What’s up next after brunch? Dinner, of course! Following our SENSES Wake & Bake Brunch this past weekend, CAFE and The Nomad Cook presented our long-awaited SENSES Supper event – with Top Chef winner and contestants Chef Erica & Josh Karbelnik. We were so honoured to work with this amazingly talented culinary duo, and so were our guests. The nearly-sold out event was scheduled to start at 6pm, but guests began to arrive early in anticipation and were lining the lobby of the venue at least half an hour prior. The excitement and energy was palpable in the air, and we thanked guests for their patience as they began to enter the hall, eager for the events of the evening ahead.
This April SENSES dinner is the sixth event in the sensessupperclub.com series, launched last year by CAFE in partnership with Travis Petersen, aka The Nomad Cook. This joint venture seeks to bring together cannabis and fine dining, by providing guests a unique, elevated experience through marijuana-based infusion. Each dish of the multi-course meal service is specially infused with THC, CBD or a blend of both. Chefs go around to each guest at the start of the event, taking the time to have a conversation with each person to better understand their experience with cannabis. This process allows for careful, precise measurement of cannabis infusion appropriate to each guests’ preference – which in turn enables each person to have a euphoric experience while still remaining grounded and able to enjoy the food and ambience of the night.
The SENSES Supper took place at a private venue in the heart of downtown Toronto, just minutes away from two of CAFE’s four downtown dispensary locations. Guests were greeted by event staff bearing trays of refreshing mocktails at the doors – the first of which was a ginger spritzer infused with CBD. Guests made their way to their assigned tables in the candlelit, cozy space and sipped on their drinks while Chef Erica Karbelnik came around to greet them and discuss their infusion levels for the evening. Meanwhile, Chef Josh was hard at work in the kitchen, overseeing the plating process of the first course about to go out. The Chefs were supported in the kitchen by Chef Carson MacDonald, a young and talented culinary entrepreneur with a shared passion for cannabis. The menu for the evening was a delightful surprise – each dish was a fine dining take on classic, very much loved North American staples. Guests were thrilled to explore the Karbelniks’ take on pizza, mac and cheese, and for dessert – a decadent spin on Reese’s Pieces with crunch bits of Lays chips and pretzel bites. Just thinking about all those amazing meals has us wanting to go back and do the night all over again!
The evening also featured live stand-up comedy, presented by some of Toronto’s top comedians such as Mike Rita and Paul Thompson! Both are hilarious on stage and big lovers of all things cannabis. Rita and Thompson kept the crowd laughing while they enjoyed their dinner, making for a truly enjoyable and fun evening. CAFE added to the excitement by providing gift bags for giveaways – and five lucky winners were chosen from the crowd at random. All in all, it was a wonderful night with high energy, and we are truly glad to have been part of such an amazing event.
Thank you to Chefs Erica and Josh Karbelnik for working with us on our SENSES dinner event! We are big fans of their work and professionalism, and love seeing how passionate they are about cannabis. We absolutely can’t wait to work with them again on future events.
Scroll through the pictures to see what the night was like!
