Everyone involved gave a bravura performance and the chefs only left because they had sold out of food. To all the chefs and cooks and caterers and crepe flippers and ice cream dippers and smoothie shakers and cupcake bakers and corn dog makers, let me offer a huge thank you! You made the event and next year, I promise, the umbrellas will be more stable. And we’ll have wine and beer for sale. And it’ll be bigger and brasher—but we’ll always remember this first one because nobody knew what to expect. And thanks to Nicole Sweeney of the Distillery who turned the idea into actuality—and to Luminato for seeing that gastronomy, the first of all the arts, should also be represented in a festival of the arts held in a city justly renowned for its cooking.

It would be invidious for me to name names or pick favourites from the gallant chefs who took part, but at the same time I want to give some idea of the range and creativity the event inspired. I sent minions scampering through the throng to note where the longest, feistiest lineups were to be found and here are their reports, delivered in the inimitable “note form” that minions love.

Starfish’s owner Patrick McMurray scrawled his offerings on an old window frame (that will soon hang in his own window as some kind of surreal-ironicalist statement). Five oysters for a $5 ticket (that has to be a bargain—Rodney’s was offering four for a buck, though theirs were slightly bigger) or a smoked blue crab (Patrick was popping the lid but you had to suck the goodness out of the critter) or an extraordinarily successful freak of an idea he called “Mr. Frosty’s lobster sno kone.” This was a paper cone filled with ice soaked in cocktail sauce-flavoured water and topped with chilled lobster. You could eat everything except the cone. It was delicious, but I imagine some children must have burst into tears finding what looked like a strawberry slushie tasting of Nova Scotia lobster and cocktail sauce. I began with the oysters (three Malpeques and two from B.C.’s Fanny Bay)—first thing in my mouth since coffee and toothpaste at 6 a.m.—and they were stupendous, like swimming in the sea.

Trevor Kitchen and Bar owner Trevor Wilkinson took the burger idea and ran with it, squeezing sweet, very tender barbecued suckling pig inside a parmesan-crusted biscuit. It was righteous and heavy and Wilkinson threw in a cup of his sweet, full-bodied, homemade lemonade.

Lino Collevecchio of Via Allegro also burgered, crowding a patty of ground bison with pancetta and melted taleggio cheese and garnishing it with truffle-scented onion mayo and porcini dust. Did it taste good? Read the description more slowly and see if your mouth waters. Typically including something above and beyond, he also offered a pistachio and chocolate florentine ice cream sandwich with amarone-and-strawberry marmalade.

Santaguida Fine Foods pulled in the people with a giant grilled chicken panini. Lucia Ruggiera-Martella of Grano did her chicken a different way, folding house-made flatbread around tender chicken breast with a choice of toppings (the minion chose arugula pesto).

Sassafraz prepared a generous lobster taco and also handed out house-made chocolates that brought the number two minion to her knees. At about three o’clock, the longest crowd of all may have been at Sunshine Shakes, where the busy ’tenders were making chilled smoothies out of fresh tropical fruits. At five, it was definitely for Edo’s kobe beef hot dog (a brazen, counter-reformation manifesto in favour of the dog, the very item this event was created to destroy!).

And the beat went on. Here was Dish dishing up a sweet, rich pulled pork sandwich on a cheddar-chive biscuit with avocado purée and slow-roasted tomatoes. There was Jamie Kennedy and his son, toiling under the pale of Kennedy’s latest venture, the Gilead Café, griddling a scrumptious version of a croque monsieur using the chef’s own ham seared on a barbecue built around a limestone slab from his own vineyard. I mean, how JK can you get?

Jayne’s Gourmet Catering drew in the science nerds with a liquid nitrogen–frozen “cryogemic” [sic] dulce de leche ice cream served in a sugared éclair with strawberry-maple sauce. One Up chef Jason Toner went the minimalist-perfectionist route with a bite-sized flavour explosion of yellow fin tuna tartare with yuzu-scented crème fraîche, flying fish roe and yellow pepper brunoise all poised in a tiny cup of prosciutto. The burger crowd moved on without buying; the gourmets pounced.

And then there was the offering from J P + Co, the new catering company from Jean-Pierre Challet and his business partners, Peter Tsang and Jennifer Decorte. They placed tiny goat cheese tarts topped with caramelized shallots in a paper boat and capped them with subtly dressed frisée. Challet et al. will be based in the Distillery, catering, doing events and giving cooking classes, working especially with product brought in from Quebec. We do not know as yet who will be filling J.P.’s considerable clogs at The Fifth.

As for me, by about tea time, I decided to take a breather, crouching under the temperamental umbrella held aloft by Anne Yarymowich, executive chef of the Art Gallery of Ontario. She had brought in her friend Carlos Fuenmayor to help with a scrumptious dainty: a tortilla of potato and salt cod topped with romesco sauce and a juicy grilled gulf shrimp. I must have eaten my weight in it. Yarymowich’s new restaurant at the AGO opens on November 14, with full street access from Dundas Street West and breathtaking decor (according to Anne), its name not quite finalized.

And there were so many more delicacies! Chris Brown from Perigee did the full slow-local thing with a venison thuringer sausage on English muffin with pickled ramps. Jason Rosso, who governs all the other Distillery restaurants, did a braised oxtail risotto with porcini (street food? If only!). Andrea Nicholson of Thirty Five Elm fried up an amazing lobster and crab pogo dog. I used my last two tickets on the last two going. It was so good—juicy, lobstery, crabby, crispy, simultaneously junky and haute, just what you can buyon the street corners in foodie heaven.

Then it was off to the Mill Street pub for a restorative pint of Tank and a glimpse of the European Cup soccer masters showing us all how it’s done. At which point Quartetto Gelato started to play a free concert on Trinity Street and the world hit reset.

In the final analysis, this was a lively, democratic and interesting event that brought the city together around a
single table, celebrated our cultural diversity but also our commonality as citizens of Toronto. It was great to see North 44º (doing a delectable crab falafel, incidentally) side by side with a caterer whose work I had never tasted. The table, already accoutred with multicultural, perhaps universal connotations of harmony, hospitality, amnesty and conviviality, was a mere prop but also the means to an end. I watched total strangers sitting there, striking up a conversation, commenting first on the food, then the event, then our city. The audience was a lively cross-section of Toronto. To be sure, the educated, baby-encumbered, 30-something powerhouse was there in force, but so were their parents, and their 20-something, free-as-birds younger sibs, and the gypsies and the children. Watching the kids listen to the chef as she/he went into their spiel was revealing. The vocabulary may have been arcane but the kid got the gist of it—the passion that clouds around flavour and texture and the provenance of ingredients. Eat a corncob, kid, instead of a tube of Pringles. Eat a free-range bison burger instead of a Mickey D’s. The world is yours. And it’s your hand that will be spoon-feeding me when I’m 108 in an old folks’ home, so I need your values to be peachy-keen.

In other news, Afrim Pristine has been busy down at Cheese Boutique taking whole forms of Drumloch cheddar from the Isle of Gigha in Scotland and washing them daily in Lagavulin 16-year-old whisky. The cheese should be delightfully aromatic by the time it is served at a Scotch dinner on July 23 at Trevor Kitchen and Bar. Meanwhile Afrim goes home every night reeking of the water of life.

I’m sad to say the plug has been pulled and this is the last Chatto’s Digest you will see on Toronto Life’s Web site. I still quite like the idea of being a blogeen, however, and will be resuming after a brief hiatus at www.jameschatto.com, larding astonishing gastronomical gossip and opinionated worldwide restaurant news with whatever else seems important or amusing, assuming I can figure out how to get the site set up. Meanwhile, toodle-pip.

He will not be travelling with me to Niagara in September, when David Lawrason and I are hosting a rather indulgent long weekend of wine and food around the peninsula. Details are now in place and tickets are already selling. The weekend starts on Friday, September 12, when we sail from Port Credit to Port Dalhousie in a fleet of 46-foot Hunter yachts—at around five hours, it’s slightly longer than the three-hour cruise that started Gilligan’s Island and considerably more comfortable. We have taken over the Oban Inn in Niagara-on-the-Lake for the weekend and we’ll have a dinner there on Friday night in Tony de Luca’s restaurant after David Lawrason conducts his welcome-to-Niagara tasting seminar, calibrating our palates for the treats that lie ahead. Saturday takes us off to private tours of some of David’s favourite wineries, including Hidden Bench (runner-up for Canada’s Winery of the Year award in 2007) and Southbrook (so new it isn’t even officially open yet, but is still ultra-chic). Lunch that day will be an al fresco feast in the garden and orchards of the Good Earth Cooking School, including a sampling of some of the Twenty Valley region’s finest wines. In the evening, we’ll go a little more formal for a “gastronomic winemakers’ dinner” up in the Lookout at Hillebrand Winery, with its view of the ocean of vineyards stretching all the way to the escarpment. On Sunday, my friend Dave Perkins and his wife, Nancy, owners of Wyndym Farm, will show us what they have been up to this year, and I dare say there will be some sampling of their superb sustainably farmed produce. The morning is devoted to a thorough exploration of the chardonnays and pinot noirs of Inniskillin, Jackson-Triggs and Le Clos Jordanne, then we’re off for a long lunch at Treadwell in Port Dalhousie before sailing home.

Talking of the Good Earth Cooking School, owner Nicolette Novak has introduced a delicious service this summer: preparing fabulous picnics for anyone visiting the region. She’s offering four different menus, each designed for two people. My favourite is called “Would you have any Grey Poupon?” and consists of Twenty Valley country paté; a selection of charcuterie with demi-baguette, cornichons and Good Earth fruit mustard; German-style potato salad with grainy mustard vinaigrette; marinated green bean salad; marinated garden fresh vegetables; two artisanal cheeses with candied nuts, seasonal chutney and organic crostini; fresh fruit or a seasonal fruit salad and a freshly baked, seasonally inspired fruit dessert. Sounds heavenly. The picnics cost $60 including taxes. Novak needs 48 hours’ notice to prepare the picnics. Find out more at www.goodearthcooking.com or by calling 905-563-7856.

Excellent news for those who live around Yonge and Lawrence. Hemant Bhagwani and Derek Valleau, the owners of Amaya, that delicious modern-Indian restaurant on Bayview, are opening a new restaurant at 3305 Yonge Street. They are calling it Bread Bar (their naan really is the best in the city) and have come up with a new notion to avoid confusion with Amaya or its takeout sister, Amaya Express. Small portions is the revolutionary concept—which is good if you love to graze but not so good if you rely on leaving Amaya with a half-dozen doggy bags full of the food you ordered but could not eat. The Bread Bar will offer such yummy morsels as lobster naan, crab kulcha, sag paneer “pizza,” and lemon sole in a particularly delicious sauce. Sounds like another winner. Now the millionaire denizens of Hogg’s Hollow will have even less far to go when hunger gnaws.

The same goes for Brad Long’s change-of-life fiesta last Sunday. Long has been chef of the Air Canada Centre and Maple Leaf Sports for 10 years, and though he has thoroughly enjoyed the gig, he is heading off to pastures new—literally. On behalf of his new restaurant, Veritas, and in partnership with chef Tawfik Shehata of Vertical, he is setting up a farm somewhere north of Stouffville, where he and his family live and where he will, in his own words,

learn to sustainably plant, grow and harvest a cross section of heirloom produce (maybe some chickens, pigs, sheep down the road) for [Tawfik’s] restaurant and mine. Part of the reason to do this is to offer cooks (and everyone) an opportunity to experience and understand the process (and some of the politics) of growing food. On top of the digging and learning, hauling, hoeing, weeding and watering this whole intense (and sustainable) process will be the subject of a documentary… Sound crazy? Yeah, don’t care.

And that was where the party idea entered the picture. Long got his pals to leave the city for a day (lucky the weather was breathtakingly aestival), don wellies and get stuck into a little on-camera farming. The pot was sweetened with yummy food, beverages, fireworks and the sort of banter only off-duty chefs can generate.

To be executive chef of the ACC is to be about as corporate as a chef can get, though Long always went much farther than his tether might be expected to reach, pushing the gastronomic envelope at the Platinum Club by giving the steak-eating members a chance to taste game (always beautifully cooked), wild salmon, the best of everything. He was also den mother to the athletes, teaching 10-burger-a-day-scarfing NHL prospects how to cook a healthy pasta lunch and finding bona fide grits and collard greens for homesick Raptors. It’s interesting to see him going all muddy and righteous down on the farm, following in the rustic footsteps of Michael Stadtländer, Michael Potters, Jamie Kennedy, Marc Thuet, et al. Or it would have been interesting if I had been there. I did have a good excuse, though: I was taking my daughter and her friend to the Cheese Boutique for the Festival of Chefs event starring Jonathan Gushue of Langdon Hall.

Readers of this blog will know the very high regard I have for Cheese Boutique, its tireless owner, Fatos Pristine, and his talented family. The Festival of Chefs (held every Saturday and Sunday in May) is always fun—a foodfest in the midst of a busy shopping day. This time I was very honoured to be invited to sit at a perfectly accoutred table in the shop window, together with my young companions, and to be thoroughly spoiled as Gushue’s delectable treats were brought to us and a fine 1993 Barolo was poured.

We began with a trio of olives: sweet, lemony, delicately flavoured, pitted brown ones from Italy; firm green picholines from Provence; and fantastically pungent alfonso olives from Peru that had turned soft and purple from long storage in red wine barrels. Served alongside were some of the breads now being made at Langdon Hall by pastry chef Rob Howland, including a dazzling new loaf introduced by Montreal’s bread genius James MacGuire, who recently stayed at Langdon Hall for a week, coaching the bakers.

The first course was a delicious cold soup, a velvety purée of fava beans topped with some of the parmigiano-reggiano-infused yogurt made at Langdon Hall and a sprinkling of toasted cumin seeds. So yummy.

Then Gushue sent forth a selection of Langdon Hall’s charcuterie, which Afrim Pristine matched with some firm cheeses: lightly smoked Idiazábal from Navarre; Vento d’Estate from the Veneto (a sheep’s milk cheese wrapped in wild mint and lavender that the Boutique ages for a further year); and Provolone Aurichio, also from the Veneto, a superstar Provolone that comes in roped forms almost seven feet high. You can see them for yourself in Cheese Boutique’s awesome cheese vault. Even alongside such amazing treasures, the Langdon charcuterie more than held its own. Gushue makes a foie gras parfait that camouflages its perfect richness with an ethereal texture. He turns out a fabulous and unusually soft bresaola by marinating the beef for weeks in red wine brine before dry curing it. His beef cheek in gelée is like the god of head cheese; his pulled pork rillettes simply ooze flavour. As for the pheasant and foie gras paté en croute and the sopresata (its chunks of sweet white fat spiked with red wine and a touch of smoked paprika), well, I must leave those experiences to your imagination.

Moving along, the Pristines brought over some of the smoked pork ribs they prepare and sell on weekends, then Afrim appeared wheeling a massive steel-lined barrel. Inside were 180 fresh, firm young goat cheeses from the neighbourhood dairy, International Cheese Company, all drowned since February 27 in 75 litres of Malivoire Old Vines Marechal Foch red wine. Afrim thrust in a hand and pulled out a cheese stained the colour of beetroot by the tannic Foch. He cut into it and we saw that the colour had barely penetrated the cheese—the dark purple exterior and snowy white paste a dazzling contrast. We tasted. The marriage needs a few more months, we agreed, to fulfill its potential. Meanwhile, we munched on lightly toasted fig bread from Célestin and a wedge of unctuous Saint Dominus goat cheese from Burgundy, fronds of thyme pressed into its bloomy yellow rind.

Rob Howland provided dessert: strawberries soaked in balsamic and dusted with cracked black pepper, fresh cherries and a selection of chocolate truffles, one filled with a cream made of rhubarb poached in orange juice, another flavoured with blue cheese and sea salt, another with lime and espalette peppers.

There is always something slightly surreal about sitting and eating a long and civilized meal in a busy shop window—which of course is a good thing, not a criticism. The Pristines’ hospitality is legendary, and their shop, I believe, is the most interesting and creative food store we have.

The days that followed were full of adventure, driving north in a convoy of rented SUVs. Our first scotchfall was the delightful Edradour, near Pitlochry in Perthshire. It’s Scotland’s smallest distillery, run by only three men and producing in a year what most distilleries produce in a week. We couldn’t have asked for finer weather—warm sunshine bathing the little fold in the hills where the whisky is made in a cluster of pretty whitewashed buildings. The smallness of scale and very low-tech equipment served as a fine example of what distillation was like 150 years ago.

Eventually, we wound our way onwards to Muckrach Lodge, a former hunting lodge in the wilds of Strathspey, and our base camp for the distilleries of the Speyside region. “Don’t worry,” I advised the group as we passed lochs and castles, forest and meadow and moor, the gorse and broom spectacularly golden yellow in the sunshine, “we will soon have proper Scottish weather—fog and tempest and rain.” We did not. Joseph Cassidy, whisky guru and manager of Via Allegro restaurant, was in our party, and he, it turns out, is a powerful talisman against rain. He has been coming to Scotland for 35 years and the weather is invariably fine for his visits.

Fine enough for croquet, indeed—on Muckrach’s challengingly undulating, long-grass lawn. Croquet brings out the very worst and most ruthless aspects of the human psyche. I found myself brutally seizing victory from one charming companion (sorry, Maggie from Halifax) only to be humbled by another (next time, Maie from Edmonton). Late that night we all learned the chant that was to become the theme song of our journey, taught to us by Boris and Tom, who usually sing it as a spirited accompaniment to the play of their local soccer team, Toronto FC. The lyrics—“here we go, here we go, here we go,” repeated ad nauseam to the tune of a Sousa march—will not quickly be forgotten.

Next morning, some of the party went off to check out the Glenrothes distillery while others went clay pigeon shooting and still others drove up to Elgin, where Denise from Edmonton was able to replenish her wardrobe of cashmere clothing. We met up again at The Macallan for a private lunch and tour, which took the whole afternoon and finished with a fascinating tasting of many iterations of the famous whisky from raw new spirit to the 25-year-old sherry wood version. Back at the lodge for dinner, local Gaelic musicians set susceptible feet a-twinkling until the evening dissolved into poker and spirited conversation.

Next morning we proceeded to Glencoe, pausing for a picnic lunch by a loch (the weather now matching the south of France for sun-drenched splendour) and an encounter with a highlander who filled us in on local history, reminding the two MacDonalds in our midst about the sufferings of their forebears at the hands of the Campbells. We climbed Ben Nevis (okay, we went up most of the way in a cable car) and reached the dour glen in the early evening, where our resident beer expert, Michael from Ottawa, was able to guide us toward some excellent local ales.

Driving southwest, next day, over mountain and moor to the ferry to Islay, I was gratified to find fog and roiling black cloud, but the sun had returned from a forget-me-not sky as we disembarked at Port Askaig, on the island’s eastern shore. I had talked up the bleak and desperate landscape of peat bog and heath, dangerous mud to suck you down and preserve your anguished body for millennia. Unaccustomed to even a five-day drought, the wilderness was cracked and dry and no more frightening than an English paddock. The distilleries, however, were just as I had imagined them—Laphroaig, Lagavulin and Ardbeg—low white buildings along the southern shoreline of shimmering schist and Jura quartzite (thanks, Chris from Calgary, for providing the geological perspective). These are the most phenolic of all whiskies, their aromas and flavours a continual inspiration. “Halfway between hospital medicine and a burnt-down house,” was one happy verdict.

Two days on Islay allows a fairly thorough exploration of the island. On Friday we left for Loch Lomond and the Trossachs, where we stayed in the whimsical splendour of Roman Camp hotel in Callendar, a 1625 hunting lodge on the banks of the River Teith. It proved an ideal denouement and gave us almost the finest dinner of the week, starring a perfect fillet of wild trout, the moist flesh lifted by a delicate risotto and crowned by a plump local shrimp, and a main course of local lamb loin cooked rare with crunchy fennel, unctuous aubergine, a purée of sun-dried tomato and a striped drum of firm, juicy zucchini. Dessert was a fantasy on a theme of rhubarb and pistachio, the most delectable element being a shot glass of rhubarb jelly topped with rich white single cream. The only meal to cap it was the dinner some of us prepared in the “frat house” cottage on Islay, to which the party element had been banished. Boris and Tom dazzled even the most sophisticated palates with their butter-poached local scallops, basted roast leg of lamb, barbecued langoustines, sausages, steaks and garlic potatoes while Maggie and I whipped up spaghetti bolognese and house salad.

Did I mention the breakfasts? They were splendid, especially the pre-departure feast at Glenegedale House on Islay, a crowded plate of fried eggs and bacon, sausage and potatoes, haggis, grilled tomatoes and butter-fried mushrooms. Or the jokes—which ranged wildly from the erudite to the surreal to the most groanworthy puns (thanks to Drake from Edmonton for them all). Or the strange coincidence of finding that my taste in movies is exactly the same as that of Jennifer from Montreal via Vancouver. (We were a long way from Grosvenor Square, were we not?)

And now the treats are over and I’m on the train south to London. I fear I will not be back in Toronto in time to attend an extraordinary event taking place at the Drake Hotel on May 21 in aid of the James Beard Foundation. Bonnie Stern is hosting a dinner cooked by five Canadian chefs whose names will certainly be familiar. Here’s how the press release describes the evening:

“Drake Executive Chef, Anthony Rose, leads the reception with a menu that includes Niagara Prosciutto and smoked pork shoulder with small batch maple syrup and wild strawberries.

“Diners will then have a rare opportunity to savour a course prepared by Vancouver celebrity chef Rob Feenie (Food Concept Architect, Cactus Restaurants), giving Torontonians a taste of the west coast with Qualicum Bay scallop tartar with Kumamoto oyster, caramelized onion foam, micro cilantro and vanilla scented trout roe. Tobey Nemeth (Jamie Kennedy Wine Bar) will prepare Lake Huron trout and Montreal’s Fred Morin (Joe Beef & Liverpool House) will dazzle with suckling pig from Quebec’s renowned St. Canut Farm
in the lower Laurentians, prepared in conjunction with French master chef Martin Picard (of Au Pied Du Cochon).

“Next, savour a selection of fine Canadian cheese, including Thunder Oak Gouda, prepared by Toronto’s Cole Snell (Provincial Fine Foods). Rounding out the meal, artisans David Castellan and Cynthia Leung (Soma Chocolate) will present their micro-batch truffles, blending cocoas from Madagascar, Ghana and Conacado, in the Dominican Republic.

“These stellar chefs will be joined by some of Ontario’s finest wine makers including Martin Malivoire of The Malivoire Wine Company, The Speck Brothers from Henry of Pelham and Debbie Pratt of Inniskillin, all from the Niagara Wine Region; as well as Norman Hardie of Norman Hardie Winery & Vineyards from Prince Edward County. All will contribute rare vintages that will make this James Beard Dinner a culinary tour de force…

“A limited number of seats are available for this gala event. Tickets are $295 including wine pairings, taxes and gratuity.

“For reservations and ticket information, please call 416.531.5042 ext. 113. Drake Hotel—1150 Queen St. West (Between Dovercourt and Dufferin). www.thedrakehotel.ca

The idea is to celebrate Toronto’s cuisine by building a massive table—650 feet long—that will stretch down the District’s Mill Street . Every few yards beside this board, a chef will have set up a cooking station where he or she will prepare a single, simple, delicious item of street food to sell to the public for $5. Some of these chefs are leaders in our industry; others are unsung heroes. Part of the point of the exercise is to bring together everyone who makes up Toronto’s foodscape—restaurants, hotel dining rooms, caterers, cooking schools, cafés, bistros, diners, tea rooms, pizza parlours, fish ’n’ chip shops, hot dog stands. Everyone. Some potent names have already volunteered: Mark McEwan of North 44°, One and Bymark; Chris McDonald and Doug Penfold of Cava and Xoco Cava; Lino Collevecchio of Via Allegro; Anne Yarymowich of the Art Gallery of Ontario; Patrick McMurray of Starfish; Ted Corrado of C5; Lucia Ruggiero-Martella of Grano; Ryo Ozawa of EDO; and Viji Ponniah of Allen’s.

Why street food? Because we all know Toronto has a challenge to meet in creating an identity for itself where street food is concerned. And because this party is being held out on the street, it’s open to the entire city. Members of the public can buy whatever they wish from however many stations they like, take the food to the table and eat it. The tone of the whole event is one of celebration—celebrating the city, our diversity, our neighbourliness. And there will be street entertainment to further enhance the occasion. Quartetto Gelato will play as dusk falls, and Soulpepper will organize an extraordinary street theatre event; I hope clowns and buskers will be there to delight (or terrify) the crowds.

Any chef or cook or restaurateur or caterer who wishes to take part should contact Nicole Sweeney at ns@thedistillerydistrict.com or 416-364-1177, ext. 252. She will tell you exactly what you need to do and what you can expect to find.

Earlier this year at the Canadian Culinary Championship, we offered a raffle prize that was won by Mr. Andrew Weston. The prize was a progressive dinner for six, accompanied by the CCC’s own Kim Dal Bianco and me. It finally took place last Thursday and proved what fun such evenings can be, cruising about in a stretch limousine from restaurant to restaurant in delightful company. We began at Splendido with some delicious canapés: pineapple shooters with wasabi-sake-lime foam, the little glasses rimmed with salt; a tiny crunchy heirloom radish with a sprig of edible honsai thai flowers (that tasted a little like broccoli) dusted with vanilla sugar; a tangy mouthful of goat cheese, oven-dried cherry tomato and balsamic. A miniature, ethereal parmesan cookie beside the last of these almost stole the show. Manager Carlo Catallo poured us each a flute of sparkling Franciacorta to accompany the next dainties: sashimi of Hawaiian kampachi (a fish I didn’t know—it resembles a kingfish) with lily bulb purée, house-made tamari and some earthy little seedlings; a kumamoto oyster topped with champagne horseradish foam. For our final treat, Catallo brought out a demisec Vouvray, Domaine du Clos Naudin, which was an inspired choice with chef David Lee’s awesomely tender butter-poached lobster tail. Lee paired it with juicy Dutch white asparagus, the first B.C. morels of the season, some ramps and some fernlike “chicken feet” greens.

So far, so very, very good. Then we climbed into the limo and headed off to Etobicoke and Via Allegro. Here, too, the welcome was exceptionally warm, as plates were set before us laden with grilled wild ramps, a gorgeously rich, loose-textured polenta and a Brazil fig wrapped in pancetta. The other half of the dish arrived on a brace—a miniature Tuscan grill of glowing cherrywood embers. Chef Lino Collevecchio had strewn some thyme and other herbs over the coals seconds earlier, and the fragrant smoke curled up around delicately crisp cauliflower tempura and some succulent pieces of grilled quail stuffed with a green mash of truffled fava beans. Heavenly flavours! The restaurant produced some fine matches for the dish—a glass of 15-year-old Bowmore single malt scotch and a relatively lightweight, easygoing Châteauneuf du Pape, La Cour des Papes 2003. Head sommelier and manager Wendy Votto kindly took the group on a tour of the principal wine cellar, then we set off once more.

The next stop was Célestin, where chef-patron Pascal Ribreau was waiting with our main course. But first we were offered an amuse-bouche to prime the palate—a zingy gazpacho of green tomato, green pepper and clam with a cayenne pepper shortbread. Wine was poured, a yummy young red burgundy called Mémoire du Terroir 2006. It was an inspired pairing with a sapid Berkshire pork tenderloin stuffed with lightweight shrimp-and-saffron mousse. Sharing the plate was a shrimp tempura, some parsnip purée and a fat cornmeal chip with Galician clam sauce. Magnifique!

And so to our final resting place—Cava—for a quartet of cheeses: super aged manchego, unpasteurized idiazábal, blue valdeón and goaty montenebro. A smashing little sherry whose name escapes me popped up with them while dessert brought an even more delicious Spaniard, Gonzalez Byass Lepanto brandy aged in oloroso casks. I suspect the dessert may have been created with the brandy in mind, for the match was marvellous with the earl grey–milk chocolate ice cream, white chocolate mousse on a disc of red jelly, slightly orangey brandysnap tuile and an item chef Doug Penfold called “pecan butter crunch,” a gooey chocolate, white chocolate and pecan affair like some kind of Olympian nanaimo bar. It will be on sale in the new ice cream and candy store called Xoco Cava that Penfold and Chris McDonald are opening next door to the restaurant. Can’t wait for that.

On Friday, I went to Canoe’s private room for the launch of Anita Stewart’s Canada (HarperCollins $34.95), the spectacular new book by this country’s leading culinary activist. I am a huge fan of her work, which goes well beyond photographs, recipes and the written word. Her passion and enthusiasm inspire everyone she meets to think a little harder about Canada’s food ways. She’s this country’s culinary conscience, and was a determined advocate of local, seasonal, sustainable ingredients long before such stances were fashionable. She’s also great fun to be around, partly because she has been everywhere in Canada and has extraordinary tales to tell. A lot of them are included in the new book (her 14th!), which really is an encyclopedia of the ingredients, recipes and people, past and present, who create our Canadian cuisine. The recipes are excellent, of course, but read the book from cover to cover and you’ll emerge with a new and more thorough sense of what being Canadian implies. The message? Here it is, in Anita’s own words: “This is a book about pride and tenacity—and it’s about the pure sensual pleasure of tasting the richness of Canada on every level, from the physical to the intellectual… So join the party! Head to a market, buy local, go home and cook with the rhythms of the seasons. Be true to your own culinary story. It’s really that simple.”

But first we had a chance to taste Hardie’s light, vibrant melon de bourgogne at the reception—I think only Norm Hardie and Martin Malivoire are making wine with this grape in Ontario. During dinner, Hardie told me how thrilled he is with the 2007 vintage (a fairly universal verdict across the province except for people who like tart, racy, cold-summer, Mosel-style Ontario riesling). In 2006, picking through the harvested grapes on the sorting table, Hardie ended up with three and a half tonnes of unworthy fruit on the floor. In 2007, he threw away only 50 kilos, the fruit was so healthy and fine.

One of the things about the dinner that brought a smile of gratitude to my wife’s lips was that it was only a four-course meal. We started with a wonderful dish—a crisp-skinned fillet of local perch with wee pieces of various winter root vegetables all bathing in a consommé made from the perch bones. With it came a toast spread with a gorgeous aïoli made from wild leeks that Kennedy had put up last spring. The flavours were amazingly vivid, but it was the firm, almost crunchy texture of the root vegetables that really made the dish throb. Because they hadn’t been cooked to mush they exuded a trace of tartaric acid into the soup which found a spot-on balance with the hint of natural grapey spice in Norm Hardie’s awesome 2007 Pinot Gris (Prince Edward County’s star white variety).

The next course involved Prince Edward County beef (the animals feed on grass that springs from the same soil that nourishes the vines, so there should be some mystical harmony of terroir happening at the subconscious sensual level). Kennedy roasted some of the meat (it was wonderfully textured, almost crunchy) and turned lesser cuts into a rich daube that would put Mrs. Ramsay to shame, serving it with sweet potato purée. Hardie matched it with his famous pinot noir—the 2006, which is lovely, but about to be totally eclipsed by the 2007.

By now we had reached that stage in a formal meal that Kennedy calls the decollage, when the food and the wine are speaking harmoniously and the guests are relaxing and laughing. Such a nice idea to identify and name that moment, that mood. It’s not the best time to stand up and try to attract the party’s attention with serious wine or food speak, but Kennedy had to in order to introduce the next course, a warm melt of Niagara Gold (a fine example of single-estate, Guernsey milk, artisanal cheese from Jordan Station) with black walnut crisp and blackcurrant. The finale was a poached apple cake with maple ice cream—very delicious, intense flavours that were excellently escorted by the 2007 Waupoos iced apple cider from Prince Edward County.

“These evenings are supposed to be a conversation between the chef and the winemaker,” said Connie MacDonald. And that is exactly what it proved to be. Coming up on May 9, chef Michael Olson cooks while Stratus provides the wines. On June 6, chef Nathan Isberg of Czehoski and Coca teams up with Long Dog wines (these wines are not to be missed by anyone who likes juicy, flavourful pinot gris, pinot noir and chardonnay). On July 11, Amuse-Bouche sends chefs and co-owners Bertrand Alépée and Jason Inniss while the Speck brothers of Henry of Pelham provide the liquid art. To join the fun, call C5 directly at 416-586-7928 or check out its Web site. ROM members call 416-586-8095.

Sitting with us at the ROM evening were Charles Grieco, grand fromage of the Ontario Hostelry Institute, and his wife, Margaret. On Thursday, I spent a couple more hours in their delightful company at the OHI awards gala. The OHI gets little air time in the popular media because it exists by, with and for the hospitality industry, recognizing excellence at every level and in every facet of the business. Each year, a bunch of past winners gets together over a cruelly early breakfast to debate the election of new fellows and gold-award winners in many categories. At the gala, the chosen sit at a long table on a very exposed dais while their praises are sung. This year, I took particular pleasure in the induction of Mrs. Amar Patel, chef-patronne of Indian Rice Factory, as a Fellow, in Cosimo Mammoliti, owner of Terroni, getting the nod as primo chain operator, in Ottawa’s own Natalie MacLean receiving an award in the media category and Stephen Beckta of Beckta Dining & Wine in the category of independent restaurateur and in Cumbrae Farms’s owner and master butcher, Stephen Alexander, taking home the gilded toque as supplier. The gold award in the chef category went to Andrew Milne-Allan, chef-owner of Zucca Trattoria. He made an extraordinary speech that brought a tear to this hardened journalist’s eye, taking us back to his roots at Beggar’s Banquet and The Parrot on Queen Street West in the ’70s, reminding us of the hospitable precepts of cooking and breaking bread. Milne-Allan is a chef’s chef, eschewing television, never pursuing the media, cooking honest, really good food. Pop into Zucca on a Sunday night and you’ll see a good many serious culinary players having a quiet dinner at their secret resto of choice. Congratulations to him and to all the honourees at the event, their achievements duly recorded on the Ontario Hostelry Institute Web site.

Chalk one up for the nerds, the diehards, the people who stay to the bitter end of every party. At Pangaea, on Thursday, Michael Tkaczuk of Serrano Imports introduced an extraordinary prize to the city—the famous dry-cured hams of the Ibérico pig (also known as the Pata Negra or Black Foot pig) of southwestern Spain. I remember the night, years ago, when Tkaczuk first brought Serrano ham to Toronto—a soirée at Bouchon. Even then he had his sights set on the superior and world-renowned Ibérico, but it takes time to persuade Canadian bureaucrats of the virtue of foreign delicacies. Now we can taste.

Everyone knows pigs are extremely sagacious and interesting animals. These ones are particularly attractive—black, sturdy and with long, rather elegant legs—the last free-ranging and free-grazing pigs in Europe. They roam the dehesa, the grassy Spanish woodland, feeding on herbs and mushrooms and also, during the winter, on the nutritious acorns that fall from cork oaks, holm oaks and gall oaks onto the scanty grasses below. You and I have our uses for acorns, no doubt—to make ink or flour or to carve and paint, turning them into a kind of currency that can be swapped with gullible children for the sticky treats they hoard on Halloween night. The Ibérico pigs merely eat them, doubling their weight, gaining as much as a two pounds a day during the peak season—two pounds of particularly well marbled, exceptionally delicious muscle, full of sweet nutty nuances from the acorns.

But this is where chance steps in. Pigs born in the early winter have timed their brief span perfectly, gorging on acorns and wild plants for the last three months of their allotted 15. Less fortunate swine born at other times of the year will find their final 12-week vacation falling during the acornless summer or spring. Their long last supper will be ameliorated with gifts of grain, which is all very well, but grain doesn’t produce the marvellous flavours eventually presented by their balanivorous brethren.

Did last Thursday’s nerds know this? Possibly. That’s why they’re nerds. The party, incidentally, was a triumph with a plethora of renowned chefs present, excellent Spanish wines courtesy of Lucas Wines of Toronto and gorgeous dainties created by Martin Kouprie (chef and co-owner of Pangaea, of course) and Chris McDonald (primo apostle of Spanish hams). Kouprie’s dishes included wee slices of the roasted loin of the pig on top of a spoonful of gorgeous paella. He also laid a slice of the ham over lentil salad and, as a separate treat, primed it with roasted bell peppers and a pesto gougère. McDonald made croquetas with Pedro Jimenez mustard. He spread sea urchin butter onto crunchy toasts and topped it with the ham and a gentle kimchee. He delivered the coup de grace with another crunchy pincho topped with pork, a slab of cider-cured foie gras, pickled wild leeks and spiced pear. So very scrumptious.

For the first couple of hours, we all gorged on these treats, not entirely aware that they were made with the thighs of two pigs who were not born in the early spring and therefore did not end their days in acornland. It was still fabulous ham and genuine Ibérico. Then, when most of the guests had gone home, a shoulder of the true bellota (acorn-fattened) Ibérico appeared, carved into paper-thin epigrams by a talented Spanish chef, Diego Hernandez, brought in for the evening. Notably different! The fat looked a tad more translucent and melted more easily on the tongue. It was sweeter, nuttier, more deeply flavoured. Those of us who remained fell upon it, stuffing it into our mouths with our fingers, muttering expressions of approval in low Castilian. So this is what all the fuss is about! Tkaczuk has rewarded Toronto’s top chefs by supplying them with this remarkable pork from his supplier, Embutidos Fermin. You can find it at Pusateri’s as well if you want to go the retail route. One other thing to note: these hams raise good, HDL cholesterol and lower bad cholesterol, so you can eat them with your doctor’s blessing and also, I would suggest, with a nod of gratitude to the noble, black-trottered pigs in question.

I don’t usually write about dinners I haven’t tasted, but this is an exception. A couple of months ago, Lorenzo Loseto, chef of George, announced he was putting together an evening to raise funds for the Alzheimer Society of Toronto. Loseto’s father, Vito, died from Alzheimer’s five years ago. His friends stepped in to bat, including Anthony Walsh from Canoe, Rob Bartley of Four Seasons, Tobey Nemeth from Jamie Kennedy Kitchens and Loseto’s sous-chef Fiona Lim and former apprentice Justin Courneya, preparing a five-course tasting menu with a special sixth course of strawberry ice cream (Vito Loseto’s favourite dessert). Zoltan Szabo and Jimson Bienenstock kept the wine flowing. Seventy-five guests helped the evening raise $20,000, but by all accounts this dinner was different from the norm, about love and remembrance, warmth and hope, not just about rich people wondering how to spend their money. “The undisputed stars of the show,” says Jane O’Hare of the Alzheimer Society of Toronto, “were Lorenzo’s little daughters, Marisa and Paolina, who broke all our hearts as they each took the microphone like pros to sing the ‘Butterfly Song’ (Marisa) and ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ (Paolina). The event was simply perfect and a testament to Lorenzo and what a hard-working, downright wonderful man he is.”

Last weekend, I went down to Niagara to research an article for a food magazine’s autumn issue on the Twenty Valley region. Had myself a ball. Zigzagging hither and thither between Beamsville, Vineland and Jordan, visiting old friends and new, I watched winter suddenly morph into spring, snowbanks melting before my very eyes, glossy green things pushing up through the sodden leaf litter. Breakfast number one at Inn on the Twenty offered views of a winter wonderland, the bushes and trees white with frost clear down to the creek. For breakfast number two, the next morning, everything was dripping and wet, the sky dazzly blue and bam! Spring.

And now I’m sitting here, some days later, sipping the late summer and fall of 2005 in a glorious creation called La Penna, a wine made by Angelo Pavan of Cave Spring Cellars using cabernet franc and cabernet sauvignon grapes with an amarone-like twist: some of the clusters are air-dried to near-raisinhood and then pressed, the sticky juice blended in to the final oeuvre. It’s beautifully balanced, rich, ripe and really delicious (not a word I use lightly). And only available down at the winery, as far as I know. Incidentally, Cave Spring’s gewurztraminer is also very impressive, made in an aromatic Alsatian style with a lovely body—well worth seeking out.

Another, even more rarified, most probably once-in-my-lifetime treat was the opportunity to taste a 50-year-old version of The Balvenie, a noble Speyside single malt scotch. For most of the 45 years he has been with The Balvenie, master distiller David Stewart has kept his eye on an exceptional sherry hogshead (known as Cask 191) that was filled with new whisky in 1952. In 2002, when most of the whisky had evaporated, Stewart decided the time had come to bottle what was left, a total of 83 bottles in all, from a cask that once held 300, each one signed by himself. The LCBO bought two of them and put them up for sale at its Summerhill store, asking $30,000 each—the single most expensive bottle of anything the LCBO has ever sold. On Thursday, John Maxwell, proprietor of the excellent (and air-conditioned) Allen’s on the Danforth, bought one of the bottles, bringing it back to his saloon on the TTC—a fearless move which earned him considerable publicity. Stewart was guest of honour at the small presentation that followed, his first such experience in Canada, and was gracious enough to lead those present through a tasting of some of The Balvenie’s delightful iterations. When that was done, Maxwell, Stewart, a friend of Maxwell’s called Oliver Murray and I repaired to a table at the rear of the establishment and the $30,000 bottle was opened. Maxwell is charging $1,750 an ounce (plus tax) for the elixir, but was generous enough to pour a wee dram for each of the four of us.

I don’t think David Stewart had expected the gesture. He hadn’t tasted the whisky since he bottled it, but was clearly pleased by what he found. To begin with, it was an extraordinary colour, a dark chocolate brown. The nose reminded Stewart of toffee, marzipan and licorice with a sweet oakiness, but not the superabundance of oak you might expect in a spirit that had lain quietly in a barrel for 50 years. The gentle heart of honeyed sweetness that is one of the features of the palate of all versions of The Balveniewas still there, and there was a brightness and liveliness to the scotch that made everyone smile. There was a fruitiness, too, in the way that some very good, very dark chocolate can be fruity. Amazing stuff.

Who knows how many drams of Cask 191 will be sold at Allen’s. But having such a whisky on the list reflects well on all the other single malts in John Maxwell’s collection—like the faint (and often illusory) glow of piety one notices in people who have a priest in the family. Another bottle remains at the LCBO, begging to be bought by some collector of very rare objets d’art.

Kaji himself is as roguish and entertaining as ever, now growling like a demon, now pulling a comical face and lifting his fists like a puppy begging for food. An artist of his calibre is entitled to be as disarmingly bizarre as he chooses to be. The restaurant’s secret weapon is kitchen chef Takeshi Okada, a charming and eloquent man who appears from time to time with the explanation of a dish and then emerges for good at the end of the evening to sculpt gorgeous flowers and sprigs of blossom out of carrot, daikon and scallions for the ladies to take home. Success (the place is packed to the gills every night) has allowed Kaji the luxury of hiring more servers, who are overseen by his wife and who contribute a merry energy to the evening while still maintaining a most attentive professionalism.

There’s nothing wrong with coming to Sushi Kaji and sitting at a table, enjoying the food and conversing with your date, but the real fun is to sit at the sushi bar, order the $120 omakase menu (at least ninecourses) and watch the masters at work. Okada opens the pitching, sending out a starter of shredded beef sizzling on a hot cast-iron pan and tossed with slivers of bitter burdock and a light dusting of ground Japanese red pepper. It’s not Kobe beef but it might as well be—the texture and the flavour are as rich.

A trio of hors d’oeuvres follows. On the left, ribbons of bamboo shoot and morsels of chicken have been bound into a tight roll and then sliced, the tenderness of the meat and the slight crunch of the smooth, moist bamboo in delicious contrast. On the right, some perfectly soft-crunchy spinach in yuzu sauce offers a smoky hint of bonito. In the middle, posed over shredded daikon, is a patch of vinegared Tasmanian sea trout that has the colour and texture of cooked salmon but tastes considerably more delicate.

Then another roll appears, this one presenting the evening’s primary theme of fresh snow crab with a little of the juicy leg meat folded with crunchy cucumber inside a skin of cooked egg. Seedlings emerge like the furred antennae of a moth, and Seussian wires of crunchy fried noodle. Dots of two sauces decorate the plate: one of yellow egg yolk, the other tinted green with spinach.

Kaji’s sashimi collation is lifted down onto the highly varnished shelf of the bar. Some of these are famous favourites, others new. Here is Spanish tuna belly with the texture of raw foie gras that melts on the tongue. By contrast, Japanese amberjack is so fresh the raw flesh is almost crunchy, its juicy sweetness bringing out the inner Gollum. Greek octopus is as tender and innocent as a child (and as intelligent, they say—we may all have to stop eating octopus). Tasmanian sea trout is the fish that adolescent male salmon dream about. Sea bream, slyly rich, is dotted with tiny golden flecks of yuzu zest. My daughter-in-law, Kayoko, suggests I wrap the last bit with the fresh herbs provided on the dish—a shiso leaf and a trembling frond of kinome, a herb that looks a bit like chervil and tastes like minty lemon verbena. It’s a fine idea, refreshing the palate for the next course.

Now a whole snow crab appears from the kitchen, steamed, cracked and opened but still needing a long, careful excavation of the heavenly flesh. Then a second treatment of the crab, the meat tangled with ribbons of bean curd on top of a curious spongy cake that Okada has made from winter melon and kuzu starch. Around it in the bowl is a cool, clear bonito broth the colour of Cutty Sark whisky that has almost set into jelly.

Another little marine exhibit brings a fried cake of minced shrimp, more minced shrimp stuffed into a miniature Japanese green pepper, a seared scallop and a curling, glossy slice of bamboo, all hiding in a mitre carved from bamboo bark.

I said a couple of postings ago that this was uni season and now it appears, disguised as some sort of golden remora clinging to the tail of a split langoustine. Alongside lolls a sleek, butter-soft nugget of glazed black cod, a morsel of Japanese eggplant in its own wee bowl, a dainty treatment of foie gras and fig, and a cold rissole of minced chicken with yuzu sauce on some steamed rapini (“country style,” whispers Kayoko). The last element is a diamond of layered tofu dyed in pink, white and green stripes, the diamond a traditional gift on March 15, also known in Japan as Girls’ Day. It’s a crowded and complex dish that explores notions of smoothness and richness, and the next course, a relatively ascetic bowl of broth with soba noodles and a brunoise of many vegetables, is suitably admonitory.

But the best has been saved until last: seven little sushi gems, each more interesting and flavourful than any diamond, starring toro with a creamy emulsion of ginger and vinegar; lobster; scallop; uni; salmon roe as a crown for king crab meat; fatty toro stirred up with shavings of mountain potato; a laced-up bamboo leaf that opens to reveal a glazed fillet of freshwater eel. Kaji’s sushi are more relaxed and freeform than those of our other Japanese masters. He uses a different kind of wasabi than he does for his sashimi, and the soy sauce is, of course, a subtle and heavily ameliorated concoction that takes many days to prepare.

And then there was dessert and then another dessert and all the time beer and several sakes that progressed in complexity and refinement as the meal wound on. And then there was the long, contemplative ride home.

IN OTHER SUSHI NEWS Guy and Michael Rubino are about to embark on a bold new plan that just might put up a contender for Kaji’s crown. In Guy’s words, “Michael and I will be literally cutting Rain in half and opening a sushi/sashimi restaurant where the bar area currently exists. It will have its own entrance and own kitchen with a dividing wall from Rain. Rain will not lose any of its seating capacity, and the new project, tentatively called Ushi Oni, will seat approximately 50 people. The menu will have classic sushi and sashimi as well as some interpretive kaiseki. The design will be very organic and will have nuances of the Tsukiji Market in Tokyo. We plan to open this in early summer (June), and I will oversee this new venture and obviously Rain as well. The name Ushi Oni is based on a crab-like monster from Japanese folklore that kills fishermen to protect the sea.” I can’t wait.

Whole onions braised for hours in white wine and a little good olive oil, with raisins, powdered bay leaves, pepper, parsley and thyme… Salt, too, of course, but the teaspoon of powdered bay is the spark that gives the dish life. Its scent fills the house as the onions slowly soften in their casserole, a pungent green fragrance a little like eucalyptus but earthier and more subtle. Powdered bay can be hard to find, but for this recipe it is essential. That is why my first step in making the Easter onions is a step up onto a chair for a ritual excavation of the small, high kitchen cupboard I call the spice attic.

No one but me ever goes there: the everyday spices and herbs have a more accessible place. Nobody else could explain why the attic exists at all, for most of the things inside are too old to use for cooking, flavours once sharp and vivid, bittersweet or so hot they brought tears to the eye now faded by the passing years. Here are whole nutmegs, still wrapped in their hard orange web of mace, a souvenir of the Caribbean; here, bags of cardamom, fenugreek and kalonji, bought for the beauty of their names. The pouch of counterfeit saffron came from the spice market in Istanbul, irresistibly cheap. The dark blue glass bottle of rosewater was sold to me by a gang of barefooted boys who jumped out in front of the car in the high Atlas Mountains. Its false perfume vanished in hours.

The farther back in the cupboard, the further in time. I draw out the box of bay leaves, some stiff as leather, some brittle and crumbling, the colour of bronze. Bay grows wild in the mountains above our village, on the yellow peaks high above the olive tree line. One silent, sun-scorched afternoon, Kleopatra led me and my children up there and showed us the bushes she favoured, cutting each bough with a few muttered words I did not understand. Back at her house, we watched as she hung up the herbs in her dark, frugal kitchen, save for six leaves that she dropped into simmering water. The freshening fragrance soon spread about us, curling into the thick, stale darkness of the unfurnished upstairs rooms.

Kleopatra is gone now, buried not far from the graves of others we held more dear. But when we return to the island in summertime and open up our own house, throwing the shutters wide, unpacking cupboards, airing memories, I set a pan of water and evergreen bay leaves to boil as part of our intricate, private ritual of remembrances.

Tucked away at the back of the spice attic lurks the small jar of powdered bay. Olive green and soft as flour, it retains something of its aroma, but not enough for making Easter onions. This year, once again, I must nip down to Kensington Market and buy some more. The old jar is quietly put back where it came from, no longer fresh but still of a certain value in the spice attic, storehouse of the untouched capital of the past.

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.

No matter. It is enough. But still I am grateful to Patrick McMurray for reminding me that the Saint’s Day is once again scheduled for later this month. I was at his restaurant/oyster bar, Starfish, on Thursday, you see, with some good friends, scarfing les fruits de mer before heading off to Massey Hall for a truly awesome Blue Rodeo concert. McMurray made mention of his special menu for St. Patrick’s Day, and also that his daughter’s school of Irish dance—the Gilchrist School—will be performing reels and jigs in full costume on Saturday, March 15, at 7:30 p.m.; on Sunday, post-parade, at 6 p.m.; and on Monday at 7:30 p.m.

Starfish’s chef, Kyle Deming, is offering a very Celtic menu for the occasion—and I believe it will run for the entire month of March. I will copy it for you now:

Starters• Irish Flats breaded and fried with oyster stout aïoli • Dublin Bay prawns roasted with salted butter and brown bread• Matane shrimp potted with a butter glaze top• Homemade corned beef hash with poached egg• Deep-fried sprats with lemon aïoli and fried parsley• Stargazie Pie—pilchards and pastry, bacon and baking• Pork pie with raisin and caper sauce• Black pudding with apple and oyster

Mains• Roasted lamb neck in mutton and barley broth• Boiled homemade bacon with apple boxties and cabbage• Claire Island organic salmon poached in stout, with leek and turnip terrine, truckle cheddar scone• Whole baked plaice with cockle butter, lemon-and-pepper-dressed herb salad and steamed potatoes• Nova Scotia halibut, baked on the bone (super for two)

I think it looks absolutely delicious, and I’m especially happy to see Stargazie Pie on the card. It’s a Cornish dish, as I’m sure you know, and the point of the name is that the whole pilchards baked into the pie thrust their heads out through the pastry crust to gaze at the stars. A tad macabre, perhaps (and that’s pronounced McCaber in March), but unique and delicious for all that (mebyon Kernow and sod the emmets, as we used to say).

Another bit of Starfish news: McMurray and Deming have been asked to oversee the food and beverage program at a new golf course called Piper’s Heath (5501 Trafalgar Rd., Milton, www.pipersheath.com) that apparently looks like a proper links golf course such as may be seen and experienced in Scotland and Ireland. Yes, ballwhackers, it’s all going to start happening in the spring, though no one is promising authentic Scottish gale-force winds or the relentless and penetrating drizzle of what the Irish call “a fine soft day.”

And lest you should think that Starfish is exclusively Celtic, McMurray is paying homage to Japan (after travelling there last December) by “diving into the world of the raw bar,” as he puts it, “with fin and shellfish as the season and the weather permits.” Look for sardine, yellowtail loin and belly, kona kampachi, mackerel, abalone, sea scallops, red and green seaurchin (see below), razor and vernise clams, matane shrimp, blue and snow crab. Thursday and Friday are probably the best nights to go as most of the product arrives on those days.

Celts and Greeks, Italians and Lebanese devour the gonads of sea urchins with alacrity (possibly because they are a cannabinoid), but only the Japanese truly elevate them to an art form. March is the best month of the year for these scrumptious echinoids, so I will be heading to Sushi Kaji at some point before All Fools Day to ride whatever unicycle he engineers. I don’t believe there is a creature of any kind in all the terraqueous world that tastes so gloriously and intensely of the sea.

The first things I noticed were the changes to the decor at Senses. A wall of wine bottles now separates the main dining room from the inner room—more casual and welcoming than the sombre panels of yore. The chair backs are smaller, which makes the room seem a little bigger, and they have dropped the number of seats from 36 to 34, which adds to the effect. Instead of carpet there is now a dark hardwood floor. The overall difference is subtle, but it does seem a tad less formal.

I sat at the counter looking into the kitchen with chef Lin standing on the other side and his sous-chefs discreetly bringing elements of the dishes to his workstation. Lin was his usual gracious, charming self, smiling as he worked, gently describing the various steps and thought processes that led to each finished dish. Slicing baby cucumbers and fanning them, he reminded me of a conjuror deftly performing some long-since-perfected legerdemain, quietly gratified at the inevitable gasps of amazement from the children. With these dishes, Lin has drawn on his Cantonese heritage and his extensive French training, as well as the cuisines he has studied in more recent years: Shanghainese, Pekingese, Japanese and Italian. “I don’t call this fusion,” he explained. “It’s more about the application of the techniques of one cuisine to the ingredients of another.”

The first dish he prepared seemed to me to have an Italian structure, a Japanese mood and principal ingredients that are traditionally Cantonese. Using the knife skills he learned when studying sushi and sashimi, he cut tissue-thin slices of geoduck clam and set them aside. Then he peeled and sliced baby Chinese cucumbers. These he mixed with garlic that had been poached in milk to subdue its flavour and then mashed, lots of sea salt, finely ground black pepper, olive oil and sesame oil. He placed the cucumber slices like overlapping petals in a perfect circle on the plate. Then he made a coral-coloured dressing of blood orange juice, ginger and rice vinegar to drizzle over the cucumber. The geoduck was laid on top, then more dressing was drizzled over it. Several garnishes completed the plate: slivers of ripe Vietnamese mango (with an orangey-fennel flavour); slivers of green Thai mango (much firmer and more tart); a pinch of black sesame seeds and another of local baby seedlings; a julienne of ginger; a final piece of blood orange. It sounds complicated, but the geoduck shone at the centre of the dish, so thinly sliced but still with a toothsome little crunch to the flesh. The cucumber was crisp and juicy. Above the sweet, fresh, salty, marine taste of the geoduck, other flavours spun around like the stars of a cartoon concussion—ginger and orange, garlic and sesame, beautifully balanced.

There’s a Cantonese technique for cooking fish that first steams the creature whole then sears its surface with hot oil. Lin has borrowed the method and is applying it to a western-style fillet of barramundi. All the fish Lin uses in the Senses kitchen come to him alive, including the barramundi. You can’t get much fresher than that. Lin takes the fillet and wraps it around a fine julienne of carrot, red chili, celery root, leek and scallion before steaming it and searing it by pouring on very hot rapeseed oil. Meanwhile the trimmings of the fish are tossed with flour and cornstarch and quickly pan-fried with finely diced vegetables and pine nuts. They form one accompaniment to the fish, served alongside in a small ramekin. The other is more purely Chinese—sautéed pea shoots with salt and garlic.

Black cod gets a different treatment, its raw surface lightly cured with a dry marinade of kosher salt, pepper and brown sugar—just enough to slightly firm up the texture of the finished fish. Then Lin uses a very dark reduction of balsamic and honey to glaze the fish (it reminded me of the way eel is treated for sushi). Two absolutely gorgeous items share the cod’s fate. The first is a mash of apple and butternut squash dressed with tangy ginger. The second is a ramekin of Dungeness crab meat with tomato brunoise, onion and tarragon smothered in hollandaise and then gratinéed. Each element of the dish contributes its own subtle and distinctive sweetness.

One last description reiterates the interesting braid of Asian and western cooking that Lin proposes on this new menu. He takes an Ontario duck breast and treats it to a liquid marinade using an antique blend of Chinese spices that includes star anise, licorice, cinnamon, ginger, fennel, cardamom and 25-year-old dried tangerine peel. After this invigorating bath, the meat is dried overnight. The next step is to cook the skin but not the flesh of the duck, which is done by heating a mixture of maltose, water, red and white Chinese vinegars, sugar and Chinese wine and ladling the scalding syrup over the skin—which emerges crispy, shiny and dark. Finished in the pan, the breast ends up pink as a French magret, not grey-brown like a typical Chinese duck. Lin builds the presentation with a little purée of figs and port wine topped with firm, scored slices of king oyster mushroom, a slice of pan-seared foie gras and a mound of sautéed pea leaves with shiitake mushrooms.

Will 2008 be Patrick Lin’s year? I wouldn’t be surprised. No one else in the city is cooking in quite this way, prying apart the lacquered puzzle of traditional Chinese cuisine and placing the pieces into other cultural contexts. Senses redux is definitely worth a visit.