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Chatto’s Digest

February Archive

Tasting notes

Posted on February 4, 2008

This week, they sent me out prowling the restaurants, bars, bakeries and grill rooms of Ossington Avenue, and there will be much to tell in May’s Toronto Life. But in between all the pho and sucking pig, the tequila-cured salmon and the free-form apple galettes, there was still time to squeeze in some special, extracurricular treats.

Canadian Culinary Championships: The Grand Finale

Posted on February 11, 2008

Three intensely competitive nights, three very distinct occasions. On Thursday evening, the Canadian Culinary Championship began with the black box competition held in the teaching kitchens of George Brown College. We restricted numbers to 65 guests so that the seven chefs could work in relative ease with their sous-chefs, assisted by some of the talented students at the college. GBC maestro John Higgins and I had deliberately chosen challenging items for the black box: flank steak from the brilliant Ontario supplier Top Meadow Farms (who generously sponsored all the black box ingredients), two Georgian Bay whitefish, a celery root, a bag of Ontario peanuts, a honeycomb oozing honey and (the only ingredient from outside the province) a hand of green plantains. The chefs all obeyed the rules, creating two dishes that used every ingredient plus whatever they needed from a communal pantry, and delivered the plates to the judges within the allotted time.

Senses redux

Posted on February 19, 2008

Since Claudio Aprile left Senses in the fall of 2006, the restaurant has seemed to be treading water. It was always going to be tough following Claudio’s act, but I was excited when hotelier Henry Wu brought chef Patrick Lin back from Hong Kong to man the kitchen. Lin had wowed me when he was restaurant chef at Truffles back in the early 1990s and again at Wu’s Metropolitan hotel a decade later. This time around, it seemed as if his heart wasn’t entirely engaged. The food was technically excellent—high-end French dishes of undeniable elegance—but not quite as original or exciting as I had hoped it might be. Lin’s wife and daughter were still in Hong Kong, and he was back and forth a fair bit, which may have had something to do with it. A couple of weeks ago, Lin sent word that he was about to propose a new menu for Senses—dishes he had been working on for a year—and he asked me to come by for a tasting. Delighted, I’m sure.

Chatto Bio Pic

James Chatto

James Chatto worked as a dishwasher, actor, waiter, bow tie salesman, choreen, bookseller, nanny, tennis coach, lounge singer, KFC truck driver (fired after 1 day), olive farmer and janitor before moving to Canada in 1987 and becoming a journalist. These days, he writes about food and restaurants for Toronto Life, about wine and spirits for Food & Drink and edits the menswear magazine, Harry. Two of his books are still in print: A Matter of Taste (co-written with Lucy Waverman) and The Greek For Love, a memoir of Corfu. James is married and has two delightful children.

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