Take a tour of some of the best patios in Waterloo region and area: Jasmine Mangalaseril
"It's nice, after a long winter. This winter was really cold and long, and so it's beautiful to be outside," said Darko Zeljkovic while he sat on a downtown Kitchener patio.
He's Bosnian and said outdoor culture is a regular part of European life.
Colourful umbrellas, leafy trellises and cozy gazebos welcome diners with crafted cocktails, delicious wines and beers and a menu that celebrates the hot weather ahead.
Most spots have accessible seating but call ahead to confirm if your furry friend can join you. Also, check socials and websites for restaurant's summer schedules of live performances and events.
Whether you want a chili dog, an elevated dinner or something in between, many kitchens are focusing on locally grown and produced ingredients. You'll also find glasses and pitchers filled with sophisticated zero-proof or regular cocktails, beers or coffee drinks.
In Cambridge, you can sip a Moment of Zen cocktail on The Blackshop's patio. They offer dishes like Nashville chicken sliders and sushi cubes from their social hour $8 bar bites menu.
In Elora, enjoy the staff's favourite beef souvlaki under The Friendly Society's streetside zebra-striped umbrellas and have a Strawberry-Basil Smash.
When Bardō Guelph's summer menu launches, they'll have produce from their Millgrove farm in dishes like the Mexican Street Corn pizza, and drinks like a Passionfruit Sour.
Thanks to careful design, visitors won't feel crowded on the outdoor space at Waterloo's Bodega Rose. The kitchen is putting their final touches on the summer menu, but they offer a White Lotus and Rosé French 75, with new featured cocktails appearing every weekend.
"We usually just base it off of what the weather is going to be, if there's events going on," explained Marshall Ward, Bodega Rose's front of house beverage manager.
"For example, when Taylor Swift was in Toronto [last November] we did a whole week of Taylor Swift-themed cocktails."
There's a garden-like patio tucked behind downtown Guelph's Miijidaa Café and Bistro. There, you can enjoy thin-crust pizzas or a venison burger as well as a Berries In Bloom cocktail.
Still in Guelph, The Wooly will host Woolystock from June 20 to 22, to celebrate their 35th anniversary. You can enjoy the music and festivities from their porch, patio or biergarten.
In Ayr, Willibald's patio overlooks the farm that inspires their menu. Some of their cocktails, like Rhubarb Rhubarb and the zero-proof Never-Grow Old, feature Ontario honey.
At Fergus's Brewhouse on the Grand, you can get a table overlooking the river or hear it rush by from one of their new gazebos. It's an idyllic setting with an elderberry cocktail or a Thai Coconut Curry.
With a new menu in the works, Guelph's Royal City Brewing will be adding mango and pineapple to their Berserker sour series, and a non-alcoholic citrus Radler.
Kitchener's TWB's patio will reopen in mid-June and will continue hosting events and alternating food pop-ups by Kojo's Kitchen and Lord of the Tacos. They're launching a Pride beer and The Kultrun Raspberry Wheat this summer, and offering Willibald cocktails and Backed by Bees Mead.
While it's not a brewery, uptown Waterloo's Hop House has dozens of beers to enjoy on their patio to go with their summery handhelds and options like blackened chicken with coconut rice.
The Stockyards Brew Hall Restaurant, across from the St. Jacobs Market has a 250-seat patio. Selections from K-W Craft Cider joins their house-made brews, to perfectly pair with the restaurant's upcoming barbecue-themed menu.
Elora's Lobby Bar is preparing for their first patio, where you can enjoy their Asian-inspired small plate menu. Their cocktails include the Mark and Marty gin cocktail, named after Elora Distillery's co-owners.
Looking out over Roos Island in Kitchener's Victoria Park, the Boathouse DTK's cantilevered patio's next phase is expected to be completed in July.
"It will have an outdoor bar as well as a smoker and grill area," explained operations manager, Shawn Flanagan.
"We're going to create a little bit of an event [when construction is over]—a little party kind of atmosphere to introduce ourselves," he said.
It's a perfect sunny spot for an evolving menu that mashes up familiar park concession food, elevated local dishes and barbecue to go with cocktails that capture the season.
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Hypebeast
an hour ago
- Hypebeast
Jean Dawson: An Interlude
Jean Dawson is typically in the studio every day from 7 p.m. through 7 a.m., so an 8 a.m. call time fell right in the middle of his REM sleep. 'Waking up today kicked my ass, but it was great. I need that sometimes,' says Dawson, who finds humility in the mundane. Waking up early isn't a foreign concept for a now 29-year-old Dawson, who grew up as David Sanders. He split his time between San Diego and Mexico, having to wake up before sunrise to walk to the bus to the U.S. border, where he and his younger brother Jerome would then wait in line for hours to cross into the States, where they went to school. This was the protocol for four years up until Dawson was in middle school; he's always valued sleeping in after that. He tells me it's a marker of success. It's similar to why the musician values hot showers so much. He didn't always have a water heater in Mexico, so he and his brother would heat water on the stove to bathe. The son of a U.S. Army father, local to Long Beach, and a Mexican mother who divided her days between multiple jobs, Dawson was raised by his mom — who relocated the family to Spring Valley, California, when Jean was 12 — alongside Jerome and his 'chosen brother' and now manager, Nico Hernandez. 'I still remember sitting in the hood on his doorstep smoking Newports in the middle of winter, telling him, 'One day we're gonna see the world,'' Dawson recalls, now just a wall away from Hernandez, who is seated at the front of the studio with their French Bulldog, Mala. The day prior, Hernandez and Dawson saw Swan Lake together, chuckling at the audience members who side-eyed the all-black-wearing, face-tattooed 6'2' guys sitting in orchestra seats at the ballet. Hidden by the facade is Dawson's deep admiration and knowledge of classical music, but he still invites everyone to form their own opinions. Because ultimately, he could not care any less about them. 'Judge me. Perceive me, because that opinion lives and dies with you.' Other people's perceptions have never really plagued Dawson. He knows his discography is so diverse that it's almost confusing. He knows his voice sometimes sounds like he's screaming. He knows other times it sounds like he has a woman's voice — if the multi-instrumentalist could trade one of his talents, it would be to swap out his singing voice for that of a woman's. He has no desire to fit in any box, except that of his own skin. He prefers the in-between. 'When someone asks me what kind of music I make, I just say, 'You tell me.' Whatever you decide is what I am.' It's Dawson's own opinion that keeps him up at night. He reflected heavily on this sentiment the last time we caught up with him, back in October of 2023, fresh off the release of his 'NO SZNS' collaboration with SZA and the end of his European tour with Lil Yachty. His own worst enemy and loudest critic, Dawson is still working on speaking more kindly to himself. Admittedly, it's a work in progress, but he feels like, lately, he's been learning more about himself 'in passing as a result of it.' After putting his sonic fluidity center stage on his debut studio album Bad Sports in 2019, Dawson landed early collaborations with A$AP Rocky on 2020's Pixel Bath and Earl Sweatshirt on 2022's CHAOS NOW* , and a coveted co-sign from Rick Rubin. Dawson, the duality-drenched, highly self-aware polymath he is, never let the big-name endorsements or credits get to his head, continuing to instead continue to exist in his own enigma. He's also been in the cut with Hypebeast and Hypetrak for a while now, first taking us along for a raw and unfiltered first look into his creative process in an introspective installation of Hypebeast: Diaries in early 2023. Donning a vintage RAF Simons 'Altered Reality' work jacket, Dawson took the team to an observation deck in Lincoln Heights, where he did a lot of his early writing, drawing, and lots and lots of thinking — not all of it productive. Today, Dawson is prioritizing the productive thoughts, the positive ones, the needle-pushing ones, and posing to the negative ones: 'Who do you think you're talking to?' He's also donning the same RAF Simons work jacket — but this time, it's not styled quite the same way. How are you? I'm good. I'm in an interesting place. I'm learning a lot about myself in passing. Things I didn't know about myself are now becoming very clear. The things I want to convey have changed, and the way I want to convey those things has changed. How are you approaching making music these days? I feel a sense of wonderment that I haven't felt in a long time, like a kid, where everything is still interesting and making me wide-eyed. The work we do can make you jaded, and I've kind of just stopped caring — in a helpful way. The act of caring for me is very specific; I'm very intentional with what I spend my time caring about. What are you spending your time on now? A lot of different things that I'm passionate about. I'm always making more music, but there are new things that are making me feel a different sense of excitement. I'm writing some film scripts, which has been fun. The other night, when I was falling asleep, I remembered this quote that's been informing everything I create. I forget if someone said it to me or if I made it up, but it goes: 'I feel like I'm everything because I already was by the time they said I couldn't be,' and that has been ringing true to not only my music and my outlook, but the fluidity of me as a person. By the time someone tells me I can't be something, I've already done it. What are your current thoughts on genre and people trying to box in your sound? If I had to give my music a genre, I'd call it ghetto pop. But I've never belonged to any 'genre' in music. I've never belonged to the punks. I've never belonged to the rock kids. I've never belonged to the hip-hop kids. I've never belonged to the jazz kids. I've never been in a clique of things. Because I can migrate from thing to thing, by the time someone tries to box me in like, 'You make rock music,' I'm already onto the next thing like, 'Oh really? Cool!' Whenever someone asks me what genre of music I make, I say, 'You tell me,' because whatever they decide it is, is what it is. One day I want to do Janis Joplin, then the next I want to do The Temptations, and then the next I want to do Jodeci. My music changes because I change. I respect artists who find a sound and can keep pounding at that. I think that's noble and strong. I'm not strong in that way. I get bored. I can't just color with orange. I need black in there. Is it weird having to tap back into past sounds when you're so far past that point in life? Imagine waking up and the only clothes you have in your closet are from high school… It's like that. So I just do my best to put on those clothes that not only don't fit the same, but also just look funny now. A lot of people found me on an album I dropped in 2019, and I had to get comfortable with the fact that that was a time I'll never be able to replace for them. How do you not let the outside noise affect you? It's not that it doesn't affect me. I feel like the only thing I can provide is a smile and a hug, and being a decent human being to those around me before anything else. I heard something special not too long ago: 'Stop acting like the person next to you isn't your brother or sister.' That's how I'm trying to look at the world and myself. I still can be pretty mean to myself, but I've started to defend myself from myself. It keeps me in check. My favorite thing to say is, 'Who do you think you're talking to?' Or I'll think about the child version of myself. 'You wouldn't talk to seven-year-old you like that. So shut up.' One of my favorite sentiments of yours that we discussed in our last chat was 'Your opinion of me lives and dies in your head.' Is that still your mentality? It's that with more care. It's less punky of an idea and more of an acceptance of self. I know who I am, and whether or not someone sees me the same way is up to them. In the grand scheme of things, I think I'm insignificant — and not in a negative way at all. Insignificant in the scheme of everything good and bad in the world, and that principle allows me to explore my creative freedom. What are some things that hold significance to you today? The sky. The ocean. Babies. This is our first time here (that we know of), and I want to treat it as such. I want to stumble. I want to fall. I want to experience things for the first time. This naive, childlike perspective of 'Oh yeah, I can try this' has given me so much room to gallop. Your sound has changed with every project, yet they all still feel connected. Walk me through getting from your first studio album, Bad Sports , to your most recent, Glimmer of God? From Bad Sports to Pixel Bath , that was me going from crawling to walking. From Pixel Bath to CHAOS NOW* was a jog. CHAOS NOW* was the first album I wrote for myself. Every one before that was for my dad. The stars in the track names are fireworks; I didn't want to end my sentences with periods because everything on that album is meant to be continued. It's supposed to feel like a bunch of run-on sentences written in crayon. Then we get to Glimmer of God , which is me speeding up to where I am now. With that album, I wanted to do something I hadn't done. I wanted to start singing for real. So I locked myself in the house and practiced singing. Before that album, I was just shouting. That album is my ode to truth. And my truth was realizing that I'd been mean to myself for a long time, and that project is me letting that go and starting to be kind and sweet to myself. The deluxe version, Rockabye Baby: Glimmer of God , is the end of the story. It's different, but it's informed by everything I've done. What is it that ties all of your projects together? They're all connected by the same throughline. Little secret: pretty much every song on each album connects to a song on the next album. Every album is a more mature version of its predecessor. On Pixel Bath , I had 'Pegasus' and on CHAOS NOW*, I had 'SICK OF IT*'. Those are the same song; one is just better. What was the guiding principle behind Glimmer of God ? The album is about me embracing my duality. I want to embody beauty and grace in music. It's something I think Prince has done best. It's subversive and it's sweet, but it's also strong and masculine. The things I'm learning about myself have been very informed by my ability to bend like that. There's this anime you should watch called Berserk . One of the male protagonists is named Griffith, and he's gorgeous. His hair is always flowing, and he speaks very calmly. Conversely, the other main character is named Guts, and he's the total opposite. He's a warrior. But both characters are essentially the same person, just two sides of the same coin. That's what I wanted the album cover to feel like: glamorous but don't fuck around. Don't play with me. Where does your innate adaptability come from? It all comes from my mom. She let me be everything I was supposed to be. I was very fortunate to have that. One of my biggest life goals is to open an institution where kids can learn instruments. If they attend enough classes, they can keep their instrument and return whenever they want to refresh their skills. Once they graduate from the program, they can come back and volunteer to teach the kids. You don't know where the next Freddie Mercury might come from. He, she, or they might come from Milwaukee. Or East LA. But when they don't have the opportunity to explore their talents, they'll never know. What are some things you feel privileged to experience today? My favorite thing that I get to do is wake up when I'm not tired. That's my marker of success. Also, being able to travel the world with my brother, Nico. I still remember sitting in the hood on his doorstep smoking Newports in the middle of winter, telling him, 'One day we're gonna see the world.' Now, we're sitting in front of the Eiffel Tower. Yesterday we saw Swan Lake . We're just two colored boys with face tattoos from the hood going to see Swan Lake . People were looking at us like, 'What are they doing here?' Don't get it fucked up. I know more about classical music than you do. Judge me. Perceive me. That thought lives and dies with you. But we can watch Swan Lake together. You designed some of the pieces you're wearing today, like the bedazzled hats and the studded Rick Owens Ramones. Has fashion always been something you've tapped into? I've been making clothes since I was a kid. My mom would take me shopping at the thrift store for clothes. I'd always find skinny jeans in crazy colors, but they wouldn't fit, so we'd bring them down to my aunt in Mexico to tailor them. For every pair I gave her, she charged me a dollar, just to keep me responsible. She'd always try and take me to Foot Locker, and I knew we couldn't afford it and would be like, 'Mom, we can go to Walmart.' I'd get these Starter sneakers and would ask her for colored shoelaces. Then we'd go to Joann Fabrics to get gemstones and glue, and I would spend hours designing my shoes. To this day, I'll buy some Balenciaga and fuck it up. Those hand-studded Ramones took me so long to do. Making music doesn't always calm me down, but fashion is something that calms me down. What does making music feel like today? Making music feels like a long kiss. There's something romantic about being lost in it, and there's something romantic about stepping back and observing it.
Eater
2 hours ago
- Eater
The Tomato Sandwich That Launched a Small NY Restaurant Empire
Husband-and-wife duo behind fish-and-chips sensation Dame, Eater Best New Restaurant winner Lord's, and European seafood spot Crevette, Patricia Howard and Ed Szymanski talk about what inspired them to open their West Village restaurants as they make the iconic Dame tomato sandwich and Barbuto kale salad. As Szymanski marinates large tomato steaks in spicy olive oil, herbs, and vinegar, Howard reminisces about eating at least one tomato sandwich every day when they were the only two employees at Dame. Szymanski created the juicy sandwich because they needed a vegetarian option and was inspired by Howard's obsession with simple tomatoes on toast. They whisk together an aioli with both slow-cooked and raw garlic, as Howard jokes that her husband is known for serving 'a bucket of aioli' at every dinner party they throw. After the tomatoes have marinated for hours, they add aioli, tomatoes, lettuce, basil, chives, and crispy shallots onto a toasted sesame seed bun. The couple discusses trying to eat dinner at home more as they manage newly opened Crevette and their two other restaurants, prioritizing spending time with their one-year-old daughter and expanding her palate with new foods like oysters. Howard says she knew when they first met in 2017 that they would 'get married one day and we're gonna open restaurants together.' The Barbuto kale salad, first popularized at the namesake restaurant by Jonathan Waxman, is a favorite of Howard's and was the first dish they made in the Dame restaurant space before they had a full kitchen. For that dish, breadcrumbs are toasted with olive oil, drained, and seasoned. Szymanski whips up a basil, garlic, parmesan, and anchovy dressing as he talks about working as a line cook before operating his own restaurants. Howard talks about how she can't wait to introduce her daughter to the original salad at Barbuto before Szymanski thinly slices the kale and massages it into the umami-rich dressing. They talk about how the kale salad at Waxman's decades-old institution has stayed the same throughout the years, with Szymanski calling it 'the gold standard,' as they split the tomato sandwich and dig into the nostalgic greens. Watch the this episode of Meals That Made Us on Eater at Home to see Howard and Szymanski debate who was interested in who first and make tdishes that fed the couple when they began their small restaurant empire together.
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
Wildfires in Spain are setting an alarming new record, according to EU data
Spain is battling one of its most destructive fire seasons in decades, with new data showing that wildfire emissions have surged to their highest levels in at least 23 years. The fires have already killed four people, forced thousands to evacuate and burned more than 382,000 hectares – an area larger than Mallorca. According to the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS), wildfire carbon emissions in Spain rose almost vertically on monitoring charts during the first two weeks of August, overtaking all previous years in their dataset that goes back to 2003. On the graph, the 2025 red line shoots sharply upwards from early August, far surpassing the steady grey lines of earlier years and the long-term average shown in black. By 18 August, Spain's wildfire emissions were already well above the previous record highs for a full year. 'The wildfire emissions from Spain and Portugal during August has been exceptional,' said Mark Parrington, Senior Scientist at CAMS. 'The growth in the total estimated emissions from below averages to reach the highest annual total for Spain in the two decades of the CAMS fire emissions dataset in just 7-8 days.' The fires, concentrated in the north-western regions of Galicia, Castilla y León, Asturias and Extremadura, were fuelled by a severe 16-day heatwave, with temperatures topping 44 degrees Celsius in some areas. Spain's weather agency AEMET declared the end of the heatwave on Monday as rain and cooler conditions are forecast for this week. However, the agency warned of continued 'very high or extreme' fire risk across Galicia. Thousands of troops and firefighters, backed by water-bombing aircraft and reinforcements from several European countries, have been deployed to contain the blazes. Air quality has also deteriorated sharply across much of the peninsula. Observations from Spain's monitoring network and CAMS forecasts show levels of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) soaring well above World Health Organisation guidelines, which set the safe daily mean at 15ug/m3. Thick smoke has spread hundreds of kilometres, with plumes carried over France, the UK and Scandinavia, adding to haze already drifting in from Canadian wildfires across the Atlantic. Prime minister Pedro Sánchez acknowledged the role of global heating in worsening the disaster. 'Science tells us so, and common sense tells us so as well, especially that of farmers and those who live in rural areas, that the climate is changing, that the climate emergency is worsening, that it is becoming more recurrent, more frequent, and each time has a greater impact,' he said. Visiting affected areas, Mr Sánchez said the government would designate emergency zones eligible for reconstruction aid and pledged to propose turning climate emergency policies into permanent state law. Neighbouring Portugal is also experiencing one of its worst wildfire years in two decades, with more than 235,000 hectares burned so far – nearly five times the 2006–2024 average for this period, according to the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS). Authorities there have deployed over 3,700 firefighters and declared successive states of emergency since early August. Two people have died, and at least 5,000 firefighters were mobilised at the peak of the crisis. France, meanwhile, saw its most devastating blaze in the Mediterranean region in half a century earlier this month, when 17,000 hectares burned in the Aude department between Carcassonne and Perpignan. Across the continent, more than 439,000 hectares have already gone up in flames this year – double the 19-year average for the same period. Spain has faced devastating wildfires before. In 2022, nearly 310,000 hectares burned during what was then considered the country's worst fire season of the century. But in comparison, this year, by mid-August, the fire-scarred area has risen to between 343,000 and 382,000 hectares, shattering the 2022 record in just eight months. Scientists warn that the climate crisis is stacking the odds towards more frequent and intense fire seasons. Europe has been warming at twice the global rate since the 1980s, with prolonged droughts and record-breaking heatwaves drying out vegetation and creating tinderbox conditions. Many of the fires are believed to be caused by human activity: Spain's Civil Guard has arrested 23 people on suspicion of arson and is investigating nearly 90 more.
