Page 1
Best New Restaurant Award 2023

Prime Seafood Palace

DEPENDING ON WHO YOU ASK, Matty Matheson is either a larger-than-life YouTube personality, a genius slinger of hipster burgers or the mastermind behind Toronto’s best and hottest new restaurant. Well, clearly, he’s all three — a Ringling-worthy lovable clown who somehow manages to land every feat of culinary derring-do with death-defying bravado. Which makes him the triple threat nobody saw coming, as he apparently — and, uncharacteristically, quietly — planned his fine-dining debut these past six or seven years. And, even though his volume is permanently set to a treble-tweaked 11, he’s exhibited patience and exactitude in the creation of the elegant and remarkably pretty Prime Seafood Palace.

The space is breathtaking, and it’s a testament to the quality of the cooking that the view doesn’t leave an impression more lasting than that of the food on the plate. (Though, it’s close.) All soft white-wood tones, the effect is Scandinavian sauna meets spiritual temple. Into this palatial ether — designed by architect Omar Gandhi, his first stab at a restaurant — Matheson inserted ex-Canoe chef Coulson Armstrong, who, from day 1, set Toronto’s gourmet set alight with his inventive, classically informed technique. This is a pure steak-and-seafood kind of place, to be sure, but overlaid with inventive flourishes.

Matheson’s culinary cathedral has been enthusiastically received by Toronto gourmands. Somehow, post-pandemic belt tightening has no quarter here — the downtown set can’t spend its money fast enough. And kudos to him. He’s made a place that has received notice — for the design, the food, the service, the chef…the style and the attitude and the experience. It’s casual, as is his wont, but uncompromising in quality — for those who can afford it. Which is OK, too.

—Dick Snyder


Photography by: Daniel Neuhaus

More Awards

All Awards
Hotshot

Kate Chernoff

Best Bartender

Christina Veira

Best Restaurant Bar

Major Tom

Best New Restaurant Design

The Royal Hotel

Best Patio

Poincaré Chinatown

Best Pastry Chef

Kenta Takahashi

News and more

Sign up to our newsletter

Test
Advertisement