When Rosalinda first opened six years ago, Toronto’s vegan food scene, while on a definite upward trajectory, was veering towards a homogenous type of plant-based cuisine that usually centred around burgers, mock meats, or other delicious, deep-fried things. There’s nothing wrong with that type of food, and there were, and still are, a lot of restaurants in the city that do it excellently.

What I found that was lacking, and still is, perhaps even more so now that we’ve lost so many excellent vegan restaurants in Toronto, is the classic, fine-casual sit-down restaurant, the kind of restaurant where you go to celebrate something special, a birthday, or anniversary. Creating this kind of establishment involves not only serving great food, but also making an atmosphere where people feel at ease, where they want to just sit, linger, relax, and enjoy their company and their meal. That was what, for me and many others, Rosalinda represented in the vegan restaurant landscape. It’s closing (as of May 3rd) is particularly sad because of how well Rosalinda filled this niche, and because it feels like yet another death knell, a sign of an increasingly difficult and declining industry.

At its launching, Rosalinda’s enormous Richmond Street location, felt like a huge victory for veganism, a sign that vegan cuisine was moving into the mainstream, and now legitimate and popular enough to take up bigger spaces, in a busy, central area of downtown. Even Fresh, Toronto’s most established vegan restaurant chain, which had a location not far from Rosalinda (it closed earlier this year), did not have anything comparable in size. It wasn’t only the size though.

The amount of care, attention, effort, and design expertise that was put into the restaurant’s aesthetic seemed radical to me, as a long-term vegan, who’d been there when veganism was still somewhat on the fringes. I’d been to similarly stylish plant-based restaurants outside of Canada, but for Toronto this was something new. I would usually say looks don’t really matter when it comes to restaurants – some of the best food can be found in very humble establishments – but the way Rosalinda fused chicness and warmth, to create a space that instantly felt welcoming, undoubtedly made it a richer dining experience.

I had missed getting in a final meal at so many shuttered restaurants – Revelstoke, Hello 123, LOV, Green Earth, Parka Foods, the list goes on – and didn’t want to lose out on that opportunity with Rosalinda. But it was a more mournful meal than expected.

It was not too busy when I arrived for dinner, and I got an ideal seat at a corner table. I had a nice view of the rest of the dining room, while being shielded from the kitchen and bar traffic. The textured walls next to me were coloured with a soft, pastel blue, which contrasted nicely with the sharp dark green hues of the many plants.

I ordered the Yucca fries as a starter, and a Mojito, as a salve for the dreary and cold spring weather. The super thick cut fries were the perfect texture, slightly crispy on the outside, soft, dense, and fluffy on the inside. The accompany garlic aioli didn’t last long enough. As I scraped a yucca chunk along the bottom of the nearly empty ramekin, the blues started setting in.

I was thinking of other recent closures, particularly Baia, in San Francisco, a very different, but equally charming Italian restaurant. I’d been in San Francisco for New Years, and after a long, and stressful fall, and enduring another year of tough Canadian winter weather, a few weeks in California was just the cure I needed. My meal at Baia was one of the many highlights. I’d come away feeling elated, content, and it wasn’t just from being full, or a cocktail buzz. It was the suspension of stress, a much-needed unwinding, an escape, however temporary, and that’s the power of a good dining experience.

For my main, I ordered the Macha Tofu Bowl, a mix of grains, edamame, and pickled veggies, topped with tortilla chips and crispy tofu. This is the best kind of dish, one that takes simple ingredients and brings out their best qualities, elevates them, by employing precision cooking, and just the right amount of seasoning. It takes a lot of time, patience, and skill to get such strong flavours out of these ingredients, and to harmonize them so well.

My own passion for cooking has waned in the last year, and I’ve found myself, more and more, looking for the easiest foods, and the least time-consuming meals. There are several reasons for this, but the one that was on my mind as I ate, was how discouraging the inflated cost of food (and everything else) has become. It’s hard to find the motivation to cook, to experiment, to learn, when their such a heavy price tag attached. This same economic precarity has crippled the restaurant industry. Insane rents, and high operational costs, have made it more challenging and stressful than ever.

I hadn’t planned on dessert – I’d ate and spent enough already – but the cheesecake was calling my name, and this was my last chance to try it. To compensate for my extra indulgence, I made sure to take my time eating it, and swept up every bit of the berry compote with my fork. In this rough, and transient world, this is the best we can do sometimes – to remember to enjoy the moment, savour the fleeting sweetness.