more updates in the coming days.