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Restaurants › Seafood

Maléna [?]

120 Avenue Rd. • View on map »
416-964-0606

The room is glamorous without ever appearing to make an effort at it, and welcoming in a way you don’t always find at other Yorkville haunts. The Greek and Southern Italian menu is a strange if inspired love child of co-owners David Minicucci and Sam Kalogiros (the first is Italian, the second is Greek; they also own L’Unità). And executive chef Doug Neigel (who is also the executive chef at L’Unità) offers one of the best fish selections in the city: line-caught ling cod, spot prawns, wild salmon, B.C. halibut and even albacore tuna, all of it sustainable and jetted here fresh off the boat. Neigel’s kitchen, unfortunately, doesn’t always know quite what to do with it. He is a serial fish overcooker (whole mackerel, an otherwise innocent hunk of cod), his risotto is watery and flat, the seafood soup is flabby, and his crudos get so much unnecessary accoutering that he might as well just have the fish bronzed. What does work, however, is excellent: tempura soft-shell crabs (in season); such killer desserts as blood orange sorbet and an incredible lemon phyllo tart; and house-cured sardines that ply the entire flavour band, from mouth-fillingly fatty to taut and light. In the end, the place and even the menu work—you just wonder, as you catch yourself having a fabulous time, why they don’t pull the fish off the heat a few moments earlier. The wine program, fronted by Zinta Steprans, is one of the most interesting around—anything she recommends is bang on. Mains $22–$35.

Closed Sunday and Monday
Bring your own bottle

120 Avenue Rd.

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