'Toronto-style' soft pretzels are now a thing and here's how they were invented
All too often relegated to mall kiosks and multiple-drinks-deep afterthoughts, soft pretzels are finally getting their time in the limelight in Toronto thanks to a new business devoted solely to them.
At their best, soft pretzels are delights of epic proportions — soft, still-steaming innards dipped into seasoned butter or strong mustard — but in Toronto, they're just as hard to find as they are to get absolutely right.
Sure, you can find them at the odd Mr. Pretzels or at Blue Jays games, but those that spend hours under heating lamps never seem to fully deliver on all the promise of the soft pretzel experience. The odd brewery serves them, too (Left Field is a personal favourite of mine), but even those are few and far between.
Gemini Pretzel, a fresh-baked new pop-up pretzel business in Toronto, is changing that, and inventing a style of soft pretzel unique to the city in the process.
When New York native Alex Marcus and his wife moved to Toronto after a stint living in Philadelphia, he was struck, he tells blogTO, by the general lack of decent soft pretzels anywhere in the city.
"I didn't know this before moving there, but it's basically the pretzel capital of the world. The hard pretzel was invented there, and to date, more pretzels are consumed there than anywhere else in the world, at least per capita, according to my rudimentary history," he explains.
In short, Philly is home to some seriously good pretzels. When they moved to Toronto, the couple discovered that this city is decidedly less so. And it wasn't just them who noticed it: Alex tells blogTO that, upon moving to the city and connecting with its residents, he found that many others felt the same.
Toronto had a pretzel problem, and Alex, he concluded, would come to the city's rescue.
He left his corporate job and began reaching out to local bakers back in Philadelphia to experiment in creating what was, to him, the perfect soft pretzel: one that's got a thick, snappy crust and soft, pillowy innards, picking and choosing elements from soft pretzels around the world — Bavarian, Philly, mall.
His end product is something he refers to, in a somewhat tongue-in-cheek but somewhat serious way, as the Toronto-style pretzel.
"I think I started with the aim of a pretzel that was kind of an elevated version of when you get at the mall, from a Wetzel's Pretzels or a Mr. Pretzel or something like that, and where we ended was something a little bit more of a hybrid," Alex explains.
Upon moving the research and development process to Toronto, he also had to begin sourcing new ingredients. Small changes like local flour and Canadian yeast eventually added up, and the Toronto version of the end product was something entirely new. And it was perfect.
The idea of a pretzel that's a true mish-mash of different origins, styles and ingredients struck Alex as a microcosm for Toronto, a city that's known, above almost anything else, for its diversity and cultural meshing.
A rotating selection of dips only adds to the Toronto-ification of the soft pretzel. Alex crafts dips using ingredients he sources from local grocers, which inevitably end up representing a smattering of different culinary traditions: pandan-coconut cream representing Southeast Asia, hot horseradish mustard for Eastern Europe or tomato-garlic oil for Italy.
"I had four dips available last pop-up, and I had four continents represented, you could say. It wasn't like a conscious thing where I'm like, 'Let me get South America.' It was just the way I was thinking about it: the flavours that feel interesting to put in dips happen to be diverse flavours, and that happens to nicely represent the city we live in," Alex explains.
Nowadays, you can find Gemini Pretzel hosting semi-regular pop-ups at Halo Brewery in the Junction Triangle — the next one is slated for Aug. 14 — but, to Alex, the sky's the limit for where his Toronto-style pretzels can go.
"I think we'll look to expand the pop-up model, if you will, so I think finding other venues to do pop-up-style vending, expanding that to farmers' markets, to street festivals, to seasonal markets, like, maybe winter markets, would be a natural step," he explains.
He's also keen to explore ways that Gemini Pretzel can team up with some of his favourite restaurants in the city, whether through on-site pop-ups or by incorporating Gemini Pretzels into menu items.
"[There are] so many food businesses that I love and admire here. My wife and I have a joke that we like moved here because of Le Swan, Bernhardt's and Lake Inez," Alex laughs, "so I'm really excited about the idea of collaborating in some shape or form."
Though Gemini Pretzels come in the shape of a circle, they may be just the twist that Toronto has been needing.
You can keep up with Gemini Pretzel by following them on Instagram or visiting their website.
