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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.


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 January. Launched Fuel Grill (28 Barton St. E., Hamilton) A new fast casual restaurant has opened in the Barton and James North area, serving smash burgers, sandwiches and milkshakes. The recent grand opening…
Arts + Culture

Home, I’m Darling is a quirky look at nostalgia

This ensemble piece at Dundas Little Theatre effectively explores one couple’s blissful view of the 1950s – a time and place that might never have been. Making a tonal shift from its last production, the tense and consuming Death of a Salesman, Dundas Little Theatre’s mid-winter offering is…
Arts + Culture

IN PHOTOS: ROAD TO THE JUNOS 2026

A two-weekend CBC concert series of local talent, included past shows by Whitehorse, Cadence Weapon, Danny Miles, Julianna Riolino, Redhill Valleys and Ginger St. James. Shows on Feb. 6 and 7 will showcase Cam Kahin, AIOFE, Terra Lightfoot, and Logan Staats.
Arts + Culture

PREVIEW: Warm up in this frigid mid-winter with local theatre

Bonnie & Clyde, Alice in Wonderland JR., and Hansel & Gretel: A Pantomime are colourful, action-packed stories on Hamilton stages this weekend. In and around Hamilton this weekend, there are several productions being staged that feature larger casts, colourful and recognizable characters, and action-packed, memorable stories. While…
Arts + Culture

Don Giovanni is Mozart at the top of his game

HPO and COSA (Centre of Opera Studies and Appreciation) are bringing one of the world’s favourite operas, an entertaining tale of an unredeemed, morally repugnant man, to Ancaster Memorial Arts Centre. Four hundred years ago in Spain, Tirso de Molina set into a play the archetype of…
Arts + Culture

Affordable housing for artists part of bold expansion plan for Art Gallery of Hamilton

Downtown institution’s preliminary plan calls for a new entrance and plaza on Main Street, a two-storey gallery dedicated to Hamilton’s history, and much more space for displaying the gallery’s collection. An ambitious plan to transform the Art Gallery of Hamilton over the next decade is entering phase one…
Arts + Culture

Read about the writers: A Q&A with the winners of the Hamilton Literary Awards

The city’s literary community is large and growing and has been celebrated for more than 30 years. Hear from the 2025 winners at this weekend’s Sharp Words festival. For more than 30 years, the Hamilton Literary Awards have recognized Hamilton writers and their books, acting as a…
Arts + Culture

REVIEW: You’ve not seen anything like BOOM X

Now playing at Theatre Aquarius, Rick Miller’s one-man show is a whirlwind, but thoughtful, ride through Gen X’s defining 25 years. I have absolutely never before seen anything like BOOM X, the one-man show written, directed and performed by Rick Miller now on stage at Theatre Aquarius.  In…