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.
His squid is a study in textural contrast -- tender inside, coated with almost-crispy sauce on the outside. Crisp raw Asian pear batons, chewy sweet Chinese sausage and soft mango chunks wake up the sweet and sour sauce with juicy white shreds of pomelo on the side. The potato tart is like Vita Sackville-West's white garden, a symphony of white foods: A fragile tart holding velvety mashed potatoes with white truffle paste, a creamy dab of fresh cheese with a poached egg and a lacy parmigiano reggiano cracker on top, and rich leek purée hiding under the egg. This is complex cooking, rich with many elements, but focused and coherent.
Lobster bisque is the chef's reflection on aroma. The waiter (who is as smooth and sharp as the chef) brings a bowl holding the solids; as he adds bisque, he explains that this method releases the most aroma. Yes! The bisque is intensely flavoured, happy smells rise from coconut-scented tofu, lightly curried mussels, pleasantly sour oxalis leaves, and one lobster dumpling bursting with perfectly cooked fresh lobster.
Every plate is composed with ferocious attention to detail and passion for both taste and texture. He cooks pork tenderloin for 36 hours sous vide (vacuum-packed in a plastic bag) at 72 degrees Fahrenheit, browns it just before serving for looks, and sets it by piquant hoisin braised pork belly (all fat and crackle) topped with intense relish of cooked-down pineapple and black beans, with a cute little fried cake of stilton-scented risotto and a heart of beet purée for fuchsia fun. A yellow pool of fragrant tonka bean puréed with sweet potato and a small smear of Madeira sauce meet the pork's sweetness.
His errors are almost too few to mention: A huge pale green cloud of wasabi foam has no taste and the iced soy sauce is silly, but the whole rare tuna thing with seaweed does come together.
Aprile's inventions boggle the foodie's mind. Licorice and burnt honey sauce is far greater than the sum of its parts. It is married to ridiculously juicy Peking duck breast, not traditional Chinese Peking duck but a more refined version with subtle five-spice scent and a side of boneless confit chicken wing, lightly pickled cape gooseberries and, hiding under the duck, a silken squash flan.
The aforementioned squab breast is lightly smoked and served with fragile crepe wrapped around spiced cooked quince, with foie gras and two crazy chocolate sauces that refine Mexican mole into something more delicate -- one with smoked cardamom and wine with hibiscus.
Chef works similar magnificent magic on other fish, fowl and meat. He caramelizes vanilla beans and adds a flavour burst of yellow saffron custard to sea trout. He rolls up moist rice in sweet Serrano ham and with it sets sea bass in complex fragrant black truffle and miso broth.
His best dessert is hot chocolate fondue spiced with chilies and studded with chunks of mango and coffee hazelnut sponge cake, with a side of chocolate ice cream, which has been broken into hundreds of tiny melt-in-your-mouth shards by an uber-blender.
His best work is what he does every day, every dish. Thanks to Henry Wu for giving chef six years at Senses to practise for Colborne Lane.
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