Business, Toronto

Downtown deli guy counters culinary criticism with name drop

Comments Off 21 September 2009

The decision to launch his eponymous eatery via a vacant kitchen at the defiantly unvarnished Monarch Tavern just off College Street, paying less than a grand in monthly rent, made Zane Caplansky the subject of widespread entrepreneurial admiration — especially with the subplot of a Jewish delicatessen taking the old-school street decades after such establishments fled for suburbia. But, with his own standalone restaurant opening this month amidst even greater media goodwill, the slightest slight seems enough to send Zane running to his blog in retaliation. He admits that a phone call from NOW to snap a pic prior to their first-week review of his College and Brunswick location had him blowing a gasket — “Fucker.  How can you review a deli after a week in business?” — then, to his credit, left the original vent online as an admission of stress-induced hysteria. So, on Saturday, after catering the Jewish New Year’s Day lesbian wedding of local demi-celebs Lorraine Segato and Naomi Landsberg-Lewis, the discovery of the first outright negative review of Caplansky’s made its proprietor wish he spent the day praying instead. “Terrible,” assessed National Post reviewer Gina Mallet’s Jewish consort (code name: “Broadway Danny Rose”) after digging into a knish, latke and deli combo order. “Using an anonymous ‘expert’ to say my matzoh balls are too small, my smoked meat too smokey and criticize my mother?,” wrote Zane. “You’ve gone too far lady.  If I had a subscription, I’d cancel it.” Meanwhile, being busy with the Landsberg-Lewis-Segato nuptial job meant he missed concert promoter Michael Cohl’s “at all costs” order for a tongue sandwich by noon, even though the deli was closed for Rosh Hashanah — so that night, as if it were Christmas, the Caplansky’s staff feasted at a nearby Chinese restaurant instead.

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