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What's New Pussycat?
By Ivy Knight
I was involved in opening a new restaurant once and it was one of the worst experiences of my life. Cleaning the kitchen was soul-destroying, scraping away at old grease that had morphed into rubber cement made me never want to cook again. Once we did start cooking we realized how many little things we still didn't have, things you just take for granted in any kitchen, like a vegetable peeler, flour, onions, garbage cans... The subterranean dish pit was so Mickey Mouse we were using a garden hose to spray down the dishes with tepid water before loading them into the washer. My low-boy fridge was caked with ice and completely useless, forcing me to set up my mise en place in a bus bin full of ice. When actual customers showed up and ordered off the menu we all fell into total panic mode. The mess and slipshod set-up had erased all confidence. They wanted a steak medium rare? What? Where do I even begin? How the hell am I going to cook this steak to the proper doneness and have it ready when the veg comes up? How are we going to plate it? On what plate? Where's the sauce? I felt as knowledgeable and competent as a nun in a whorehouse. I had all this going for me and a big, fat, slobbering, screaming dipshit chef spitting obscenities at me to keep me ‘focused'. Wow chef, you are such a big help, why don't you go change the whole menu again and not bother to tell the kitchen? That would be great, thanks.
That hellhole is now closed and it couldn't have happened to a better guy. I hope he's scraping scrambled eggs off a flat top for minimum wage in a 24 hour diner in Hamilton right now, and weeping. Go Ti-Cats!
I would never, ever, ever want to be involved in opening a restaurant ever again, I don't understand people who do. I meet so many people in other lines of work who say they dream of opening a restaurant. Lawyers, photographers, bank tellers, telemarketers who all claim they just want to chuck it all and open up a little boîte somewhere. I hate that word, "boîte", mostly because I only hear it from pretentious dicks pulling down six figure salaries describing their future little jewel of a restaurant, or in the restaurant (resto) reviews ('views) in Now (N) magazine (mag) nestled amongst words like plonk, shrooms and 'za (that's short for pizza, a really long, hard to spell word that needs an abbreviation so badly). Tabernac the fucking boîte!
So, I was shocked to hear over the course of one week that three of my dear friends were all planning on opening restaurants! Three friends who would soon be declaring bankruptcy, selling all their possessions and living out of their cars, crying themselves to sleep each sad, lonely night until they mercifully expired from broken hearts.
The one faint glimmer of hope was that out of all the people I've worked with in my few years as a cook these three were in my top ten (the top being Anthony Walsh, always and forever). All three are exceptionally skilled and maybe, just maybe, they could make a go of it.
Let's start with lunch. Soups, mainly, from my friend Ravi Kanagarajah. Ravi and I worked at Mildred Pierce together when I first moved to Toronto. He has always talked about opening his own place, and while working as Executive Chef for Black Camel, he came across the opportunity he'd been waiting for. They wanted out of their location on Adelaide and Irwin Schwartz, Black Camel's owner, offered the space to Ravi. He took a leap and bought it, ready to work his ass off to make the space into what would soon be, Ravisoups (647-435-7052), 322 Adelaide West, between John and Peter).
"I learned a lot from Irwin while at Black Camel. He's all about quality and keeping it simple." Schwartz definitely knows what he's doing, he believes in putting the money into the food, not the cutlery and the lighting, a prudent approach for a casual lunch spot. Keith Haring wallpaper won't make my sandwich taste better if it's made on day-old bread. However, Ravi did commission some wacky, fabulous art from Allan Ryan for the dining room.
Black Camel is all about delicious loose meat on a bun, Ravisoups is going to be all about soup: "I love making soup. No fine dining restaurant, all I want is to make soup for the rest of my life."
Ravi has always been soup-obsessed and was the genius behind all the great soups we did at Mildred Pierce. His butternut squash with lemongrass and coconut milk is the easiest, and most delicious in my repertoire (and it's vegan, quelle surprise!).
Ravisoups opened in April and I headed over there for lunch last week with my husband Kerry and our friends Adam Bishop (sous-chef at Mess Hall in Montréal) and Declan O'Driscoll (producer of documentaries, hip-hop shows and cameraman for the Pillow Fight League). We sat on the sunny patio and were soon presented with a wooden lazy Susan bearing four bowls of soup. Ravi placed it in the centre of the table and described what we were about to have. There were two purees, one of curried apricot and lentil and a roasted red pepper bisque garnished with masala mayo. There was also a spicy lamb rasam, a brothy stew with Indian flavours and a chicken hot pot with noodles, tofu, napa and bok choy. We each picked a bowl, had a few tastes and then passed it on. After we'd tasted them all everyone grabbed their favourite. I loved the chicken hot pot, Kerry went for the lamb rasam, Declan and Adam fought over the curried apricot and lentil. The red pepper bisque was delicious until the garnish disappeared, so it slipped out of favour. If I had the bisque again I'd ask for a squeeze bottle of that masala mayo, it's so good.
Our server, Adriana, brought us a plate of cheddar biscuits, made fresh that morning by Ravi's wife Radha, with some yellow pepper jelly, and a coconut, mint and cilantro chutney. With these condiments in hand we tasted each other's soups all over again. Delicious, fresh flavours bouncing off the palate everywhere you turned. Ravi you are a fucking genius! He came out again with two more lazy Susans bearing the wrap sandwiches he's offering. Don't freak out, these aren't your Tim Horton's egg salad wraps. The wrap itself is Ravi's family recipe, a Sri-Lankan style roti, wrapped around three different fillings. Adam cut each wrap into quarters so we could taste them all.
First up, a tamarind glazed pulled pork with mango and basil, followed by braised lamb with cumin-roast potato, jicama, spinach and masala mayo and finally a smoked chicken with yams, water chestnut and chipotle aioli. That last one sounds crazy but it works; sweet soft yams, the clean crunch of the water chestnut, perfection with the smoky chicken and chipotle. They were all incredible, the chicken was definitely my favourite. Stuffed, we asked for a doggie bag and the take-home was wrapped up in biodegradable packaging and put in a ‘plastic' bag made of corn. "This stuff is more expensive, but it's worth it in the long run." Ravi tells us.
Later that night, Kerry reheated the pulled pork wrap and it was still fantastic. The wrap wasn't a big soggy mess, it held up beautifully. Ravisoups' next door neighbour is Pita Pit. I suggest they hit the road. Who in their right mind would opt for mass-manufactured pitas, canned olives and mystery meat coldcuts when right next door is the best lunch in town, made by a real chef with real food? And he has a patio!
Now we come to Tracey Freeman, a former librarian who left the dusty tomes for the glamorous life and low pay of the restaurant industry. Tracey was pastry chef at Biff's when I worked there years ago. She now teaches pastry at George Brown and has teamed up with Lynda Paul, who has been running her own specialty cake business for a while now. "I couldn't keep up on my own, couldn't work enough hours. That's where Tracey came in, she has skills that I don't have and together the business will grow."
They found a space on 1238 Queen East at Leslie and It's the Icing On The Cake (416-469-4973) is in business. They got some buckets of Pink Angora coloured paint and transformed the blasé storefront into a sugary confection. It's a magical little cupcake of a shop where even the countertops and walls looks edible.
Lynda still focuses on her custom designed cakes while Tracey fills the display case with gorgeous little butter tarts, meringue cookies, rum balls, bread pudding and her piece de resistance, the one thing Tracey does better than anyone, challah. Big braided loaves of ethereal egg bread, when I went in the other day I bought four and sat on the streetcar sniffing the bag like a pervert all the way home. Tracey is planning on introducing more breads to her offerings starting slowly, letting people know there's real fresh bread available. Based on the response, she is poised to keep raising the bar for the other bakeries on Queen East.
While at Biff's Tracey and I both had the honour of working with David Salter, a charming server with movie star good looks and the ability to inspire adoration in everyone he meets. David grew up in The Beaches with his buddies, Nick Drake and Amos Clark. These three guys always planned to open a restaurant together and when the home of Peppino's on the Beach went up for sale they went for it and opened Balsam (2343 Queen St. East, 416-699-2343)
"We've talked about this project for years and we wanted to be in this area. My Dad grew up 200 yards from here. My son's school is a few blocks away," David tells me as his wife Elizabeth (the female equivalent to his movie star good looks) appears with lunch. The way they talk about what the restaurant will be makes me feel like I'm back in 1952. These three boys growing up together in this leafy green area of Toronto, coming together as adults to open a restaurant for the people of their neighbourhood, named after a nearby street.
They all talk very realistically about the food and the wine but almost sentimentally about the customers they intend to serve. While working for Oliver-Bonacini at Biff's, Steak Frites, Square, Auberge du Pommier and managing at Jump before casting off on his own, David has a master's degree in smooth, exquisite service. David knows his wines and he knows his food, you don't escape O.B. without getting an education in both. When someone like Anthony Walsh, Tom Brody or Phil Mancuso is talking to you about food you pay attention.
Nick Drake will be the chef at the new restaurant, he and Amos have cooked together in the past and Amos will be helping him out in the kitchen here.
"We're not trying to re-invent the wheel, we want to do good things. People around here can be fickle. We want to get them adventurous, but slowly," Nick says. I see the space through all it's stages as they paint and scrub and sand, eventually turning out a cozy, intimate dining room.
After Balsam has been open for a month I go in for dinner with Tracey Freeman as my date. We put ourselves in the hands of David, Nick and Amos. What follows is a fantastic dinner with little tastes that take us all over the menu. A miniature pickled beet and goat cheese salad with a honey-chipotle dressing, a Caprese salad with cherry tomatoes and fried basil, an exquisite fresh pappardelle in white truffle cream sauce, and a vanilla and rosemary scented rack of lamb served with lemony rapini and a sweet potato puree that you have to taste to believe something so simple could be this good.
It's a perfect evening and I'm thrilled to read a malicious, nasty review of Balsam by Amy Pataki not long after I dine there. Why am I thrilled? Pataki has Patak-ed (my friend) David Chrystian, Susur Lee and Nathan Isberg with poison reviews in her quest to become… I don't honestly know what she's aiming for but I'd hate to see her try to attend a Dinner for Like-Minded Individuals without body armour. I'd say Nick, Amos and David are in good company if they get a hateful review from the Patak-er. A bad review from that harpy reads to me like a badge of merit for any restaurant she shits on.
I've checked out all my friends' new spots and each and every place is doing real food, each person has found their niche and is executing their talents with brilliance. Will they end up bankrupt crying themselves to sleep in their cars a few months down the line? All I can say is that if they do I will torch every Pita Pit, Cinnabon and Olive Garden from here to Thunder Bay... NO! I won't... settle down franchise owners!
If Ravi, Tracey and David don't succeed it's not their fault, it's ours for being such lazy bums that we'd settle for the mundane garbage dished out by the aforementioned carbon-copy hellholes. We live in this diverse city filled with huge culinary talents, if we don't support them then who the hell will? Considering they just want to blow your minds with their food it shouldn't be too hard to gather a mob and give them the customer stampedes they deserve.
Now, a final note. After writing this I was invited to the opening of Coupe Space, an 'Event Gallery' (998 Queen St. West), brought to us by Sacha and Bill Douglas. Sacha (formerly Executive Chef at Dish Cooking Studio, where she still leads a few classes) has gathered together some of the city's brightest culinary talents to teach you, not how to cook, but how to taste. So you can get in on an oyster tasting class with 'Oyster Boy' Adam Colquhon, check out Spanish cheeses with Tobey Nemeth (Chef - JK Wine Bar) and Micheal Caballo (Chef - Niagara St.Café), pick Cristoph Stadtlander's brain about curing Chinook salmon German-style or get hammered while also getting educated by Stephen Beaumont, beer expert. (Just kidding, I'm sure it's a very serious and sober event.) Whew! All this in a beautiful huge space, filled with Canadian art that's more Douglas Coupland than Emily Carr.
There are new places opening every millisecond in this town, independently owned spots that are associated with farmers markets and concerned about sustainable seafood, biodegradable take-out containers, slow food. These are the people trying to protect us from Con-Agra, Monsanto and Mickey D's. When every ear of corn has an eyeball growing out of it and people with fish allergies can't eat tomatoes anymore these will be the last bastions of the real stuff.
Support them now or you will die!
[Photo credit: Leslie Vineberg.]
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