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David Schwartz’s cooking was never about one cuisine - it was about understanding how cuisines are built.
Raised eating both Cantonese food and Eastern-European deli classics, David grew up noticing something unexpected: these food worlds shared the same backbone. Both emerged from necessity. Both relied on smoking, curing, salting, fermenting, pickling, and coaxing deep flavour out of what was cheap, abundant, or leftover. The difference wasn’t the technique, it was the expression.
That realization shaped everything David went on to build.
From childhood trips through Chinatown with his dad - hunting for rose apples or encountering sticky rice–stuffed chicken wings that left him completely shook at eight years old - David became obsessed with the idea of food that looks simple but reveals immense complexity once you look under the hood.
That obsession lives across his restaurants today. MIMI was created as a peer to the independently owned Chinese restaurants he deeply admires - a place grounded in regional specificity, tradition, and respect. Sunny’s Chinese emerged alongside it, not as a pop-up turned permanent idea, but as a distinct concept born from the need to compartmentalize creativity. And Linny’s became a full-circle return to his own heritage, where deli culture and steakhouse tradition finally met, priced and presented with the care they deserve.
As one of the leaders in the Toronto food scene, David talks about technique as a cultural connector, why representation starts with sourcing and restraint, how hospitality is just as much about the employee experience as the guest, and why designing a restaurant always begins with someone sitting at a table. This is a conversation about curiosity, trust, and choosing the harder road, even when it would be easier not to.
(And yes, when David cooks at home? He feeds everyone else… and orders a cheeseburger.)
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