Colborne Lane
45 Colborne St., Toronto. 416-368-9009. Dinner for two with wine, tax and tip, $200.
Last year was not a great one for Toronto foodies on the prowl. Save for Jamie Kennedy's new place at the Gardiner Museum -- which is really only for casual lunches and rather off the beaten track -- we've had little to get excited about lately. This could explain the foodie hysteria about Colborne Lane, but doesn't, because the hottest new resto in town today is better than marvellous. The buzz is legit, and good luck getting a table late in the week.
Chef Claudio Aprile, at 37, is at precisely the right moment in his career to open his own place. For six years, he was chef at Senses (before and after its move to the SoHo Metropolitan Hotel), where owner Henry Wu of the deep pockets and the grand palate gave Aprile a very long leash. With the freedom and money to follow his fancy, Aprile practised the clever moves he had seen in stages at Charlie Trotter in Chicago and the other American gastro-icons Patria and Alinea, where the kitchen uses high-tech machines à la Ferran Adria (whom Aprile visited last year).
Having honed his craft in Henry Wu's kitchen, Aprile was ready for his own shop, but was too smart to go it alone, so he partnered with Hanif Harji. Harji is a partner in Kultura, Doku 15 and Blowfish. This pedigree tells us he is a coolmeister extraordinaire whose gastronomic chops aren't up to his design sense, which makes him Aprile's perfect partner.
Once the owners of Café du Marché retired after a 30-year run on Colborne Street, the partners renovated the space with grace and pizzazz, and Colborne Lane opened on Feb. 13. The building wears its 140 years well: Tall, scarred wooden pillars and beams, and antique mirrors go well with thick wooden tables. The likes of Red Hot Chili Peppers and Pink Floyd play softly, thanks to the chef's love of mellow rock 'n' roll. That the hottest restaurant in town is not formal and has no tablecloths tells us that Toronto has come of age gastronomically: We don't need formality to telegraph to us that a locale has hit the big time. We can tell for ourselves because we trust our taste buds, which are in for a major treat at Colborne Lane.
Much has been made of Aprile's flirtation with molecular gastronomy. There is talk of machines in his kitchen, of consultation with scientists from the University of Guelph, of homogenizers that turn liquids into sheets of gels and liquid nitrogen canisters that squirt out foam. But to focus on the chemistry, or talk about Aprile's kitchen as a lab, is to miss his point by a wide margin.
Claudio Aprile is a fine chef at the top of his game, working his hardest because for the first time in his life, he's working for himself. He's using a few machines to play some games with food -- like making cubes of aloe vera, wasabi foam and frozen soy fragments; but that is not the core of what he does. Aprile's main mission is cooking great food; he is undistracted from that.
He often cooks in themes. The plates are smallish, halfway between apps and main size, so we are advised to order three plates per person. Some are meditations on a colour (potato tart), others on a cuisine (Chinese squid) or an idea (smoke and spice on squab). But no matter what he cooks, Aprile gives his whole heart; his technique is flawless, his flavours big and bright, his textures almost erotic.
