
Shake Shack Canada Announces First-Ever Chef Collaboration with Toronto's Michelin-Recognized MIMI Chinese Restaurant
Shake Shack Canada and MIMI Chinese are bringing the heat with three exclusive menu items, crafted as a tribute to Toronto's diverse culinary scene
TORONTO, April 28, 2025 /CNW/ - Shake Shack Canada is thrilled to unveil a limited-time culinary collaboration with one of Toronto's most celebrated restaurants, MIMI Chinese, available exclusively at all Toronto locations from May 13 – May 26, 2025.
Shake Shack is bringing bold, regionally inspired Chinese flavours to its classic menu in collaboration with Chefs David Schwartz and Braden Chong of MIMI Chinese — a Toronto restaurant included on Toronto's Michelin Guide for two consecutive years. As part of this special collaboration, a portion of proceeds will be donated to Fort York Food Bank, helping to support members in the community experiencing food insecurity.
"We're delighted to partner with MIMI Chinese to launch our first ever chef collaboration in Canada, celebrating the incredible local chef community we have here in Toronto," says Billy Richmond, Business Director of Shake Shack Canada. "Through this one-of-a-kind culinary experience, we are proud to introduce three new delicious menu items inspired by our roots in fine dining and emphasis on premium ingredients, which we can't wait for our guests to enjoy!"
This collaboration celebrates both brands' shared passion for high-quality and locally sourced ingredients. The limited-edition menu will be available at all three Shake Shack locations across Canada—Yonge & Dundas, Union Station, and Yorkdale Shopping Centre—as well as exclusively on Skip. The menu includes three creations:
Málà Chicken: Inspired by the Sichuan classic La Zi Ji, this sandwich delivers the signature má (numbing) and là (spicy) sensation through MIMI Chinese's house-made chili oil, charred scallion relish, green chili mayo, kosher pickles, lettuce, and crispy fried chicken.
Shaokao Fries: A nod to Chinese street food and night market barbecue, these crinkle-cut fries are dusted with a bold blend of cumin, chili, and Sichuan peppercorn for an irresistible snack with a kick. Served with green chilli mayo.
Black Sesame Coconut Shake: Recalling traditional Chinese dessert soups and the nostalgic Cantonese treat Tang Yuan, this reimagined shake blends black sesame paste with vanilla frozen custard for a sweet, nutty, and slightly bitter finish.
"MIMI Chinese pays homage to one of the world's oldest and most diverse cuisines," says David Schwartz Creative & Culinary Director and Co-Founder of Big Hug Hospitality. "Partnering with Shake Shack gave us the opportunity to share these bold flavours with a wider audience and continue to spotlight regional Chinese food."
"These collaborative dishes with Shake Shack are an example of how food is constantly evolving; trends and preferences change over time," adds Braden Chong, Executive Chef of MIMI Chinese and Sunnys Chinese. "At MIMI Chinese our priority is to represent Chinese food in the best way we can and this collaboration with Shake Shack is another opportunity to do exactly that."
Combining Shake Shack's elevated take on the classics that Canadians know and love, with MIMI Chinese's bold, inventive dishes, the result is a one-of-a-kind experience unlike anything else in Canada. From May 13–26, 2025, this exclusive menu will be available at Shake Shack's Toronto locations—Yonge & Dundas, Union Station, and Yorkdale Shopping Centre—as well as through Skip. This marks just the beginning, with even more menu innovation, upcoming limited-time offerings and future chef collaborations.
About Shake Shack Canada
Formed in 2023, Shake Shack Canada is a partnership between Osmington Inc. and Harlo Entertainment Inc. Both Toronto-based private investment companies, Osmington and Harlo Entertainment prioritize innovation, value creation, and delivering exceptional experiences. Serving up the same Shake Shack experience known around the world, Shake Shack Canada's ambitious vision includes opening Shacks nationwide, with its first three locations now open at Yonge & Dundas, Union Station, and Yorkdale Shopping Centre in Toronto.
About Shake Shack
Shake Shack serves elevated versions of American classics using only the best ingredients. It's known for its delicious made-to-order Angus beef burgers, crispy chicken, hand-spun milkshakes, house-made lemonades, beer, wine, and more. With its high-quality food at a great value, warm hospitality, and a commitment to crafting uplifting experiences, Shake Shack quickly became a cult-brand with widespread appeal. Shake Shack's purpose is to Stand For Something Good®, from its premium ingredients and employee development, to its inspiring designs and deep community investment. Since the original Shack opened in 2004 in NYC's Madison Square Park, the Company has expanded to over 580 locations system-wide, including over 370 in 34 U.S. States and the District of Columbia, and over 200 international locations across London, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore, Mexico City, Istanbul, Dubai, Tokyo, Seoul and more.
About MIMI Chinese
MIMI Chinese is a dining destination in Toronto offering a refined exploration of China's diverse regional cuisines. Located at 265 Davenport Road, the restaurant features an elegant, dimly lit ambiance with deep red accents and plush seating, evoking the nostalgic charm of classic Chinese eateries. The menu focuses on southern regions like Guangdong, Sichuan, Hong Kong, and Hunan, blending traditional flavours with modern touches. Designed for sharing, the dishes reflect the Chinese cultural emphasis on communal dining. Leading MIMI Chinese are Co-Founder and Creative Culinary Director David Schwartz and Executive Chef Braden Chong, key figures in Toronto's modern dining scene. Schwartz's passion for Chinese cuisine led to MIMI and its sister restaurant Sunnys Chinese–both Michelin Guide recognized with Sunnys awarded a Bib Gourmand—and earned him the 2023 MICHELIN Guide Toronto Young Chef Award. Chong, a third-generation Chinese Canadian, brings deep culinary heritage and global experience, including time at Michelin-starred restaurants in Japan.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Vancouver Sun
6 hours ago
- Vancouver Sun
Connor McDavid's wife seemingly shades Florida Panthers: 'Why is Alberta rat-free?'
As the final fists were thrown and players were being ejected from Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final Monday night, the wife of the game's biggest star, the Edmonton Oilers ' Connor McDavid, subtly chirped the Florida Panthers team on their way to a convincing 6-1 win. In a departure from her typically aesthetically curated and polished Instagram account, clothing and interior designer Lauren Kyle McDavid posted a screenshot of a Google Gemini AI response to her query: 'Why is Alberta rat-free?' The screenshot goes on to explain that a provincial program to monitor the Saskatchewan border, combined with strict enforcement and trapping, has led to the province being 'essentially rat-free' for 75 years. Rats are not even permitted as pets in Alberta, but are permitted at zoos, universities or for research purposes. Lauren Kyle weighs in 😂 However, for those unfamiliar, the rat has been an unofficial Panthers' mascot for 30 years, and, more recently, the term has been one of the many less savoury monikers applied to the Panthers' Brad Marchand, regarded by peers and critics as one of the antagonistic and bothersome players in the NHL. He picked it up early in his career when drawing comparisons to Ken 'The Rat' Linesman, who played a similar style of hockey and famously bit the nose of Edmonton's Lee Fogolin in 1984. Opposing fans will insist the nickname also alludes to Marchand's nose, which also inspired another early sobriquet: Nose Face Killah, a play on Ghost Face Killah, a member of the rap group Wu-Tang Clan. The Nova Scotia native might be one of the few NHL players to have a nickname bestowed upon him by a sitting U.S. President. After the Boston Bruins won the 2011 Stanley Cup in Marchand's rookie year, Barack Obama referred to him as 'a little ball of hate' during the team's subsequent visit to the White House. As for how the club and its fan base embraced the rat as one of its symbols, you have to go back to the 1995 season when Panthers' forward Scott Mellanby used a slapshot to kill a rat found in the club's dressing room before a game. He went on to score two goals with the same stick that night, leading goalie John Vanbiesbrouck to later joke that his teammate had scored a 'rat trick' — a play on the hockey term for hat trick, when a player nets three goals in a game. The next time Mellanby scored on home ice, someone tossed a fake rat on the ice, and it soon became a practice that became entrenched in the team's run to the Stanley Cup Final in the spring of 1996, the year of the rat, on the Chinese zodiac. The NHL eventually instituted a rule against it, but some fans continue to do it after victories. According to the league , some fans are known to stock up on rubber or plastic rats at Halloween or order them in bulk online. The tradition continued Monday night as dozens of plastic rats, along with refuse from the stands, rained down on the ice following a fight-filled Game 3. Appropriately, the Panthers' original mascot is Stanley C. Panther, but in 2014, the club introduced Viktor E. Ratt as a secondary mascot in homage to the unintentional rat legacy. Merchandise stores at Amerant Bank Arena sell t-shirts, hats and large gold chains with rats dangling from them. Kyle McDavid wasn't in Sunrise, Fla., to see the ice showered with debris. She, along with the wives and girlfriends of several other Oilers, were attending a bachelorette party in Greece for Celeste Desjardins, fiancée to Edmonton forward Leon Draisaitl, per Daily Hive Vancouver . But she has attended several playoff home games at Rogers Place. 'The energy is just unreal. Everyone's on edge, the fans are fully dialled in, and you can feel how much it means to people,' she told ELLE Canada during the Western Conference final against the Dallas Stars in late May. 'I love being part of that. It's emotional, exciting and a little chaotic in the best way.' Game 4 in the best-of-seven final is Thursday night, 8 p.m. ET, back at the Panthers' barn. Florida leads the series 2-1. Game 5 returns to Edmonton on Saturday night.


Winnipeg Free Press
a day ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Dan David Prize names 9 historians as winners of 2025 award
JERUSALEM (AP) — The Dan David Prize will award nine historians, archaeologists and filmmakers from around the world with $300,000 for their research, the foundation announced Tuesday. The award winners are researching a vast array of topics, from the notebook of Isaac Newton's roommate to the history and culture of Ethiopian Jews. The academics recently received the prize during a ceremony in Italy. The prize, based at Tel Aviv University, is awarded each year to academics in the early and middle stages of their careers who are conducting 'innovative research on the human past.' 'By making groundbreaking discoveries or applying new methods to historical research, our winners constantly challenge us to think about the past while rethinking how we shed light on it,' said Ariel David, whose father, Dan David, founded the prize in 2001. One of the winners is Beth Lew-Williams of Princeton University, a historian whose work has focused on how legal discrimination impacted Chinese immigration to the US and the experience of Chinese immigrants. Another is Fred Kudjo Kuwornu of Do The Right Films, a filmmaker whose work focuses on Black representation and identity. His recent film, We Were Here: The Untold History of Black Africans in Renaissance Europe, was presented at the 2024 Biennale in Venice. Another awardee is Dmitri Levitin of the University of Utrecht and All Souls College, Oxford, a history of scholarship who is collaborating on research into the newly discovered notebook of Isaac Newton's university roommate. Other winners are Abidemi Babatunde Babalola of the British Museum, Mackenzie Cooley of Hamilton College, Bar Kribus of Tel Aviv University, Hannah Marcus, Harvard University, Alina Șerban, Founder of Untold Stories, and Caroline Sturdy Colls, University of Huddersfield. Among the ranks of past winners are Canadian author Margaret Atwood, the cellist Yo-Yo Ma and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the U.S. infectious disease expert. The award was originally launched to focus on academic work that rewarded humanity. It has since shifted to focus specifically on those who study the past, with the idea that the prize will greatly enhance their research abilities.


Cision Canada
2 days ago
- Cision Canada
2025 CAA Graduation Season
HANGZHOU, China, June 10, 2025 /CNW/ -- As 2025 approaches its most vibrant and life-affirming season, the China Academy of Art (CAA) has already been radiating boundless vitality over the past months. While Black Myth: Wukong Art Exhibition continues to forge its brilliance, CAA now unveils another landmark cultural spectacle for Hangzhou—Metamorphoses: 2025 CAA Graduation Season. This year's graduation season revolves around the theme "Metamorphoses". The concept is rooted in the traditional Chinese notion of the seventy-two pentads. In this philosophy, pentad is change, and change is the Dao; through endless metamorphoses, the primordial core persists. "Metamorphoses" thus stand for infinite possibilities, for capacity, for vision, and above all, for spirit. Metamorphoses: 2025 CAA Graduation Season was officially launched on May 31. This year's edition spans seven major venues across Hangzhou: the Xiangshan, Liangzhu, and Nanshan campuses of CAA; Zhejiang Art Museum; World Tourism Museum; Quan Shanshi Art Center; and a citywide media exhibition zone. A total of 2,971 graduates from 20 academic units, including 1,815 undergraduates, 1,006 postgraduates, and 150 students from the affiliated secondary school, present over 3,000 graduation works for the city. On opening night, a themed performance intertwined with a fashion runway show unfolded beneath the rain, transforming the evening into a flowing, poetic spectacle. President Yu Xuhong of CAA stated, "The 2025 Graduation Exhibition is a concentrated manifestation of CAA's disciplinary development and talent cultivation. It is a grand stage where 2,971 creative young individuals present themselves for society's review, and more importantly, a shared public arena of aesthetic education where the power of creation is collectively felt and understood. Let us together create the art of our era, write a new chapter in global art history, and shape the new landscape of world art." Liu Yihong, Artistic Director of the opening ceremony and Vice Dean of the School of Visual Communication noted that this year's stage design breaks away from conventional audience-facing formats. Instead, it unfolds in a four-sided immersive arena, resonating with the thematic spirit of Metamorphoses. Drawing inspiration from the concept of Metamorphoses, Professors Chen Peng, Wang Shuying, Wu Jie, and Hu Nan from the School of Fashion Design led a collective presentation of 158 graduate fashion collections. In 2009, CAA became the first art academy to present its students' graduation works from all disciplines to the public, in the form of the brand-new "Graduation Exhibition Week". The feast aims to recommend outstanding talents to society and showcase CAA as an "Unwalled Academy" that integrates internal and external resources. In the face of the boundless cosmos and the ever-shifting global landscape, let us, with the spirit of creators, forge the inner core of our lives and unfold our artistic journeys. Let us, through the actions of creators, drive social innovation and ride the tides of our time. The future of art will surely flourish in the interplay of divergence and convergence, giving rise to infinite possibilities. The exhibition will run through June 20.