Couple known for Toronto breakfast sandwich pop-ups opens new permanent location

ALMA + GIL is responsible for some of the best breakfast sandwiches in Toronto, but its new, permanent location is doing more than mornings.

The past few years have been quite the adventure for the restaurant's owners: chefs and real-life couple Mandy Sou and Gerry Quintero.

Initially founded as a kombucha company (which they still do, mind you!), ALMA + GIL, named after Quintero's grandparents, really made its name when he and Sou began serving some of the city's best breakfast sandwiches from a pop-up at HotBlack Coffee.

Eventually, the pop-up — which came after a number of pivots for the duo — evolved into a short-lived brick-and-mortar establishment that lasted until 2023, when it was closed down to make way for Quintero to help open Ficoa. All the while, they kept ALMA + GIL alive with weekend pop-ups.

Now, after parting ways with Ficoa, Quintero and Sou are ready to go all-in on ALMA + GIL, and it all started with its new space at 392 Dufferin St.

After successfully running its breakfast sandwich pop-up every weekend out of Parkdale's G Mercato, Quintero tells Dished Toronto that the Italian kitchen and grocery store's owners approached them with an offer that just made sense.

"They were already kind of thinking about leaving this space," Quintero says. "So, they liked what we did, they saw the traffic that came in, and because of our followers, we were able to kind of convince them that we would be able to take the place, and we took it."

They officially got the keys on June 5 and soft-opened on June 12.

The new era of ALMA + GIL is about a lot more than just breakfast sandwiches, though — Quintero describes the restaurant as an absolute expression of his and Sou's personalities.

"There's no hiding behind an owner or a concept that is pushed on us," Quintero tells us, "so it's really fun."

From the music they play (a mix of Cantonese and Spanish tunes from the '60s, '70s and '80s, invoking the spirit of the kitchens he and Sou grew up in) to the menus (Hong Kong-style brunch and Mexican-fusion dinners), every element of the new ALMA + GIL is undeniably its own.

It's a dream they've held for over a decade.

"Mandy [Sou] and I have been together for 13 years now," Quintero says. "And it's really just been a discussion that every time we go out for dinner, every time we have an experience revolving [around] food, we've always kind of taken what we love from restaurants, and we want to bring that to the guests."

And that's exactly what they're doing.

Sou's brunch service is in full swing with a selection of Hong Kong-style diner food inspired by the area's famous CCT (cha chaan teng) diners. Sou's interpretation of the concept includes a variety of weekly and daily rotating specials, such as a Pepperoni Scotch Egg, a Western Set — a CCT-style take on a traditional English breakfast — and a $50 Pork Chop Rice featuring a whopping dry-aged bone-in pork Tomahawk.

Of course, you can also opt to mow down on Sou's famous breakfast sandwiches.

As for dinner service, which is currently in its soft-opening phase, Quintero is bringing a globally influenced, Mexican-centric menu to the table. The team has gotten its hands on a molino to grind a unique blend of Ontario and Oaxaca corn for the restaurant's house tortillas.

On those tortillas, you can expect options like Baja-style Battered Mushroom Tacos, Bone Marrow Quesadillas and, utilizing an in-house dry-aging freezer, a bounty of dry-aged steaks.

In the future, Quintero tells us that he also plans to host special events, such as a Peruvian cuisine dinner scheduled for mid-August and a tasting menu evening created by an all-female chef team.

Given that the new ALMA + GIL gets to be whatever Quintero and Sou want to make it, the possibilities are endless.