Simple Bistro
619 Mount Pleasant Rd., Toronto. 416-483-8933. Dinner for two with wine, tax and tip, $125.
Why are bistros all the rage? And why is Toronto seeing a net loss at the high end (bye-bye Susur) and an explosion in the gastronomic mid-range? New bistros in the last year include Delux, Tati, Nyood, Foxley, Cowbell, L'Unita, the Harbord Room, Sidecar, Garden by Eleven, Grace - and now Simple Bistro, which proudly proclaims its moderate ambitions in its moniker.
Even I, a long-time loyalist to la grande cuisine, have been won over. When I was in France a few weeks ago (dining in bistros), I recalled the grand gourmet tours of my youth, the orgies of 10-course dinners in Michelin three-stars, the places where finished doesn't mean finished because three courses after the dessert you ordered they're still bringing little sweet treats. Did I long for a return to those three-hour dinners from which one arose stuffed like a Thanksgiving turkey? Not even once.
Of course, the high-end restaurants of Toronto have never attained that level of elaborate excess. Here, the highest end cooking is elegant: Everything has a complex sauce and it takes forever and a day to make, which puts labour costs into the stratosphere and makes dinner for two cost $300 if one is careful to avoid expensive wine.
Bistro cooking is characterized by high-quality ingredients - good cuts of meat, fresh fish, fresh veg - prepared with strong technique but not highly decorated and with none of the rococo flourishes that distinguish grand gastronomy. When I learned cooking at Le Cordon Bleu Paris, we used to joke that chef (our teacher) wasn't happy until he applied the artifice of Escoffier to turn every food into something else: mushrooms into flowers, carrots into batons, fish into paupiettes or quenelles and so on.
Even people who can afford it are no longer so excited about stuffing themselves for three hours. And to those of us for whom $300 is a lot to spend on dinner, it's downright silly. There is also the question of ambience: The formality of grand restaurants is always somewhat intimidating, even to habitués. It's like going to Holt Renfrew or an expensive hairdresser. We are somehow manipulated into believing that we have to behave a certain way (like the truly rich?) in order to prove that we belong there. And that's no fun.
Which is why bistros are in the ascendance. They ask so much less of diners and yet hold themselves to decent standards. In this way, Simple Bistro, which opened early this spring, is a classic. The chef is Masayuki Tamaru, who a decade ago was cooking with the likes of Jamie Kennedy and looked like he was going to go the distance. But he never grabbed the brass ring. Tamaru bounced around a lot. He cooked at the Fifth, Didier, Rouge, Crush, the short-lived O-Do and Azure Restaurant in the InterContinental Hotel. In January, 2005, he and a partner bought Jov, but that was short-lived.
At Simple Bistro, he reins in his love for the likes of foie gras and sticks to lighter, cheaper food. Dinner for two won't top $130 and the menu respects millennial epicures' desire for lighter fare. His apps read like a paean to the keep-fit boomer bible. Salad of chopped Belgian endive with French blue cheese is high-flavoured and crunchy. Salad of red and yellow beets is sweet and tart thanks to arugula, chèvre and oranges. His scallops are scented with vanilla and served with a clever little salad of lightly pickled fennel. Wild leek soup is both a jazzy homage to spring and, thanks to its foundation of rich chicken stock, adazzle with flavour. Very French.
Is bistro fare French by definition? Yes and no. Although the genre originated in France and dishes such as steak frites and mussels with frites have an apparent stranglehold on bistro menus, nobody will be upset if they sneak in some lemon grass or other Asian flavours.
But chef Tamaru, despite his personal lineage, is a resolute Francophile. He does sweet little frites with steak or mussels.
His magret de canard is ruby-red, fork-tender duck breast served over tasty chard with caramelized sweet-potato sticks. His halibut is correctly cooked.
Even risotto is credible at Simple Bistro, rich with the sweetness of Jerusalem artichokes and the earthy savoury of shiitake mushrooms. Cornish hen has tender flesh and crisp skin and is served with a grand pile of mashed potatoes topped with crisped onions, smoky bacon and sausage.
Dessert, too, is exemplary bistro fare. Blancmange is a bistro classic: white pudding made with sweetened milk thickened with gelatin or cornstarch. Significantly less rich than crème brûlée but still fun, this blancmange is smooth, silken and coconut-tinged.
Simple is a sweet little room, with mustard walls, unadorned save for photographs of nature. Its big front windows open to the street on warm evenings and its big heart feeds the soul.
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