Sagra Di Toronto Food Festival: Italian Family Values & Cooking on the City Streets

One of the most explored, imitated, and critiqued food cultures in North America is that of Italy. Home cooks, those well-travelled, and the culturally apt can all agree that Italian cuisine is one of the most well-known — due in part to the fact that we are lucky enough to live somewhere that not only has a wealth of Italian restaurants, but regionally specific Italian neighbourhoods and communities. Yet, with such a rich culinary tradition, some things might not have made their way here. Not yet at least.

After sitting down with Michael Mercanti (Major League Catering), Leo Baldassarre (Famiglia Baldassarre), and Conor Joerin (Sugo) — founders of the Sagra di Toronto food festival, a fundraiser supporting youth programs in Toronto — I was, like the many people who have attended the festival over the years, educated on an Italian tradition which they share with their Toronto community, and hopefully, one day, can be shared across North America.

How did Sagra di Toronto start and how is it similar to a traditional sagra?

Baldassarre: I met Michael [Mercanti] at a cottage in 2019, and after talking about a recent trip to Italy, I asked him if he had ever been to a sagra, which turned into “Well, if we were to do it here in Toronto, what would it look like?” That just kind of snowballed into a real event — it was going faster than both of us. A sagra is all about volunteers, and getting people together, and in our case, those people are in the food community. In Italy, it’s generally a small town thing in the country, where the Pro Loco, which is a group of volunteers that exist generationally, put on events and festivals for the community. In a small town, this is easy, but in Toronto, it’s impossible because of its size — so this is kind of like a Pro Loco for chefs and restaurant people.

Joerin: It’s essentially a community harvest festival — we’re going to pick up all the squash this weekend from my mom for the ravioli, and we’re putting in all the infrastructure in to raise ducks for the duck ragu next year. What it’s really about is communities coming together to celebrate the harvest, Ontario ingredients, and Italian food. For us, food is our power, it’s what we use to make change or do good. We’re just trying to use our skill set to help the community.

The restaurant industry Pro Loco is a cool idea — do you see yourselves trying to grow this and materialize it over time?

Baldassarre: It’s all about organic growth and what makes sense — to expect a firm membership from other restaurateurs is very hard. Every year we do this, I pull out my phone and call people to see if they’re interested, expecting them to say they’re too busy. Yet to my surprise and happiness, every year everyone says they’re in.

Mercanti: People who have supported and volunteered in the past will often call us to see if we’re doing another sagra, asking how they can help. That’s what this is all about.

Joerin: We want it to be for everyone, and so by making it less about us and the restaurants representing it, and more about the communities that it will be supporting, it creates the environment where people can come and support for the right reasons.

If an expansion happens, where would be the best home for it?

Baldassarre: The chefs that help from Montreal are thinking of doing one there. When the time comes, we’ll throw on aprons and help them as they’ve helped us. Maybe that’s how it will grow; it’ll be this thing put on by cooks and restaurant people, for the community, that just spreads throughout Canada, or even along the east coast. Hopefully it can become a tradition like it is in Italy.

Between the three of you and the other chefs and restaurants involved, there’s obviously a lot of hype. How do you keep it grounded and not just another food pop-up?

Baldassarre: This year, our biggest worry is crowd control, so we’re trying to think of everything to manage it. How can we keep it community-based? We thought about just giving flyers to neighbours, and we were going to remove tickets this year. It’ll be first-come, first-serve, like how we do it here at my shop. It’s more democratic, and it gives everyone an equal opportunity. You want to wait? Great! You don’t? You don’t have to. Last summer, I was at a lake shrimp sagra in Italy — there was a crowd of people with organizers just picking people out of the crowd two at a time. I must’ve waited five hours but I was just happy to be there.

Joerin: If we keep it community-oriented, people will feel compelled to be more patient — because everyone around ends up becoming acquainted with each other. That’s harder in a city like Toronto, but we’re trying to give it that county-fair feeling to try and promote that sentiment.

Sagra Di Toronto Food Festival

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The fourth annual Sagra di Toronto takes place on Sunday, October 27th, in Toronto. All proceeds from the festival will benefit Albion Neighbourhood Services, helping youth food and sports programs in the community. The event is open to the public. Find more information here.