A restaurant’s gotta have a voice
Once summertime was downtime for the local restaurant reviewer – just take me to the nearest patio or for a jaunt out of town to say, Stratford and Niagara-on-the-Lake. This ain’t going to happen this year. By my reckoning, new restaurants are opening something like once a week. And not just small local places or resto lounges, but big hitters like Scarpetta at the new Thompson Hotel, Susur Lee’s as yet unnamed replacement for Madeline’s on King West, and Ici Aussi, J.P. Challet’s bistro on Harbord and Manning.
Great time for diners but a perilous time for restaurants. Why? Because the bar for restaurants is rising all the time. And so are the number of restaurants. We have a glut of restaurants right now and competition is fierce for the dining dollar during this recession. After all, diners’ savvy has risen exponentially in the past few years. The ether, not to mention the web, is buzzing with food info. A few years ago, I don’t believe many diners would have known a 25-year old Balsamic vinegar from caramel colouring, or been knowledgeable enough to distinguish a $182 Lambda from Crete from Rachel Ray’s EVOO (Extra Virgin Olive Oil). Moreover while the words fresh’n’local still cause the organic congregation to feel tingles up their legs, the trend is now jumbled together with the return of the meat-eater, the rise of Italian rustic restaurants. The emphasis is now more than ever on the chef. Accomplishment isn’t enough. The chef must have a voice — a unique take on food with the skills and imagination to transform ingredients beyond their basic goodness.
Only a cockeyed optimist would enter such a daunting arena where even powerful voices like Susur Lees are having to clear their throats – Madeline’s had great reviews but never got a dinership locked in. So I’m keeping my fingers cross as I go downtown to Beast, just opened by Scott and Rachelle Vivian at 96 Tecumseth, (King and Bathurst), recently the home of Amuse-Bouche, and thirty years ago where Susur Lee opened Lotus.
Vivian is a card- carrying slowfooder, a veteran of Jamie Kennedy’s kitchens, and recently the Vivians were partners in The Wine Bar. Their ambitions are subtly modest: a neighbourhood place with destination possibilities.
The evening is warm,the patio inviting, the service friendly without being overbearing. The restaurant space is unpretentious. The wine is reasonable, the typed menu disarmingly simple. The menu is pocked with surprise, greens I’ve never tasted before, an intriguing juxtaposition of ingredients and flavours.
We naturally look to the Soft Shell Crab $19 with foie gras, greens and jalapeno pepper, but they’re clean out of this popular choice. Still, everything’s right with smoked sablefish (black cod)$12 which is adorned with little airy crunchy mouthfuls of pork crackling and with the excellent veal sweetbreads $12 , deep fried and laid on grits, adorned with micro mustardy mizuna. Striploin of Elk $29 makes a big dent in my prejudice against farmed game. It’s properly rare and comes with spicy Mole sauce, lambs quarters (sometimes called goosefoot) and spatzle. Just great.
Now I make a typical reviewer’s mistake. I really wanted the beef ribeye $28 with sumac butter but decided I should try something less familiar – Pigs head pasta $16. Looks stylish, an egg yolk topping spaghetti with pea shoots and clumps of tender pigs head meat. But for me, it doesn’t work at all. Usually I don’t make much of authenticity, thinking that fusion is Toronto’s trademark. But now a rant bubbles up. In Italy, pasta is simple, dictated by what’s available . But throughout North America pasta, like pizza and risotto, is Disneyfied. You can no longer taste the basic ingredient because it’s smothered by dwarfs, Bambi, Dumbo, Snow White aka everything but the kitchen stove. The spaghetti would have been irresistible to me with a simple herb sauce and a little cheese. The real thing.
After that, Rochelle Vivian’s black walnut financier (sponge cake) with a little brown butter tuile and honey-rosemary cream $8 is balm. Beast rises in estimation. Does it pass the voice test? Borderline. Well don’t be kidded by the name. Beast is a misnomer for such an ingratiating place. What’s missing is a beastly spark of inspiration. Still, if I lived locally, I’d be happy to have it next door.
** 1/2Beast 96 Tecumseth 647 352 6000. Open Wed-Sat. Not wheelchair accessible. Dinner for two , food plus tax: $108
