A Dreyfus hat worn by a passing jogger, a Sugo hoodie in the park, a Ruru Baked tote in a grocery queue: If you look for it, you’ll spot people wearing restaurant merchandise all over Toronto, enthusiastically becoming walking advertisements for local sandwiches, pizza or ice cream.
“It kind of feels like buying a T-shirt from your favourite band,” says Joel Malkin, the artist behind some of the most recognizable branded items for hip Toronto and Montreal restaurants. “It’s something that you are proud to be a part of, and it feels good to be in the know.”
Malkin has designed items from the labels for Prime Seafood Palace’s tinned caviar to Liverpool House’s “qui dort dîne” shirt, which features skeletons shaking hands over London Bridge. He says effective merch should be an advertisement for a business but has to stand on its own esthetic merits to work.
Much like a concert tee, restaurant merch is a way to commemorate good memories. “At Liverpool House and Joe Beef, people would leave after having a great time and that was almost always when people would buy merch. [It’s like], ‘That was awesome, I had a great time, I’m getting a piece of merch to remember that by.’”
It’s also an investment in cultural capital. The food businesses that inspire this appetite for wearable goods specialize in hand-pulled noodles, malt boiled bagels, from-scratch tortellini and custard-based ice creams: skills steeped in tradition and identity, quality and care. Their memorabilia allows Torontonians to feel part of something, wear their neighbourhood pride on their sleeve and show their good taste.
The pasta rock stars
Famiglia Baldassarre on Geary Ave. is a trove of pasta all’uovo (egg pasta), a tradition anchored in but not limited to the Emilia Romagna region of Italy. They sell it wholesale and offer it in a rotating lunch service Wednesday to Friday, along with a wide-ranging and sometimes bizarre collection of merchandise.
The merch started out as the shop uniform, giving a sense of order and constancy not unlike a French kitchen brigade. Now it’s the opposite: the whole team wears Baldassarre merch but it’s never the same, with everyone in pieces from different eras.
“It’s not an important part of my business, but it’s been an important part for me,” says owner Leo Baldassare, who has made everything from rolling pins and pasta cutters to sweaters, key rings and tote bags, plus handmade brass castings of tortellini. He uses it as a creative outlet outside of making pasta. “It’s purely for fun. I’ve never made money on merch since day one.”
Much of his merch sells to others in the industry. “I’m not in the fashion business; I’m a cook,” says Baldassarre. “If people are wearing our shirts, in a kitchen especially, it’s a seal of approval from professionals, and that’s all I’ve ever wanted to be.”
The merch to get: A toque inspired by the autumnal pumpkin tortellini di zucca pasta, $30, famigliabaldassarre.com.
The bagel destination
At Primrose Bagel Company, owner Sam Davis’s recipe pays tribute to the many excellent bagels he’s eaten in his life, from bagels of the famous United Bakers Dairy Restaurant run by his cousins in North York to the malt-boiled bagels of N.Y.C. But he also folds in modern baking techniques: Sourdough starter serves to lighten the crumb while deepening the flavour, before the bagels are rolled, malt-boiled, then baked.
Davis, who opened his Oakwood Avenue shop in January 2020, has a marketing background and merch was part of the plan from the beginning. “We wanted to connect with the younger, more food-forward crowd,” he says. “At the same time, I think a lot of bubbes would be happy to get a bagel T-shirt from their grandson.”
He imagined a clothing line would be a fun way to engage with his loyal customers, but it’s also a way to engage with his family’s Jewish lineage in Toronto. His Polish grandfather was in the schmatta business, and operated in the Fashion District on Spadina Ave. “My grandfather owned the Primrose Garment Company and the logo we use today is the exact same as he used; I just erased the word ‘garment’ and replaced it with ‘bagel,’” says Davis. “That’s definitely a big part of it for me, maintaining that garment company. It’s a fun dream of mine to produce clothing as well as bagels.”
The merch to get: The “bodega” T-shirt inspired by vintage bodega signage, $35, primrosebagel.com.
The pastry specialists
Roselle Desserts was born from couple Stephanie Duong and Bruce Lee’s shared passion for pastry, developed while working in Michelin kitchens in Paris. Together, they are constantly reinventing their menu to reflect Ontario’s seasonality, with treats such as a Black Forest Pavlova topped with Soma chocolate, vanilla cream and Niagara sour cherries, or the XL banana cream-filled Paris-Brest.
Ten years ago, when they opened in Corktown, merchandising was a distant afterthought. They introduced Roselle T-shirts and hoodies a year in, in response to high demand from customers who wanted to show off their local pride. “Our designs are simple and playful, kind of how we approach our desserts,” says Duong. “We lean more toward the cute and whimsical, putting our pastries at the forefront.” They approach their merch with intention, creating items that reflect their craft and interests, such as a Roselle bowl scraper, an essential tool for transferring doughs and batters, and a madeleine kit complete with a non-stick carbon steel madeleine mould, piping bag, and instructions to make perfect specimens at home. Most recently, they introduced a 500-piece jigsaw puzzle of an illustration of their storefront. “I wanted something that would be a great representation of Roselle,” says Duong. “I figured it would be a great holiday thing because it’s a fun activity to do as a family.”
The merch to get: Roselle’s “Dessert makes me happy” tote bag, which fits a dozen cake cups and was designed by local maker Province of Design, $40, roselleto.com.
The ice cream innovators
“Looking at the website, sometimes I don’t think people know what we do,” says Luanne Ronquillo dryly. “There’s hoodies, we have ice cream of course, but there’s also jewelry. It’s all over the place but somehow it makes sense.”
Ronquillo started Ruru Baked in 2017, making all-natural custard-based ice creams that were at first available as a small delivery service. The rotating list of ice-cream flavours, now numbering 80, are eccentric, thoughtful and always original; standouts include blackberry calamansi (Filipino lime) swirl, peach green tea sorbet, brown butter, honey and sage, and condensed milk and red bean.
“I get bored really fast,” Ronquillo says. “Making ice cream is a good medium for me because I can change flavours and do different things all the time.” That also applies to her frequent collaborations with like-minded brands.
Ruru has two brick and mortar locations now, at Bloor and Lansdowne and Pacific Mall, but demand for its swag has flooded in from around the world. “We’ve gotten orders from Singapore, Japan, Paris, Australia,” says Ronquillo. “We get a lot of people who aren’t in the city, who may have been customers of ours before, or who are fans from afar who don’t get to try our ice cream.”
Coming up with the range of items is a fun and creative way for the team to engage with other things they like, she says. “It’s always been a goal of mine to not just be about the ice cream, but more about a lifestyle.”
The merch to get: Nylon six-panel cap by Ruru Baked x Montreal-based fashion brand Estudio Niksen, $50, rurubaked.com.
The ramen artists
The centrepiece of east end Tokyo-style ramen bar Oji Seichi is a restaurant-length mural displaying its values: heritage, community and high-quality food. You can’t help but gaze upon it while slurping Oji’s ramen made with chintan dashi, or clear broth, which makes for a lighter but unbelievably flavourful soup.
The mural’s cartoonish artwork has also permeated the packaging of the wholesale products and the designs of Oji Seichi’s gear, which includes white and blue ramen bowls, illustrated socks and an enamel pin. One of the bestselling shirts exhibits its pride of place, emblazoned in bold font with Oji’s east Chinatown address, 354 Broadview Ave., which has a particular resonance with local customers.
“A lot of our demographic is connected to the art side of things,” says Wilson Duong, Oji Seichi creative director and co-owner along with Shawn Irvine and Mitch Bates. “The merch has been a way to connect with our community in an artistic way.”
Recently, the team invited Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, ramen fan and lead actress of the hit Netflix series Never Have I Ever, to collaborate. First, they created a dish for her: chicken and crab paruppu miso ramen. Then they moved onto clothes. “We did her own ramen, and we wanted to do her own collection,” says Duong. “She actually did the illustrations herself.”
The merch to get: Maitreyi Ramakrishnan x Oji Seichi long-sleeve tee illustrated with a stacked bowl of ramen, $55, ojiseichi.com
