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Celebrating all things Hamilton / Welcome Message
Arts + Culture

Readers and writers: Your guide to gritLIT 2026

The literary festival offers five days of readings, panels, workshops, and social events that celebrate writers of all kinds and the readers who read them. For 22 years, the Hamilton-born gritLIT has celebrated established writers, helped new ones develop, and given readers a front-row seat to well over…
Arts + Culture

World premiere shines a light on Canada, The Hip, and what home really means

It’s A Good Life If You Don’t Weaken, opening April 22 at Theatre Aquarius, is about connection, love, and saying something that needs to be said. That spirit, and the spirit of Gord Downie, are in the rehearsal room as this show comes to life, say its stars.
Arts + Culture

REVIEW: Calendar Girls is balm for weary souls

Story of group of English women posing nude to raise money for their church is a nuanced exploration of aging, expectation, disappointment, and refusing to accept limitations. Binbrook Little Theatre’s production features brave performances and a solid focus on the story. Uplifting stories seem hard to find these…
Arts + Culture

New music venues: This booker is back

Brodie Schwendiman, operator of the late and beloved Casbah, is back booking music in a new downtown venue called Ridiculous, and other live-music locations in the region. 2025 was a rollercoaster ride of a year for Brodie Schwendiman. The music club operator and booker has played a crucial…
Food + Drink

Chef Matty Matheson: By the books

The celebrity chef has now made his mark in Hamilton, with elevated pub Iron Cow Public House at TD Coliseum. So what can we glean about him from the recipes and stories in his three cookbooks?  For months, his name was on the lips of Hamilton food…
Arts + Culture

THE PLAYLIST

Dylan Hudecki is a Canadian indie-rock vet having played in many different bands, including By Divine Right, Cowlick, Slow Beach and The Dill. He’s a proud Hamiltonian who covers local album releases for HAMILTON CITY Magazine. TV FREAKS  – Blue Genie (garage, punk rock) Devotion, distortion, and the…
Food + Drink

Getting out: Music & menus

If live tunes help your food taste better, here’s a list of places where the grub is as good as the setlist! With this issue being HAMILTON CITY Magazine’s music issue, it seemed fitting to round-up a bundle of local restaurants where you can see and enjoy some…
City Life

Hounds of Hamilton

We need a big dose of dogs these days so HAMILTON CITY Magazine's new feature celebrates the city's canines. Send in your dogs (and cats)! Escape the relentless news cycle, doom scrolling and polarizing politics, and find joy and laughter in pets. Hounds of Hamilton…

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HAMILTON CITY Magazine’s mission is to tell the stories that celebrate the city’s past, present and future by featuring stunning photography, illustrations and world-class writing. It’s your city. It’s your magazine.


City Life

Canada is facing a new economic era

Our country is at a turning point, and Hamilton could be a big winner – if we believe and prepare. Not even the most jaded observer could have predicted just how quickly the political situation would deteriorate in the United States after the election of Donald Trump to…
Food + Drink

East-end staple Rankin’s Bar & Grill has served its last pint

Hamilton landmark served patrons for 45 years, surviving as a three-generation family business that, over 87 years, evolved from a china shop to a snack bar to a classic neighbourhood restaurant. The TV classic Cheers has been in the news recently following the death of George Wendt, who…
Food + Drink

ON THE MENU: WHAT’S OPENED AND CLOSED ON THE LOCAL RESTAURANT SCENE

Here's a list of what has come, gone and changed in Hamilton and Burlington in May. Launched Bim’s Kusina (184 King St. E., Hamilton)What began as a small birria taco business with a food truck, then a physical location in Burlington last summer, has quickly expanded to a…
City Life

PRIDE: A royal legacy for Rainbow Kings and Queens

More than 350 LGBTQ+ asylum-seekers from eight African countries have settled in Hamilton for a life of safety, acceptance and peace and are building of their own community. Herbert Ddiba can’t quite recall how he came up with the name Rainbow Kings and Queens. He knew he…
Arts + Culture

PRIDE: Trans artist Ardyn Gibbs is living in the light

Their work explores the pleasures, resilience and secrets of the queer experience through holograms, lenticular prints, digital renderings, and the reflective distortions of chrome. I can’t help but think of holograms as the neon-retro dreams of a future that never came, which made my first encounter with Ardyn…
Arts + Culture

Piindigen: Amplifying once-excluded theatre voices

For two years, Theatre Aquarius’s Indigenous Piindigen program has actively sought out traditionally unheard storytellers to teach and showcase their work. The culmination of this year's program is being presented Saturday as part of the Brave New Works Festival. The Brave New Works Festival, Theatre Aquarius’ annual…
Arts + Culture

City reflected in Hamilton Arts Week

Hamilton Arts Council’s annual cultural celebration returns for 2025 with 12 signature events from June 3-12 that showcase the diversity, creativity, and stories of our city. Hamilton is an arts town and that is never more true than during Hamilton Arts Week, taking place across the city…
Arts + Culture

Festitalia: ‘We will cover Hamilton with Italy’

City’s Italian celebration is marking its 50-year anniversary this year with a cultural expo and a street festival in June and its traditional events in September. For 50 years in September, Festitalia has brought Italy to Hamilton with dinners, dances, art shows, and grape stomps. This year,…