Two chefs are opening a small-batch gelato shop this spring
Jeff Kang and Tosh Agassiz met in Vancouver. Now they're bringing Cono Gelato to Toronto with the same attention to craft they honed in fine dining.
Chefs Jeff Kang and Tosh Agassiz are opening Cono Gelato, a small-batch gelato operation grounded in the precision and creativity they built working in fine dining.
The two met at Vancouver's Diva at the Met in 2012. Kang eventually moved to Toronto to join the opening team at the Shangri-La, where he honed his approach to refined, detail-oriented cooking. Agassiz followed, and the two have been collaborating ever since — building a philosophy around ingredient quality, technique, and the kind of care usually reserved for plated fine-dining service.
Cono Gelato applies that philosophy to frozen dessert. Small-batch production means limited daily quantities, which means they control every variable: milk sourcing, flavor development, churning tempo, serving temperature. It's the opposite of industrial gelato operations.
The name Cono (cone, in Italian) signals the straightforward mission: simple, excellent gelato. No gimmicks, no filling out a 30-flavor menu with mediocre options. The shop will focus on rotating seasonal flavors and a core selection built on what works — what their palate tells them should be there.
For Toronto's gelato landscape, which currently leans toward tourist-oriented chains and generic soft-serve operations, two accomplished chefs bringing fine-dining rigor to a humble frozen dessert is a notable moment. Watch for the opening.