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ONE

Hazelton Hotel, 118 Yorkville Ave., Toronto. 416-961-9600. Dinner for two with wine, tax and tip, $250.

Mark McEwan opened his new restaurant, One, at the corner of Yorkville and Hazelton just before the Toronto International Film Festival began. It was a strategic blunder of significant proportions. He might as well have hired a plane to circle Bloor Street's millionaire's row.

Most restaurateurs do back flips to have a "soft" opening. They avoid publicity, crowds and restaurant critics for at least a week or two in order to buy quiet time to work out the kinks on the shakedown cruise. But McEwan's hands were tied because One is in the newly opened Hazelton Hotel.

The result? On Aug. 29, opening night, the wraparound outdoor café bar was full in a nanosecond.

Obviously, the upside of opening with such a big splash was big money right out of the starting gate. But the downside, unfortunately, outweighs the upside. Critics have been dining out on the stumbles of the wait staff at One ever since. And by McEwan's own admission they're green. He is the best chef/manager in Toronto, and along with his superb food, being waited on by savvy servers who always find the balance between enough attention and hovering, is the McEwan trademark (witness North 44 and Bymark).

So what's up with One? I ask the bread server where the bread was made. He grunts. I ask again. He says it's olive bread. They bring our frites with the apps, and more frites (not ordered) with the mains. One day I phone for a reservation and spend three minutes on hold.

Service lapses are as foreign to McEwan as hot dogs and Kraft cheese, and my guess is that before the first snowflake he'll have wrestled this unwieldy beast into submission.

His other challenge is having chosen a food philosophy that many epicures don't understand. People see a plain piece of meat or fish with neither garnish nor veg and they don't get it. Simplicity confounds us, for we confuse complexity with excellence. McEwan has chosen to serve the ultimate in "home-style cooking" at One.

Everything is to be shared and veg 'n' starch must be ordered separately. Main courses are set in the middle of the table in lovely little oven-to-table casseroles - a piece of meat, fish or fowl atop sauce. Nobody but a great chef can spin such plain stuff into gold, and McEwan clearly did a good job training chef Drew Ellerby, who served five years under him.

Sardines (the fish du jour) are lightly pickled for a clever result. Sometimes dark and oily, sardines benefit from a sprightly vinegar bath, which renders their flesh unusually delicate. Deep rose Tasmanian sea trout is lightly cured, wet and wild. Golden gazpacho, thanks to yellow peppers and tomatoes, strikes a splendid sweet/sour balance. Only bacon, scrambled egg and truffle disappoints. The dish isn't different enough from my own scrambled eggs to knock the cover off the ball.

When the collection of casseroles fills the centre of the table, one is slightly discomfited by the plethora of choices. But the flavours are so dazzling that whining quickly subsides. Perfectly cooked black cod has a slightly sweet crust. Tasmanian sea trout, whose pink flesh is kissin' cousin to divinity, roasts up like a charm with a slightly sweet soy lacquer. Lobster has been butter braised just until its flesh melts, with scallions for some zing. Perfectly cooked halibut is topped with fresh Dungeness crab flakes and one single house-made potato chip. It sits in a pool of deeply flavoured essence of crab. Simple.

Cynics will say I love McEwan too much. It isn't the man I love, but his cooking. Take, for example, the frites at One. Money being no object to the clientele on this corner, he sprinkles them with specks of truffle, shaves reggiano on top, and charges $12 for the sexiest flavour hit since Jamie Kennedy addicted us to dipping frites in lemony mayo.

Impeccable cheeses arrive room temp, but desserts are uneven: Blinis sit pretty under a citric cloud of lemon mousse, with a side of "blueberry caviar" that seems to be blueberry-inflected tapioca pearls. But in lemon cheesecake beignets, the cheesecake loses its lustre under a pedestrian deep-fried crust. And banana crème brûlée is strange, its silken texture sullied by banana fibre, its caramel sauce heavy.

Any chef, however, who dreams up One's s'mores, will be inscribed in my book of life: House-made marshmallows with good dark chocolate hide inside a cannolo made of crisp rolled crepe. Campfire girls never had it this good.

At lunchtime even in fall weather (thanks to a plethora of heaters), glamour girls and their tanned men fill the outdoor café. The $29 burger is Harvey's for the caviar set. It makes me weak in the knees. Other lunchtime offerings seem less carefully executed: The frites and onion rings are greasy, and the roasted heirloom carrots, however splendidly caramelized, wallow in too much butter.

Barely grilled tuna has a charming crème fraîche foam and pappardelle with roasted mushrooms packs a flavour wallop. With chicken noodle soup - though one of the simplest things in the world, most cooks screw it up - McEwan is channelling my Boba, his soup both pure and intense, with parsley sprigs imprisoned in the house-made noodles.

But eaters paying big bucks in such an uber-snazzy room - two storeys worth of mirrored glass and cowhide squares on the walls, courtesy of Yabu Pushelberg and $3-million - are mystified by such simple food. Explanation: McEwan is out in front of the crowd. Simple is the new complicated.

jkates@globeandmail.com