New Hopper Hut Restaurant at Ellesmere and Kennedy, November 14, 2022.
Hoppers (appam) from New Hopper Hut, 880 Ellesmere Road, November 14, 2022.
Fridge at New Hopper Hut, 880 Ellesmere Road, November 14, 2022.
New Hopper Hut
The Tamil Restaurant Boom
New Hopper Hut began as part of a burst of new Tamil businesses and restaurants in the late 1980s and early 1990s, reflecting a time in which more Tamils were finding the stability needed to run their own establishments.
Before then, there weren’t many restaurants that served Tamil fare, and there were even fewer grocery stores that sold the ingredients vital to Tamil cuisine, such as moringa, jaggery, or tamarind. Tamils who lived in Toronto describe “hunting” for certain ingredients, such as taking the bus across town to look for okra at a specific Chinese market or scouring a Caribbean grocery for the right blend of spices. With the arrival of Tamil refugees in the early 1980s, more and more businesses opened that catered to those who love Tamil food, including New Hopper Hut.
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New Hopper Hut
More than a Tamil Cuisine Staple
Hopper Hut first opened in 1991, at the time serving only hoppers, a staple of Tamil cuisine, to its customers. When the restaurant was put up for sale in 1995, then customer Ragavan Thurairatnam purchased it and renamed it “New Hopper Hut” to reflect his changes to the menu. Thurairatnam used the recipes of his seven sisters, who also came with him to Canada, and added other iconic Sri Lankan dishes like lamprais (a large meal of rice served with several side dishes and wrapped in a banana leaf, which has its roots in Dutch Burgher community in Sri Lanka) and kothu roti (a popular dish consisting of chopped roti mixed with onion, egg, chilis, and a curry of choice).
While many popular Tamil restaurants in the city are takeout-only, Hopper Hut has a dining room as well, which started its life as a coin-operated laundromat adjacent to the restaurant, before it was bought by Thurairatnam. New Hopper Hut continues to be a popular area restaurant to this day, with over 30 years of history in the Dorset Park neighbourhood.
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New Hopper Hut
Tamil Flavours, Toronto Kitchens
Toronto has the largest Tamil population outside of Toronto, and that fact is reflected in its food scene. Beyond cooking in the high-end kitchens of Yorkville, or introducing patrons to South Asian flavours in Riverdale, Tamils have also run establishments catered towards their own community, providing a taste of home for those who had to leave their homeland behind.
These Tamil cooks also introduced the nuanced cuisine of a small little island in the Indian Ocean to the diverse population of Toronto, creating new fans of Sri Lankan Tamil fare everyday. Alongside New Hopper Hut, Scarborough restaurants like Babu Takeout and Catering (opened in 1992) or grocery stores like Eraa Supermarket (opened in 1994) are frequented by members of other communities as much as they are Tamil customers, exhibiting just one more way that Tamils have shifted the food Torontonians enjoy.
