DaiLo - Wine & Spirits Magazine

Restaurant Review

DaiLo

by John Szabo MS • July 7, 2016

photo by Dyan Layne

Whole Fried Trout

Newcomer DaiLo might best be described as a Chinese bistro. Chef Nick “Ninja” Liu draws on the dishes of his Hakka ancestors, building them out from local and sustainable ingredients and French techniques, and augmenting them with his own flair. Creations like Mongolian grilled lamb neck with sambal pickle, cucumber, celery, chili, chive pancake and hoisin, or whole fried trout from Jim Giggies’ Oceanwise farm with nahm jim, green curry aioli and soy glaze, belong in their own chapter of the Toronto dining repertoire. Liu is reunited with former employer Anton Potvin (Niagara Street Café), one of Toronto’s most admired wine personalities and now DaiLo’s GM and beverage director. Drawing from the four corners of the wine world, Potvin has established an eclectic selection of deftly chosen wines to manage Liu’s inventive, intensely flavored cuisine (truffle fried rice with Terre Nere’s Etna Rosso, or sweet-and-sour pork hock with Champalou’s Vouvray, for example). Lo Pan upstairs serves outstanding cocktails and an edited menu.

503 College St., Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Brasserie, Chinese

647-341-8882

John Szabo MS

John Szabo MS is the Toronto-based author of Volcanic Wines (Jacqui Small Publishing 2016), co-founder of Volcanic Wines International, and partner and principal critic at WineAlign.com. He’s also part-time grapegrower on the limestones of Prince Edward County, Ontario.

This story appears in the print issue of August 2016.
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TAGS Brasserie Canada Chinese Ontario Restaurant Toronto

David Paradela
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David joined Wine & Spirits in 2021 after immersing himself in the world of wine at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Originally from Boston, he graduated from Boston University with a degree in English and completed a master’s degree in Publishing and Writing from Emerson College in 2021. Prior to working at the magazine, he served as an editor and staff writer for the music blog Sound of Boston and worked in scientific publishing. Aside from wine, he loves basketball, arguing about Taylor Swift’s best album, and everything Greta Gerwig touches.

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After graduating with a degree in journalism from the Universidad de Chile in Santiago, Patricio Tapia attended Bordeaux University in France, where he studied for a diploma in wine tasting and winemaking. Since then, he has visited wine regions around the world and authored several books, including his annual Descorchados, a Chilean wine guide; The Wines of Colchagua Valley; TodoVino and Wines for Great Occasions. Tapia is also the South American correspondent for The Oxford Companion to Wine, The World Atlas of Wine and Oz Clarke’s Pocket Wine Book. For the past three years, he’s been a host on the El Gourmet channel in South America. At Wine & Spirits, Tapia is the critic for the wines of Argentina, Chile and Spain, and regularly contributes articles on these regions.