New restaurant from Michelin chef teased to open in Toronto at TIFF

A Michelin-decorated chef and subject of a documentary shown at TIFF just teased a new restaurant in Toronto.

Earlier this week, Chef Masaki Saito, proprietor of Sushi Masaki Saito, the two-Michelin-star restaurant that opened in Toronto’s esteemed Yorkville neighborhood in 2019, took to the stage to celebrate the documentary Still Single.

The film made its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival a few days ago to massive fanfare, as Saito and the film’s directors, Jamal Burger and Jukan Tateisi, took to the stage to shine a light on a Toronto culinary hero.

The film’s namesake harkens to footage of Saito receiving his Michelin recognition a few years ago, to which he remarks, in a self-deprecatory manner, “I’m still single. I don’t know why.”

Throughout the documentary, numerous aspects of Saito’s life are explored, including the chef’s love of flashy clothes and karaoke bars, in stark contrast to his Hakaido upbringing, as well as his turbulent family life, his boredom with the New York food scene  — which brought him to Toronto — and his ability to throw verbal jabs at those who don’t meet his standards.

As a result, Saito, on screen and off, comes across as both exacting and flamboyant, propped up by William Cheng, a Chinese-Canadian businessman, his partner in Sushi Masaki Saito, who was also in attendance.

With such bravado and drama dominating his life, it should come as no surprise that, during the TIFF event, it was slipped that Saito may likely be expanding his culinary foothold in Toronto.

Tsuyoshi Yoshinaga, Saito’s former sous chef, was also heavily featured throughout Still Single.

In the documentary, Yoshinaga’s frustration with being Saito’s right-hand man, despite being older, is a subject of study. Once he learns he won’t be helming a new Saito restaurant solo, he packs his bags to open a new restaurant in Kagawa, a Japanese prefecture in the northeast of Shikoku Island.

During the Q&A portion of the premiere, Cheng took the microphone and invited Yoshinaga, who was in the audience, to come up on stage for an impromptu announcement.

“[Yoshinaga] went back to Japan for…he couldn’t say on screen, but a lot of the main reason is his family. His family wanted to go back to Japan, and he had to follow them and go back,” Cheng said, before telling the audience that following a dinner night, paired with a lot of sake, Cheng worked up the courage to ask Yoshinaga to FaceTime his wife.

“I wanted to talk to his wife directly, and I said that Saito-San and I are opening a new restaurant in the Hazelton Hotel, specifically for his top student, and it will be sometime next year in the summertime. We really wanted [Yoshinaga] to have that. Without his wife’s or his family’s permission, we could not do that. I was brave enough to say, ‘Can you call her and let me talk to her?’ After just five minutes of talk, his wife said yes.”

As a result, a new Saito restaurant helmed by Yoshinaga — name to be determined — is now slated to open in one of Toronto’s top hotels.

Yoshinaga, to the backdrop of applause, didn’t say the new project’s not proceeding, trying to keep the veil of mystery alive.

“Actually, this is not decided yet. But yes, something’s happened.”