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All stories relating to foie gras

The Dish

Restauran-TO
January 27, 2012 | 2:47 pm

17 Comments

Foie gras, surprise caviar orders and one tight ship: my 12-hour stage at Splendido

The service entrance at Splendido (click any image for more info)

Our regular contributor Renée Suen was recently invited to put away her fork and don an apron to stage at Splendido (a culinary stage is a brief and usually unpaid educational stint at a restaurant). Renée is an ambitious home cook, but her professional experience consists mostly of high school summers working at a soup and sandwich shop and weekends slinging bubble tea during university. Can she handle the heat of 12 hours in a professional kitchen? Will chef de cuisine Patrick Kriss make her cry? Find out below, and check out our behind-the-scenes gallery at the end. Words and pictures by Renée Suen

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The Dish

Opening
July 29, 2011 | 11:54 am

1 Comment

Introducing: Elle M’a Dit, Baldwin Village’s modern take on traditional Alsatian food

Outside Elle M’a Dit, the new Baldwin Street Alsatian bistro (Image: Karolyne Ellacott)

Elle M’a Dit, a new Alsatian restaurant, is the latest spot to open up on the popular Baldwin Street strip. Husband-and-wife team Gregory Furstoss and Tory Yang opened their doors in early June, and are hoping to put a modern twist on staples from France’s northeastern Alsace region, renowned for its melting pot cuisine.

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The Dish

From the Print Edition
June 8, 2011 | 4:30 pm

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50 Reasons to Love Toronto: No. 28, Sweetbreads are the new chicken nuggets

No. 28, Sweetbreads are the new chicken nuggets

The prosciutto-wrapped offal at Buca. (Image: Angus Fergusson)

When nose-to-tail restaurants like Cowbell and the Black Hoof started serving offal a few years back, diners debated the adventurous menus with the giddy trepidation of children about to play a game of truth or dare (“I’ll get the tongue sandwich, if you go for the pig’s tail”). Since then, entrails, organs, faces and feet have become requisite on the city’s best menus, emboldening our tastes and turning out a new breed of grown-up diner. Without a moment of misgiving, we’ll order prosciutto-wrapped lamb’s brain at Buca, slurp marrow out of a calf’s shank at Fabbrica, dip fritters in tripe ragù at Enoteca Sociale and top our crostini with tongue-to-tail duck rillette at Canoe. Our appetite has even surpassed the need for exotic-sounding names to mask the offal truth—the more brazen the dish, the better, like Parts and Labour’s pig platter, which brings sweetbreads, belly, foie gras and ear in trotter sauce. Yes, in 2011, there’s no half-assing our commitment to the flesh.

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The Dish

TV Diner
May 24, 2011 | 12:37 pm

10 Comments

Top Chef Canada recap, episode 7: placing products

The giant Michael Smith and the merely tall Thea Andrews (Image: Food Network Canada/Insight Productions)

TOP CHEF CANADA
Season 1 | Episode 7

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Top Chef and blatant product placement have always gone hand in hand, with each season ratcheting up the level of sponsor integration. Far from being an outright fault, it has become something many fans almost look forward to—albeit with a little cringe. Top Chef Canada really outdid itself last night in that regard, with both the quickfire and the elimination challenges centred around a sponsor—a real milestone in the annals of Canadian TV brand integration. But episode seven was about more than just the all-important sponsors; it also featured a delightfully snarky Michael Smith, some adorable pictures of chefs with their significant others and rhyming put-downs from the judges. We recap it all, after the jump.

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The Dish

TV Diner
May 17, 2011 | 11:39 am

26 Comments

Top Chef Canada recap, episode 6: horsing around

Dale MacKay before head judge Mark McEwan and his boss Daniel Boulud; French Food at Home’s Laura Calder (Image: Food Network Canada/Insight Products)

TOP CHEF CANADA
Season 1 | Episode 6

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Last night’s episode of Top Chef Canada might have featured superstar New York chef Daniel Boulud, but the viewing audience likely tuned in for another reason altogether: horsemeat-gate (last week’s preview for episode 6 revealed that horsemeat would make an appearance, setting off a pre-emptive e-backlash and prompting Metro Morning to call our own Chris Nuttall-Smith for his opinion). Aside from the horsemeat sideshow, the episode featured some entertaining character development­—Dale MacKay as a sore loser, Rob Rossi as a baby-faced trash talker—a classic Top Chef misstep and, for the first time, not a single chef in their underwear. Our recap of it all, after the jump.

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The Dish

TV Diner
April 11, 2011 | 9:41 am

4 Comments

We chat with Top Chef Canada contestants at Thursday’s mock quick-fire

The chefs scramble for produce (Image: Mishki Vaccaro)

Thursday afternoon, Top Chef Canada head judge Mark McEwan, alongside host Thea Andrews, held a mock quick-fire challenge at the Art Gallery of Ontario to promote the show’s April 11 debut. Top Chef fans that we are, we couldn’t resist. The six Toronto-based contestants gave it their best shot in the AGO’s catering kitchen and offered up a few sound bites about the competition. Considering the notorious secrecy surrounding the U.S. version of the show, we’ll probably have to wait until the season finale for any really juicy behind-the-scenes gossip, but we did chat with contestants Steve Gonzalez, Rob Rossi and Dustin Gallagher about their struggles in the Top Chef Canada kitchen. 

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The Dish

From the Print Edition
March 30, 2011 | 10:05 am

60 Comments

Best New Restaurants 2011

Oysters from Frank's Kitchen

This year’s crop of restaurants, from a million-dollar dining room to a brazen burger joint, pushed Toronto’s culinary culture in creative, comforting and blessedly cheap directions. Here, the 10 new spots that are redefining the way we eat, drink and play in the city By Chris Nuttall-Smith | Photography by Ryan Szulc

See the list »

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The Dish

From the Print Edition
March 30, 2011 | 10:05 am

4 Comments

Greatest Hits: Chris Nuttall-Smith picks the 25 most delicious dishes of the last year

Enoteca Sociale’s octopus and fava beans

The 25 most delicious dishes Chris Nuttall-Smith tasted this year, ranging  from lowbrow comforts (potato puffballs) to high-minded masterpieces (tea-smoked duck)*

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*Availability of dishes varies according to season and changing menus

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The Dish

Opening
February 24, 2011 | 4:10 pm

3 Comments

Introducing: Canoe, the Oliver and Bonacini flagship revamped


(Image: Renée Suen)

After 16 years at the top, Canoe, one of the city’s culinary beacons, closed its doors on New Year’s Day for a renovation. Unlike most restaurants, they actually completed it on schedule. Although we previewed Canoe’s overhauled space during its Winterlicious opening, the Oliver and Bonacini flagship officially relaunched last week with a completed dining room and revamped menu, so we thought we’d take a closer look.

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The Dish

Opening
February 22, 2011 | 12:39 pm

9 Comments

Introducing: Lee Lounge, the latest incarnation of Susur Lee’s King West space

Susur Lee presides over his new Lee Lounge (Image: Renée Suen)

After teasing a hungry public for over half a year, Susur Lee, arguably the city’s most internationally recognized chef, opened his newest venture Lee Lounge last week. Formerly Susur, and then Madeline’s, the room has undergone a striking transformation at the hands of Brenda Bent (Lee’s wife and business partner) and Karen Gable—the duo responsible for many of Lee’s spaces, including the neighbouring Lee.

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The Dish

Opening
February 16, 2011 | 4:40 pm

7 Comments

Q&A with Susur Lee: the chef discusses Lee Lounge’s new dishes, lower prices and new flavours

Lee lounging before the opening of Lee Lounge (Image: Renée Suen)

On Monday night, we found ourselves at the highly anticipated Valentine’s Day opening of Lee Lounge, the new restaurant from Susur Lee. The room was buzzing, with all hands on deck working to the beat of the floor manager’s Iron Chef-like calls. A bartender was making frantic last-minute adjustments to one of the new cocktails, the very dirty ume plum martini. Amid this chaos, Susur Lee was the eye of the storm. He spoke with us at length, excusing himself with only thirty minutes to go before the service started. Our conversation, below

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The Dish

From the Print Edition
February 10, 2011 | 2:45 pm

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Just Opened: we review three of the city’s new restaurants

European invasion: a humble bistro, a homespun trattoria and a glam tapas bar

Le Rossignolstar
686 Queen St. E., 416-461-9663

The service in this small room at the edge of Leslieville is ably handled by a garrulous French woman who wears her glasses on a chain around her neck (she’s like a character from The Triplets of Belleville). The wine list is short but nice, and the menu is traditional bistro, with a few modern touches. An amuse-bouche shooter of smooth butternut squash soup dazzles with Chinese five-spice and is topped with coconut foam. Steaks are not a strength: one night’s flank is cut straight down rather than across the grain. It’s epically chewy, but the accompanying shoestring frites are addictive. Braised boar shank is brilliant: soft, moist and flavourful. Too bad it’s set on risotto that tastes like it was made long before service. The chef takes Wednesdays off, leaving the kitchen in less capable hands. Mains $17–$27.

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The Informer

From the Print Edition
February 9, 2011 | 3:07 pm

76 Comments

King State of Mind: When did the once-cool King West strip descend into a mess of stretch Hummers, drunken bachelorettes and last-call brawls?

Scenes from a never-ending party By Chandler Levack | Photography by Jess Baumung

2:45 a.m., Cobra

“Let’s get drunk and fuck! Let’s get drunk and fuck!”

I’m at Cobra, a King West club in a sprawling basement underneath a 19th-century warehouse. In this neighbourhood, the best parties are either deep underground or high above in a rooftop bar. Cobra is decorated like a gothic funhouse, with a wall of glowing skulls and lots of black. The get-drunk-and-fuck directive bleats from a techno remix as coloured lights, inducing a kind of electric synesthesia, pulsate on the basement ceiling. To my left, two girls make out and topple over, knocking down their bottle service glassware. Guys eagerly watch from the sidelines, plotting how to make their move. My teeth chatter from the vibrating bass. I down a shot that’s half Sour Puss and half vodka, proffered by a human Barbie doll bartender.

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The Dish

Culinary Curiosities
January 25, 2011 | 12:30 pm

15 Comments

Sloppy, drippy, salty, meaty, fruity, earthy and cheesy: Chris Nuttall-Smith takes on M:brgr’s $100 burger

The $100 brgr and its associated finery (Image: Colin Griffin, M:brgr)

I ate two Kobe beef patties for lunch yesterday, plus a couple slices of bacon, a wedge of foie gras, an ounce of gloopy brie, a slick of fig jam, a stack of really fabulous grilled pear slices, four asparagus spears, piave del vecchio cheese, garlic-roasted ham (effing delish), porcini mushrooms (I’m thinking they weren’t porcini, but that’s what the menu said), three white bread buns, an olive, and a side each of black truffle slices and honey truffle aïoli. All this cost me $100, plus tax and tip, and the burger—yes, it was a burger—was so tall that it took several tries and a near-miss nasal-labial injury to get an honest bite of the thing into my mouth.

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The Dish

Opening
January 11, 2011 | 5:10 pm

33 Comments

Introducing: M:brgr, home of the $100 burger

Ask Jeff Ditcher what it’s like setting up an upscale burger bar at the tail end of Toronto’s burger craze, and he’s not too worried. The traveller, wine collector and founder of M:brgr opened his second location at King and Spadina on Sunday (the original location is in Montreal), despite the presence of Craft Burger and Grindhouse in the immediate vicinity. His rationale? Toronto’s burger demand is only going to get bigger. And besides, he says he’s got an edge on the competition, with waited tables, an extensive wine list, a resident mixologist and an awe-inspiring list of toppings ranging from the odd to the gourmet. Oh, and he’s got the only joint in town with a $100 burger on the menu.

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