A cocktail party classic, the bacon-wrapped scallop offers everything a good host wants in an hors d’oeuvre: easy prep and quick cooking—and with the handy skewer, you don’t even have to put down your gimlet to enjoy one. Oh, yes, and the flavour works, too. The scallop adopts the smokiness of the bacon like an orphan child. Each element retains its character, though, thanks to the contrasting mouth feel; one plump and yielding, the other thin and chewy. And the natural seasoning in both, the salt of the sea and salt of the earth, delivers a cohesive, memorable finish.

Most places that offer scallops and bacon as an appetizer do them like The Whistling Oyster (11 Duncan St., 416-598-7707), where, watched by a mermaid/sea hag made of plaster and coloured beads, you can have four mid-sized scallops wrapped tightly in bacon. The fillip comes from two accompanying sauces, one a straight-ahead ketchup-based seafood sauce, the other a light orange-chipotle rémoulade whose smokiness adds a note of surprise.

No beaded mermaids at Yorkville’s stylish MoDo (122 Avenue Rd., 416-962-6636), but two colossal deco bronzes of watchful women create the same effect. MoDo deconstructs the original dish, instead presenting its fresh, lightly pan-seared Maine scallops with a round of pancetta. Of course, with no skewers, you will have to put down the gimlet.