Kai, Levi, and their younger brother, Jet, were raised in Toronto’s Little Italy neighborhood. At home they ate big, family-style dinners made by mom—her recipe for sweet and sour meatballs was just added to Frings’ menu. Growing up, the elder Bent-Lee sons were both competitive tennis players, and Levi even briefly attended the University of Toledo on scholarship “It was terrible for food,” he remembers. “I ate at this one Japanese place that was kind of like Benihana’s literally every night.”

ADVERTISEMENT

Before formally joining their father’s business, bussing and bartending at first, the brothers spent summers manning a Lee-branded food truck. “This was around 2008, when food trucks in Toronto were still only doing hot dogs and hamburgers,” says Kai, linking their early interest in the mobile kitchens to what was happening in L.A. at the time. Kai, Levi, and their friends sold snacky Lee signatures like Cheeseburger Spring Rolls and Singapore Slaw at events around the city. The idea came from their friends—the sons of well-known Toronto chef Jamie Kennedy—who were running a french fry stand (J.K. Frites are on the Frings menu).

“We were at the Brickworks Farmer’s Market at, like, 8 a.m. every Saturday morning,” Kai recalls. “I was 16. This was when I was still partying so it was brutal—and I was working with my friends too. The hours were crazy, and it’s a pain because you have to bring everything with you in one van, and it gets so busy so quick. There’s only one shot to make your money. It’s kind of like a carny business.” It was also a basis for learning how not to manage a dining establishment, he points out. “I was so young so I didn’t know how to talk to people. I’d say things like, ‘Are you stupid?!’ but it was my friends. I just had no idea.”

Levi, who once worked as a busser at the popular Italian restaurant Terroni, attributes much of he and his brother's current business savvy to years spent observing their father. “It’s easy to look at a blank space and say, ‘Okay, let’s put a bar here, and tables there,’ but it has to make sense because the most important thing for operations is the flow,” he says. “That’s everything from how you pick up at expo, to the way you enter and exit a kitchen, or where the ice well goes. That’s the hardest thing, and my dad has that mind. Compared to him we’re babies, we’re still learning.”

ADVERTISEMENT

If all goes well, Levi and Kai want to expand into the U.S. like their father, maybe branding Frings “anywhere that’s warm.” It’s scary, Levi adds, but big goals are part of being a restaurateur. Still, Toronto has been good to the family. “People don’t realize how many great restaurants are here. The food scene is incredible and I think a lot of people take it for granted,” says Kai. “Our favorite Italian, Chinese, Vietnamese, whatever—it’s mainly from Toronto.” He frequents a fluorescent-lit pho spot called Pho Tien Thanh. Levi likes to keep an eye on emerging young chefs, and is partial to an Italian restaurant called Buca. It’s no longer just about the food, Kai says, but the new, casual vibe that young diners prefer. It’s the biggest shift in dining culture, and something that’s very apparent at Frings. “There’s no fine dining restaurants anymore. No one wants to listen to [classical] in a quiet room for three hours; it’s boring,” Kai says, reaching for the aux cord.

