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Stonegrill on Winchester

51A Winchester St., Toronto. 416-967-6565. Dinner for two with wine, tax and tip, $130.

Imagine a restaurant where you have to cook your own food. Like that's fun. Picture this: You've ordered a $33 lamb loin and a server brings it to you on a flat, hot stone. Very hot. "It's 700 degrees Fahrenheit," quoth he almost religiously, as if it's a very special moment we're having here, together (not him and me - the stone and me). The stone, he tells us, is very special volcanic stone imported from Australia. He also goes on (and on) about how all other restaurants in Toronto buy their meat pre-cut into portion sizes, but Stonegrill buys all their meat in big hunks and only cuts a portion when the diner orders it. Which results, he assures us, in the meat juices not being lost, as they are elsewhere.

Meanwhile, my $33 lamb loin is sizzling on this 700-degree stone (whatever other idiocies you may commit, don't touch that sucker) and I worry aloud about it getting overcooked. He tells me not to worry because it can't get overcooked. I ask why that is, and he says it's because this very special stone responds to moisture, so it will only sear the meat and will for sure, he's positive, not overcook my lamb.

No stone I ever met responded to anything, but hey, there's always a first time. Still, being the kind of cheapskate carnivore who doesn't take chances with expensive hunks of meat, I yank this one off that hot stone ASAP and chow down. I like it. But then I like all meat that isn't overcooked. I do not like that I had to cook it myself, or the anxiety I had about the potential for overcooking it. And tell me I need help, but trust is an issue for me, I never met this server before, and why should I believe him when he spouts this stone-loving moisture rigmarole?

Especially when on another visit we leave some of blue marlin on the stone too long and it overcooks rather promptly. The menu says we can leave the food on the stone and eat from there, "as the cooking intensity is reduced after searing," but neither the marlin nor the shrimp lies. I overcook one of them too - before I learn my lesson and pull the rest of them off the hot stone more precipitously. Same for the two venison chops, which, if I say so myself, I cook very well, searing them on both sides, but leaving the interior blood red and juicy.

But I don't want to cook my venison. At $34, I want them to do it. But they want me to do it. Turns out the restaurant bought this system, including the special oven to heat the stones, as a franchise from the Stonegrill Company in Australia. A visit to the franchise head office website reveals their happy not-so-secret: "Any meal can be prepared within minutes by an apprentice or kitchen assistant."

While we're on the subject of what I don't want, the sides that come with every main course are both insufficient in quantity and pathetically boring: Baby bok choy and a little pot of sauce, none of which is of any interest. The marlin comes with yellow liquid that they call tri-citrus emulsion. Lemon juice by any other name. The venison comes with nominal chocolate-chili jus that to me is something acrid and brown. And so it goes.

If you want anything more substantial with your DIY dinner, order it separately. Eight dollars buys a plate of ricotta "gnocchi." Upon their arrival, we get why they put the word in quotation marks. These not-gnocchi are biggish clods of nicely seasoned ricotta clothed in thin pasta coating. The eentsy pile of grilled rapini is lovely, as is the red pepper purée, but the "gnocchi" are cold. Pan-fried spinach with sesame and crispy shallots is fresh, barely cooked, and lots of fun thanks to the sesame and the fried shallots.

The mystery here is that somebody in the kitchen has taste buds. Which prompts the question: Why are they not let off the leash? Up front, before the stonegrill debacle, there are some credible starters. Lightly curried squash soup has both depth of flavour and good seasoning. Smoked chili barbecued ribs are rich, tender and just smoky enough. Bison tartare has a taste of the exotic thanks to truffle oil and smoked salt; and how to turn down "potato hay" (ungreasy shoestring potatoes)? Among starters, only the calamari disappoints, because it is (over)stuffed with ground chorizo that bears unfortunate resemblance to Hamburger Helper.

It seems that not too many other diners want to cook their own dinner, either. On neither of my visits to Stonegrill are there more than four tables occupied. That's unfortunate for such a beautiful room, its tomato and eggplant walls graced by glorious oil paintings by local artist Bev Jenkins. The tables are large and well spaced, onyx-looking light boxes top the bar and serve as dividers

The elegant dowager of a building, which until recently housed the Laurentian Room upstairs, deserves better. Stonegrill has turned the back room of the old ground-floor Winchester saloon from a sow into a silk purse. But with a dog of a concept.