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Posts with category ‘Openings’

Greetings

Posted on April 1, 2006

Greetings and welcome to the first digestive tract. I’ve never been a blogeen before but the sensation is strangely exhilarating—writing on the fly, without valiant editors and fact-checkers to catch dangling participles and verify scurrilous gossip. It’s cool to be à la minute instead of having to wait for three months to share news of last night’s dinner in a magazine column. And a blog offers a forum for direct communication—or so I’ve been led to believe—which could be interesting during this target-on-my-back time of the year when Toronto Life’s annual restaurant rankings are live and on the newsstands.

Panini-on-the-Lake

Posted on April 10, 2006

Even not-very-patriotic English people quickly tire of the endless dissing of English food by ill-informed foreigners. It’s true that Boiled Beef and Carrots doesn’t sound all that appetizing, but the dish is sublime when prepared by an expert (my mum, for example). One could debate the matter over many pints but life is really too short for such battles. Better to silence the budding rant by citing the sandwich—nature’s perfect lunch and Albion’s second greatest gift to the world. Even when adopted by Italians and renamed panini, the sandwich exemplifies the best English character traits—practical, compact, private, sensual, mysterious, satisfying, versatile, independent.

Lounging About

Posted on April 17, 2006

David Lee and Yannick Bigourdin, co-owners of Splendido, have thought of a way to keep themselves occupied this summer by colonizing the entertainment district. They’re taking over the vast, three-storey space of The Original Motorcycle Café on King Street West when it closes on May 31, sprucing up the interior and reopening a month later as King West. The idea was first suggested to them a year ago by someone who happens to be a silent partner at Splendido and TOMC, but neither Lee nor Bigourdin were prepared to let their attention waver from Splendido until now. “And of course that will always be our main priority,” says Bigourdin. “David will continue to cook at Splendido nearly every evening. But we will oversee King West. It’s exciting and scary at the same time.”

Sour Grapes

Posted on May 15, 2006

Congratulations to Jennifer McLagan, Toronto-based writer and food stylist. Her book, Bones, just won the James Beard Foundation award for best cookbook on a single subject. Jennifer chose not to be present at the great gala in New York, preferring to linger at her other home in Paris where, she tells me, the lilacs are currently in blossom, asparagus and strawberries are everywhere and the first cherries from Provence have now arrived. I don’t blame her for staying away. Everybody said one of the other two books in her category, Charcuterie, by Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn, was a shoo-in, and though Jennifer is well-known in Canada and her native Australia, she cheerfully admits to being “a nobody” in U.S. culinary circles. So she thought to spare herself the lonely ordeal of ending up an also-ran at the Beards.

JK mk IV

Posted on July 17, 2006

The museum itself isn’t quite ready for prime time but Jamie Kennedy at the Gardiner is now open for lunch, for dinner on Friday and for special events. The space (on the third floor of the gorgeous new Gardiner Ceramic Museum) is effortlessly beautiful—clean, modern lines in slate grey and natural wood, open-plan, airy and full of light from floor-to-ceiling windows and skylights. I imagine it’s going to be a very popular rendezvous once the liquor licence is approved. Tables are widely spaced (for now, at least) and there are two or three out on the balcony in the open air; or you can eat at the black granite bar where the eight elegant stools look broad enough to accommodate almost any bottom.

Kulture Vulture

Posted on August 28, 2006

News trickles in that chef Claudio Aprile’s business partner at Colborne Lane, due to open in November, is none other than the extremely busy Hanif Harji, whose most recent enterprise, Kultura, opened officially two weeks ago. Assisting with Colborne Lane’s debut will be manager Terry Hughes and sommelier Kim Cyr, both of whom are currently resident at Kultura, along with veteran front-of-house guy and sommelier Kevin Wallace. Hughes and Wallace were also involved with the birth of Doku 15 earlier this year—that project the brainchild of Zark Fatah, who combined with Hanif Harji on Blowfish. Are you following this? I guess the point is that Harji and Fatah seem to be involved with a good many very cool restaurant-lounges these days and that Hughes et alia are the go-to guys if you want your new place to hit the ground running.

In Tray

Posted on October 2, 2006

Back to Toronto just in time to catch the damp end of summer. Now I can put away my Ernie Whitt bat and T-shirt and look for my Dougie Gilmour pyjamas—the two sporting seasons fit together nicely with neither team making the playoffs. Sigh.

Now It Can Be Told

Posted on October 24, 2006

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The third meal alluded to in last week’s post was an extraordinary progressive dinner hosted by Stephen Leckie in celebration of his 50th birthday. Stephen is the founder of Gold Medal Plates (of which more later) and draws his friends from an extraordinarily broad cross-section of life—avant-garde musicians, major political figures, Olympic athletes, filmmakers, captains of industry, the occasional ink-stained wretch. At 5:30 last Saturday evening, sixteen of us rendezvoused at Célestin, where we stood about breaking the ice, drinking gimlets and eating torchon of foie gras wrapped in prosciutto. An hour or so later we trooped out onto the sidewalk. There stood a monstrous white vehicle like some kind of stretch SUV which Stephen introduced as the Culinary Chariot. It looked as if it might be capable of flight, all gleaming and weirdly lit like a car from another dimension. We climbed in, settling onto luxurious leather sofas while a sound system regaled us with dulcet airs and various light and laser shows charmed our eyes.

All That Jazz

Posted on October 30, 2006

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Life always seems a little brighter when you hear of an honour being bestowed upon someone who truly deserves it. On October 23, my friend Fatos Pristine, proprietor of the renowned Cheese Boutique, was inducted into the Confrérie des Chevaliers du Taste Fromage de France. The ceremony took place in Paris and I know nothing of the rituals involved, what robes were worn, whether nights of waking vigil were part of the preparations.

Come to Whistler

Posted on November 13, 2006

So, David Gaunt is now chef at Crush after leaving Eagles Nest golf club. I haven’t tasted his Crush menu yet but he’s talented and driven and I will certainly check it out before the world is very much older. I did go to Maro, on Liberty Street, the latest venture from the guys who own Brant House, Brassaii and West Lounge. David Adjey is executive chef of all the properties and I enjoyed what he has done at Maro—a bunch of bite-sized, globally inspired starters priced from $2 up, then main courses that take a principal ingredient like lamb or cod and present it two ways on the same plate, in an Asian and also a western treatment. A couple of dishes were marred by oversalting but there was lots to enjoy. If you go at lunchtime, you’ll find the place imitating a friendly local noodle house.

Globe Bistro

Posted on January 8, 2007

Finally got to Globe Bistro on the Danforth, where Café Brussels used to be. I had called half a dozen times since it opened in November but they ran into delays getting their liquor licence. Anyway, I wanted to give the place a few weeks to get up and running. Others felt differently and the room has been busy since day one. A fine room it is. The original floor from the long-ago days when the premises were part of a bowling alley is still in place. And Café Brussels’ balcony tables, outdoor patio and private room have been retained, though the balcony railing is now frosted glass. Instead of the old art nouveau look, the soaring space has been given a clean, unfussied modern décor in neutral tones that allows for a play of light and shade. Heavy white cloths cover the tables. Lots of veteran waiters buzz about—you’ll recognize them from half a dozen places—and manager Adrian Amara watches over the action. The owner, Ed Ho, is also out on the floor, quietly bussing tables, which is a good and conscientious thing to see. I’d say they have found the sweet spot in terms of mood, that small area of the spectrum of conviviality that is chic enough to work as a place for a romantic date but comfortable enough to attract quartets of grown-up locals in sweaters and sports jackets every day of the week.

First Gold Medal Plates Canadian Culinary Champion

Posted on February 5, 2007

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This weekend, in Whistler, B.C., we held the first ever Gold Medal Plates Canadian Culinary Championship—the culmination of a journey that started six months ago. Last fall, we crossed the country, holding Gold Medal Plates gala events in seven cities—Halifax, Ottawa-Gatineau, Toronto, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver. The purpose was to raise money for Canada’s Olympic and Paralympic athletes but part of the show in each city was a cooking competition between the top ten local chefs. We awarded a gold medal to the winning chef from each city and invited them to Whistler for the weekend of February 1 through 4, to compete for the ultimate title. My challenge was to think of a format for the Championship that would truly test the chefs and in the end we came up with a three-part competition.

Many Small Treats

Posted on February 19, 2007

It’s good doing business with people who work on the Danforth because you tend to have meetings and brainstorming sessions at Allen’s. A visit there is always a pleasure but especially right now when proprietor John Maxwell is running his steak festival, an astonishingly brilliant idea that allows customers to order steaks purchased from many different farms and compare them. This is single estate beef and Maxwell makes no bones about the fact that the purpose of the initiative is to prove, once and for all, that Ontario grass-fed steak is superior to U.S. Prime (whatever that is from one month to the next). Had I known about all this before our meeting I would have made arrangements to stay for dinner but as things stood we only had time and room for one item from the special menu. On the advice of Mr. Maxwell, we chose a piece of meat from Barker Farm—grass-fed, corn-finished, Limousin-Angus cross, aged 42 days. Oh Lord, it was good—slightly crusty from the grill, medium rare as requested, the juicy pink, ruby-hearted flesh yielding into tenderness with a toothsome crunch, the flavour sweet and beefy. I believe Allen’s steak festival lasts until February 24. To forego it would be a sin.

Nostalgia not what it was

Posted on March 19, 2007

While I was away last week, I received an email from Donna Dooher announcing that Mildred Pierce will close its doors for good on July 31, 2007. Well, I was gobsmacked. The place does so well, especially for Sunday brunch, and Donna has her Cookworks studio in the adjacent space! Then again, she reminded me, March 8 marked the seventeenth anniversary of Mildred Pierce’s opening. An impossible statistic—it was just a few years ago, surely, that we first oohed and aahed at the décor, a high-camp masterpiece of film-set trompe l’oeil that was simultaneously amusing and beautiful. Remember how those boughs and foliage arched from a faux marble dado to chandeliers made of gold-painted plastic cherubs, how that painted Dutch tile floor lead directly to heaven’s gates? Such fun! Today’s restaurants take themselves far too seriously. The only good news was the suggestion in Donna’s message that she and her husband and partner, Kevin Gallagher, have been “presented with an exciting opportunity” elsewhere. Meanwhile, she says, “we plan to celebrate these years over the next five months. And, as we prepare to board the train there will be NO tears on the platform!” I trust that true Mildred fans will flock to their favourite between now and July 31 and raise a last flute of Champagne to the memory of youth’s fleeting pleasures.

La grande boutique

Posted on April 23, 2007

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Now it can be told. Last Friday, Fatos Pristine, the laird of Cheese Boutique, and his sons signed the papers on a 4000-square-foot property right across the road from the Boutique. They have been thinking about expanding for a long time, pondering the wisdom of opening a new branch downtown or uptown. “But my father pointed out that one of the main things people enjoy about Cheese Boutique is that it’s a family business,” says Afrim Pristine. “Our customers like seeing us all together and hard at work—my dad, my mom, my brothers…” When 18 Ripley Avenue became available, the die was cast. As well as being across the street, the property has other unique attributes. Long ago, it was a gun shop that sold firearms to the police and in the basement is a 100-foot tunnel where the weapons were tested. It’s cool, dark and moist—a perfect “cave” for ageing cheese. Within minutes of signing the lease, Afrim was on the phone ordering 600 wheels of manchego and 300 wheels of parmiggiano reggiano specifically for the new tunnel. Now he’s working on designs for some sort of conveyor belt that will silently and gently move the cheeses as they age in the damp darkness, communicating one to another in achingly slow, reassuring, telepathic cheese-speak.

Hello, Saylor

Posted on May 21, 2007

An unfulfilled ambition for the long weekend was to get out of the city, preferably to Bloomfield in Prince Edward County to check out a new café that opened there on May 19th. It’s called Saylor’s Café (274 Main St., 613-393-5387) and is rumoured to serve a particularly delicious soup of local asparagus, potato and roasted red onion. I have never met the two women who own and run the place—Marnie Woodrow and Eliza Clark —but I have been a longtime fan of Woodrow’s writing since I first read her book of short stories, In The Spice House. It sits on my small shelf of indispensible food writing and, like her online journal can be read and re-read for pleasure and inspiration.

Nothing but the news

Posted on June 4, 2007

If any of you plan on being in Edmonton on June 12, come and join me for the first in a series of wine and food extravaganzas we’re calling Masters of Wine and Food. It’s a Bordeaux night and we’ll be opening some pretty stupendous wines, including 2004 Pavillon Blanc, 2003 Château Ducru Beaucaillou, 2002 Château Pichon Lalande Comtesse, 1995 Château Mouton Rothschild, 1990 Château Palmer, 1986 Château Beychevelle and 2003 Château Lafaurie Peyraguey, matched to wee tastings of delectable dishes from chef David O’Connor. A very good time will be had by all.

In the raw

Posted on June 11, 2007

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I’ve been spending some time with Patrick McMurray’s new book, Consider The Oyster: A Shucker’s Field Guide, (McClelland and Stewart/Madison Press). It’s a handsome little volume, well illustrated with photographs of shuckers and shucking competitions, old oyster markets and people eating oysters. The shots of actual oyster beds are worth lingering over and of course there’s a family album of all the many different kinds of oyster that pass through McMurray’s Toronto restaurant, Starfish, each pic surrounded by lore, history and tasting notes. That alone makes the book a vital vade mecum for the itinerant Ostreavore—not to mention the chapter on the different shucking techniques of recent world champions (himself included).

Crystal Five

Posted on July 9, 2007

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I was sitting in the ROM’s new restaurant, C5, late last week, when the mimolette question arose yet again. Properly aged mimolette is one of my absolute favourite cheeses. A whole one looks like a beaten-up stone cannonball until you prize it open. Inside, the paste is dark orange and so firm that it’s better to dig out fragments with a wedge than try to cut it with a knife. The flavour is bizarrely rich, like aged gouda only much more so—like hazelnuts and caramel and condensed milk and salt—incredibly delicious and with a finish as long and intense as Göttedamarung. I think it would be my desert island cheese. Indeed, I have always imagined this was the cheese that Ben Gunn fantasized about and begged for after his sad marooning. The Mimolette Question, predictably enough, is what wine do you serve with this potent Boule de Lille? The classic answer is a dark, tannic Cahors, but it’s very hard to find any Cahors in Toronto, and Argentinian Malbec (same grape, different hemisphere) is too polite to do the trick. I recently tried some other wines with a hunk of the orange god but they gave up completely and disappeared on the palate—even Ontario Baco Noir and a decent Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon that filled my head like blueberry paint but had no answer for the mimolette. Port? Nah. Islay single malt? I poured a dram of Ardbeg which is as pungently phenolic as any spirit known to man—like drinking iodine—but it and the cheese spoke different languages. Save the Ardbeg for an aged cabrales—now that’s a passionate marriage. I’m told that an old sweet Vouvray can charm mimolette but it, like a good Cahors, is not available on the ROM’s rather expensive but as yet not very extensive wine list. So the cheese and I were left to each other’s company, unwined but otherwise happy.

Four entrances and an exit

Posted on July 23, 2007

I went to Amaya on Thursday and enjoyed myself no end. Call the cooking there New Indian or Contemporary Subcontinental—or better yet, don’t. It’s more like the way very good, rather sophisticated Indian friends cook in their homes with fresh textures and subtle spicing. But the facts, the facts…! Amaya is on Bayview Avenue, where JOV Bistro used to be. Derek Valleau (ex Crush) and Hemant Bhagwani (who owns Mantra in Burlington) are the proprietors, working the room as good owners should, and they have brought the brilliant and charming Lynn Stimpson in as manager from Cava (and a great many other places—she’s a career front-of-house star with a CV as long as the Nile). The chef, Dinesh Butola, also comes from Mantra and he knows his stuff. We finally have someone to contend with Vancouver’s Vikram Vij and with the team at Amaya in London, England (no relation—and no comparison, either, since our Amaya is content to woo Leaside while the London version aims to be the sexiest, haughtiest venue ever).

Meaty, Beaty, Big and Bouncy

Posted on October 8, 2007

Autumn is so much the favourite season of most Canadians I know (and why not? Canada does it so well) that I feel disloyal when reluctantly admitting that I find the fall melancholy to the point of bitterness. I don’t like watching things die. As an avid gardener (and fan of shambling zombie flicks), I know most of them will come back to life—but it’s still traumatic. Gastronomy offers its own take on life after death. Tasting the delectable porcine products showcased by Mario Pingue at Hart House this week made me humbly grateful to the pigs that gave their all but returned to the world as irresistibly moist and tender prosciutto, divine porchetta (which I ate on its own, without the proffered bun, but with a crisp morsel of chestnut-coloured crackling) and a lean, herb-rubbed cured loin, sliced and wrapped like a pink silk ribbon around a grissini stick. I always thought Ontario prosciutto was necessarily inferior to Italy’s product, usually dry and clumsily salty. Pingue’s Niagara product, aged in a naturally humid cave gouged from the Escarpment, is simply fabulous—swine revenant but transformed. There were plenty of other peninsula treats in the room, but I was waylaid in front of Charles Baker’s table (he was pouring his eponymous Riesling and a Wildass red and white from Stratus’s cadet label) and missed everything else.

Busy like bee

Posted on January 28, 2008

Quelle week, as they say in France—though of course one would always rather be busy and active at this age than morosely, motionlessly wealthy or monotonously toiling away for Matthew and Son. On Thursday, I played guinea pig for a series of new dishes chef Patrick Lin is introducing at the redesigned Senses—fascinating, innovative cuisine and exactly what we have patiently hoped to see from Lin since he came back from Hong Kong. The new menu kicks in once Winterlicious is over, so I’ll wait until then to share the experience in more detail.

Also rans

Posted on March 10, 2008

It’s one of my personal rites of spring—handing out awards in the April issue of Toronto Life. Sometimes we pattern the event by categorizing superlatives, celebrating the most cowardly chicken or the most patient waiter; in other years it might be a straightforward 10 Best or Top 20 restaurants. Such rankings are entirely subjective, of course, and while some people use the list to choose where they will eat in the coming months, others delight in taking issue with it.

Last spring, the awards concentrated exclusively on new restaurants, choosing 10 good ones that had all opened in the previous year and adding another 10 that didn’t quite soar to the summit. This April, we’re trimming the form to the top 10 only—no more, no less—but not without shedding bitter tears. 2007 turned out to be a very decent vintage with many enjoyable establishments making their debuts. In the spirit of completeness, therefore, and also by way of a lead-in to the April issue, here are four more restaurants that might have made the charts in a less stellar year.

11. Foxley
Cruise Ossington any night of the week and look through the window of Tom Thai’s cozy restaurant: you’ll see people standing waiting for a table or one of the high-tops near the bar. Customers just don’t want to leave. The mood is partly responsible—so warm and relaxed, convivially loud—but mostly it’s the food. Thai came to fame as one of the four chefs at Café Asia and Youki and then starred at Tempo. Avant-garde sushi was his bag, but he has a broader range as owner-chef of Foxley, forswearing sashimi and sushi in favour of more original fusion dishes (and in the process keeping prices down to a reasonable, neighbourhood level). Absolutely not to be missed are the various ceviches on the menu, especially one involving surgically sliced sea bream marinated to order one night with yuzu, shredded shiso, crispy shallots and ground Japanese red pepper or, on another night, with kumquat and sesame. Thai’s flavours are intense and deeply layered, showing the innate balance of salt and acid, spicy heat and cool freshness that is the soul of Southeast Asian cooking. A sophisticated little wine list has been chosen with the food in mind.
207 Ossington Ave. (at Dundas St. W.), 416-534-8520.

12. Cluck, Grunt & Low
Like steak, barbecue is one of those subjects that brings out the pontifical worst in just about everybody—so opening a dedicated Q-shack amounts to breast-baring at an almost masochistic level. Not that start-up chef Paul Boehmer, or his successor, Marc Thuet, is easily crushed by criticism. I would hurry anywhere either one of them was cooking (though next time I won’t wear a pristine white shirt). My first visit was on a hot July evening, and we sat outside on the little sidewalk deck that runs up from the corner of Bloor drinking cocktails from Mason jars and watching the suckling pig on its spit. Thuet slow-cooks the meats in the combi-ovens at Cluck, Grunt & Low’s second location (1620 Bayview Ave.), but the journey to the Annex does them no harm. Not everything on the menu is epiphanic but several items come close: an awesome sandwich of pulled chicken in thyme-spiked barbecue sauce; big fatty beef ribs in a dark sticky glaze; moist, greaseless chicken deeply infused with fruitwood smoke; a simple but perfectly achieved potato salad. I wasn’t so impressed by the bland, honey-glazed lamb ribs or a side order of “Brunswick stew” that was like some kind of runny, slightly oily succotash. Then again, I would like to eat Thuet’s Wild Turkey bourbon ice cream every day for the rest of my life.
362 Bloor St. W. (at Walmer Rd.), 416-962-5050.

13. Jacobs & Co. Steakhouse
Part of the latest steak house revival, Jacobs & Co. tries so hard to be glamorous, stylish and exclusive that you can’t help but hope it succeeds, especially in a troubled Brant Street property that has seen several projects implode in recent years. The partners involved are certainly making maximum use of the building. Customers are guided downstairs, through a piano lounge and then ushered back upstairs to the dining room, passing a meat locker where sides of Pennsylvania USDA prime and Snake River Farm Idaho “wagyu” beef are dry-aging. The menu has a retro self-consciousness, offering such old-time treats as a good, rich but booze-free lobster thermidor or a version of oysters rockefeller. Most fun is the revival of the tableside caesar salad, made from scratch in the classic way with optional Spanish white anchovies. And the meat? Prices change daily but I paid $93 for an 12-ounce “wagyu” rib-eye—richly marbled, beefy, aromatic, delicious. Side vegetables like onions braised in dark stock or roasted tomatoes with feta and herbs were yummy. Frites, however, deep-fried in duck fat, were starchy heavyweights and desserts very disappointing. A place like this needs an energetic, rich, very well dressed crowd to get its engines running smoothly: we’ll see if one can be found.
12 Brant St. (at King St. W.), 416-366-0200.

14. Prime
You can imagine the thought process in the mind of George Friedmann, owner of the Windsor Arms: “What this town needs is another pricey steak house with retro flourishes and prime rib on Sundays.” Then he goes and creates it, gussying up the long narrow space that used to be the hotel’s bar, Club 22. I haven’t been in for the prime rib, but I did join the millionaire meat-and-potatoes set one evening to try a 20-ounce Alberta rib-eye (Friedmann and chef Stephen Ricci, ex-Prego Della Piazza, are fans of Canadian beef). It was excellent, barely seasoned with a little kosher salt and pepper, juicy and nicely crusted from the grill. A side of organic baby vegetables and another of pan-fried mushrooms (inexplicably called a fricassee) also hit the honest-to-goodness button on the nose. Other dishes were less successful. I know Calabrian gnocchi are supposed to be heavy and dense, unlike their northern kin, but these were leaden. And what’s a caesar salad with no discernible anchovy or garlic and the parmesan relegated to a crisp? Huge, too-sweet, cream-smothered, retro desserts like apple crisp and key lime pie are presumably intended to appeal to the greedy inner child. The steak is lovely, but the restaurant needs a good editor.
Windsor Arms Hotel, 18 St. Thomas St. (at Bloor St. W.), 416-971-9666.

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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