Atelier Thuet
171 E. Liberty St., Toronto
416-603-2777
$45 for lunch or brunch for two with wine, tax and tip
For a Frenchman to call his second restaurant an "atelier" and then append his name is an act of daring and perhaps hubris. And Marc Thuet, who has named his Liberty Village satellite Atelier Thuet, cannot be unaware of such eponymous establishments as Atelier de Joël Robuchon, the Paris resto where superstar chef Joël Robuchon dishes his fab food in an informal atmosphere.
At Atelier Thuet, we enter the dining area through a patisserie with jewel-like pastries and charcuterie in the display cases and a few café tables for grabbing a bite. Hopes are high for Thuet food at Swiss Chalet prices, especially after the place was named one of the city's top 10 new restaurants by Toronto Life.
The dining room does have belle époque glamour, as befits a Frenchman of impeccable taste. A high red ceiling, two fabulous chandeliers made of red twigs and flocked red-brocade chairs all give the impression that we are in a kinder, gentler age and place. Which impression is quickly dispelled when you notice that there are not one but two TVs mounted on the walls. What does college basketball have to do with la vie en rose?
We also soon question what Atelier Thuet has to do with French epicurean grace. It's weekend brunch but there is no fresh OJ available. And they supposedly specialize in Thuet's house-made charcuterie, but, after asking two servers, we still can't find out what's on our charcuterie plate. They both agree on the prosciutto, the headcheese and the salami - all three fattier than they need to be - but one calls the mostly fat bacon look-alike bacon, while the other says it's smoked pork belly. Whatever it is, this item is about 80-per-cent fat, which, even to a lifelong carnivore and animal-fat addict like me, is gross. In my world, uncooked pig fat is a garnish and ought not to be the main event.
The pork and pork liver pâté on the charcuterie plate is less greasy than the pork belly, but not by much. Its pork liver taste is balm to carnivorous palates, but do we really need not one but two layers of pure pork fat in the pâté, rendering it a cardiac minefield? Just for fun, we took home six slices of the aforementioned pork belly from the charcuterie plate and, pretending it was bacon, fried it up. It made pretty good bacon, and gave up over a quarter cup of fat when heated. Which clearly we were supposed to eat on the charcuterie plate.
I have charcuterie credentials. When my superego (the voice of the health cop) isn't looking, I hoover prosciutto (preferably with a big chunk of Parmigiano Reggiano), bresaola and pig crackling. And giving up foie gras isn't going well for me. But the charcuterie at Atelier Thuet has more fat and less flavour than the similarly titled platter at the Black Hoof, another carnivore temple in Toronto. The scoop of chicken liver, moreover, is a dime-a-dozen purée that hardly befits the city's anointed king of charcuterie. In Toronto's restaurant press, Atelier Thuet has been lionized lately, but we are wondering who the emperor's tailor is.
