TheSmoke

The Friday Montreal smoked meat sandwich on TheSmoke's menu is cured in-house over twenty-one days, then smoked and steamed before it lands on rye with mustard and pickles. The feature runs Fridays only and turns over in limited quantities, and it is the simplest read on what TheSmoke is — a Collingwood smokehouse built around the slowest version of every cooking step it can find. Chef Cam Dyment owns the kitchen, cooks the kitchen, and pits the kitchen; the smokers are electric, the pellets are hickory, the brisket and ribs sit on long holds, and the cuts that need a second cook see sous-vide before they hit a plate. TheSmoke has been doing this on First Street since 2012.

The board reads as a working smokehouse list. Smoked beef brisket, smoked back ribs, pulled pork, and smoked BBQ wings carry the core. The Wholly Cow brisket burger stacks an eight-ounce smoked chuck patty under four ounces of brisket with drunken onions, mushrooms, cheddar, and house barbecue sauce. The Cowboy Spud is a baked potato that carries the smoked meats from the rest of the board. Beef Brisket Nachos arrive over tricoloured tortilla chips with barbecue beans, and the Saturday French Onion Brisket Sandwich runs chopped brisket under smoked cheddar with drunken onions and mushrooms and a parmesan finish. Even dessert moves through the smoker — smoked banana before churning becomes the ice cream, and the smoked apple crisp pairs against it without competing.

The week itself is the kitchen's read on Collingwood. Tuesday is Sandwich Day, with five dollars off every sandwich. Wednesday is Rib Day, with five dollars off Baby Back rack mains. Thursday is Burger Day, on the same five-dollar pattern. Sunday is Happy Happy Caesar Sunday on the smoked Bloody Caesar. Friday belongs to the twenty-one-day Montreal smoked meat. Saturday belongs to the French Onion Brisket. The five-dollar trio gives a regular a reason to come back midweek; the Friday and Saturday features give a regular a reason to plan around the kitchen. The calendar at TheSmoke is built for the table that learns it — a Wednesday visit reads a different sentence of the menu than a Friday visit, and the kitchen has decided that is the way the week works.

Cam Dyment was raised in Toronto and skied at Collingwood as a child before moving full-time to the area. The kitchen began as a Traeger pellet smoker in his backyard and a YouTube channel called The Georgian Chef that he was running in 2011 — videos on smoking technique he taught himself by working through them on camera. His wife and business partner pushed for turning the obsession into a storefront after their children moved out. He signed the lease on the First Street address in July 2012, spent four weeks on the renovation, and opened TheSmoke on December 12 of that year. The next summer he took the KCBS Grand Champion title at Blue Mountain. Two years after that, a national food television crew filmed an episode in the dining room.

Inside, the dining room runs seventy-four seats with a twenty-eight-seat patio on First Street through the summer. The kitchen is entirely nut-free and almost entirely gluten-free, the fryer included — cornbread cooks gluten-free, the brownie cooks gluten-free, and a gluten-free beer and a gluten-free bun are on the list for diners who need them. The doors open at noon Tuesday through Sunday. A guest who turns up for dinner is choosing between dine-in with online reservations for parties of up to eight, a takeout order picked up under their name at the counter, or whichever feature day the calendar is sitting on. Mondays the smokers rest. The rest of the week, the calendar is doing as much work as the menu.