La Palette’s horsemeat hiatus didn’t last long—viande chevaline will return to the menu at the Queen Street bistro as of this week. Co-owner Shamez Amlani stopped serving the French delicacy late last summer after the Toronto Star exposed questionable sourcing in the horsemeat industry, but he didn’t let the matter drop. “We’ve spent the past six months doing as much research as we can,” he told Post City. “We’re very certain that we’ll be serving our customers high-quality meat.” So what makes him think the meat is now safe? One reason could be that President Obama recently lifted the American ban on horse slaughter, meaning American workhorses would no longer be mixed into the Canadian food supply. We have a hunch this isn’t the end of the story, though—horsemeat, like shark fin and raw milk, always seems to stir up controversy. Read the entire story [Post City] »
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Year in Review: each of 2011’s weekly lunch picks, ranked
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Trying to choose a selection of our favourite lunch picks from the last year proved too much like choosing a selection of our favourite children. So instead we present a complete year of lunch picks, ranked by price, from a humble porchetta sandwich (a reasonable $6.75) to a somewhat less humble five-course feast (treat yourself for $100).
Horsemeat poised to make a comeback in the U.S.
(Image: James Byrum)
Top Chef Canada made headlines (and alienated horse lovers everywhere) earlier this year when it featured horsemeat during a classic French cuisine challenge. The scandal prompted an in-depth investigation of the industry by the ever-intrepid Toronto Star, which explained how a 2007 slaughtering ban in the United States led to a boom in Canada’s industry. Now, according to a story in the Chicago Tribune, horsemeat may be making a return to the U.S. market in the coming months.
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Toronto’s five best steak frites
The city’s most impressive meat-and-potatoes pairings in order of awesomeness
Weekly Lunch Pick: a rotisserie chicken sandwich at Le Kensington
(Image: Andrew Brudz)
The storied La Palette space in Kensington Market is now in the assured hands of chef Jean-Charles Dupoire and his partner, longtime friend and sommelier Sylvain Brissonnet, the duo behind Harbord Street’s Loire. At Le Kensington, their menu showcases simple French dishes Dupoire learned from his grandmother.
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Introducing: Le Kensington, the new French bistro from the owners of Loire
(Image: Karolyne Ellacott)
Le Kensington Bistro, the second eatery from the owners of Harbord Street’s Loire (one of 2009’s best new restaurants), recently opened in the space that used to house La Palette, the market’s original French bistro (La Palette decamped to Queen Street last year). Owners Sylvain Brissonnet—who spent a decade as the sommelier of Langdon Hall—and Jean-Charles Dupoire—who put in hours at both The Savoy and The Berkeley in London—purchased the spot at the start of the year but were bogged down with lengthy renovations. Brissonnet tells us the pair “really wanted to do something very French” and are keeping the focus on their homeland’s cuisine.
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La Palette pulls horsemeat from its menu following Star exposé
Inside the Queen West bistro (Image: Jon Sufrin)
Yesterday we dove into the Toronto Star’s hard-hitting investigation of the horsemeat industry in Canada. Among those implicated was Queen West bistro La Palette, where horsemeat has been a staple. Well, those days are over (for now), as this morning La Palette co-owner Shamez Amlani went on CBC’s Metro Morning to announce that as of today horsemeat has been removed from their menu.
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Six things we learned from the Star’s investigation into the Canadian horsemeat industry
A horse tartare sandwich from the Black Hoof (Image: Jen Chan from the Torontolife.com Flickr pool)
Any time an investigation takes place at a “kill auction,” you know its findings will be grim. This weekend’s report from the Toronto Star’s Robert Cribb on Canada’s central role in the horsemeat industry is no exception. Horsemeat, which predominantly comes from animals not bred for food, has come under fire in Canada before (notably during Top Chef Canada) over complaints of poor sourcing and inhumane practices, and recently many countries—including the U.S.—have banned the stuff. Six things we learned from the Star’s investigation, after the jump.
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Next week’s episode of Top Chef Canada to feature horsemeat, outrage ensues
Oh, the controversy. At the end last week’s episode of Top Chef Canada, the preview for episode six featured, among other things, French-culinary-god-by-way-of-NYC Daniel Boulud as guest judge, a classic French cuisine challenge, and—how did we miss this?—horsemeat. Well, other viewers didn’t miss it, and many have been up in arms with Food Network Canada via Twitter and Facebook. They’ve even begun an online petition to boycott the network.
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Marben set to host Toronto’s latest sausage fest on Wednesday nights
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Completing its transition from King West chic to rustic barnyard, Marben has announced it’s hosting the first annual Marben Sausage League. Over the next five months, 12 chefs from some of Toronto’s hottest restaurants—including C5, The Harbord Room, La Palette and Parts and Labour—will compete for the title of “Sausage Champion.”
Weekly Lunch Pick: a sweet and savoury lunch at La Palette
The confit and clafoutis at La Palette (Image: Andrew Brudz)
Last year, Shamez Amlani transplanted his beloved bistro from Augusta to Queen West. The new location retains the original’s ramshackle charm and brings executive chef Brook Kavanagh’s classic French fare a little closer to the downtown lunch crowd.
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DIY Gourmet: how to make La Palette’s Platonic French onion soup
(Image: Edward Pond)
The secret to La Palette’s peerless French onion soup is chef Brook Kavanagh’s slow-roasted beef bone broth
“French onion soup is a classic for good reason. The ingredients are straightforward and cheap, but if the broth is done right, the result is deeply flavoured and totally comforting. I like to make my stock from organic shank bones for an intense and meaty taste. I started testing out recipes as a 14-year-old working in a butcher shop—I would take bones home with me—and 15 years later, I’m still tinkering as I make four or five batches of the stuff every day.” Read the rest of this entry »
Introducing: Fifth Elementt, Bay Street’s Indian fusion restaurant reborn on Queen West
Inside the new Fifth Elementt (Image: Jon Sufrin)
When Bay Street’s Fifth Elementt closed down last May, chef Johnee Savarimuthu knew he wanted to continue the Indian fusion restaurant’s legacy. His culinary career had taken him down many roads—from sommelier to Disney cruise cook to head chef at New York City’s Revival—but he’d never owned his own restaurant before. So he and his sous-chef partnered up and bought the Fifth Elementt brand, taking it to Queen West earlier this month in the space where Bangkok Paradise used to churn out its signature pad see ew.
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Toronto’s five best steak frites
The world’s most perfect meat-and-potatoes pairing is a bistro classic. Here, the city’s top five steak frites.
1. Nota Bene’s Cumbrae Farms steak
The rub (thyme, rosemary, balsamic and olive oil) offsets the complex, almost gamy flavours of an incredible strip loin nurtured by 60 days of dry aging. Flesh so tender it parts at the nudge of a knife contrasts with the snap of lustily salted frites. $45. 180 Queen St. W., 416-977-6400.
2. Jacobs and Co. Alberta rib-eye Read the rest of this entry »
Toronto’s best steak house doesn’t serve steak frites, per se, but sumptuously marbled and aged High River Hereford beef ($50). The rib-eye deserves an equally extravagant partner, in this case a side order of tarragon-showered duck-fat fries ($12) that mingles the earthiness of the potatoes with the musk of the deep-fryer. 12 Brant St., 416-366-0200.
When it comes to making restaurant reservations, is OpenTable a friend or foe?
From a customer’s perspective, OpenTable might seem like the perfect dovetailing of the Internet and dining: restaurant reservations are made and confirmed instantly. There’s no favouritism, waiting for a return e-mail or negotiating with front-of-house staffers. Lots of restaurants use it (290 in Toronto alone), and, perhaps best of all, it’s free. For all that convenience, restaurant owners foot the bill.
That’s where the problem comes in for Mark Pastore. He’s the chef at San Fransisco’s famous Incanto restaurant. In an eloquent, if long-winded, indictment of the service posted on his eatery’s Web site last month, Pastore notes that OpenTable’s fees are exorbitant. “OpenTable is out for itself, the worst business partner I have ever worked with in all my years in restaurants,” one anonymous restaurateur from NYC told him. “If I could find a way to eliminate it from my restaurants, I would.”
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