“Some customers, they didn’t even come to eat—just to say congrats to me,” says chef-owner Sumith Fernando
—an award given to restaurants where a two-course meal and dessert or a glass of wine costs less than $60 per person—for its Montreal-style smoked meat and poutine.
A Catholic born in Sri Lanka, Fernando isn’t exactly the stereotype of a deli owner—something typically associated with Montreal and New York Ashkenazi Jews. When he moved to Montreal in 2002, a friend hooked him up with a job at the iconic, which has been dishing out telephone book–size piles of spiced brisket crammed between slices of rye for nearly a century.
Fernando didn’t want to open a deli in downtown or midtown Toronto because there were so many in those areas already. So, in 2018, he opened a shop on the border of Markham and Scarborough, an area close enough to the city’s Jewish communities to give an initial base of support. “The first year and the second year, he was there all day and working so hard,” says de Fonseka. “But it started to pay off.
At first, the challenge was convincing those who had never tried smoked meat to give it a go, but before long, more and more business was coming through word of mouth. It also helped that SumiLicious serves Halal-certified meat and dishes out Fernando’s version of one of the world’s best comfort foods. “I didn’t expect the poutine to be so popular,” he says.
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