Bruyea Brothers
640 College St., Toronto. 416-532-3841. $150 for dinner for two with wine, tax and tip.
Washrooms not accessible to people in wheelchairs.
It's really too bad that the weather is cooling down so suddenly, because the Emperor is going to freeze when he goes outside. Of course, nobody at the hottest new restaurant on College Street will know how cold the Emperor is, because they're all too busy congratulating themselves on how trendy they are for having discovered Bruyea Brothers early on. Not like Lobby, where every two-bit journalist in town wrote about the place and ruined its exclusivity. But like Lobby in two ways: food and service. Nothing too major.
It begins with the amuses-bouches. Our waiter brings a white rectangular plate (did you know round plates are out?) that holds four different tiny amuses. I ask him if we four are to fight over the four. He says we ought to negotiate. I think every diner oughtta get a crack at every taste, so I am not amused. The tiny perfect (looking) amuses are tomato water, which tastes of not much, mash (potato, we infer) with a Lilliputian dollop of foie gras, which tastes ditto, yucca with candied jalapeno on top (pleasant), and raw tuna in an unidentified chip. All gorgeous, none overburdened with taste.
While ordering, we ask the waiter a few questions. What is foie gras torchon? He says: "It's foie gras." I say to him that a torchon is a towel, so how is the foie gras cooked? He tells me that a torchon is not a towel and that foie gras torchon is "just foie gras." I don't mind the guy not knowing a) that my dictionary says torchon is French for dish towel. I don't even mind to much that he doesn't know that the preparation referred to on the menu is poaching the foie gras wrapped up in a towel to hold it together. What I mind is his air of superior certitude. Which would be less intolerable if the dish in question had more flavour.
We ask about duck two ways, confit and cured. What, we query, is it cured with? "It's cured," sez he, impatiently. I ask again what it's cured with. He tells me again that it's cured. Can we spell tautology? Ignorance I can handle. But this dude's unwillingness to find out how things are prepared suggests that he's too cool for school. Looking around the room, we get it; everybody else seems, well, grateful to be here in this ultracool It spot. Have we forgotten our place? His (the waiter's) is to intimidate us and ours (the diners') is to be grateful we got a table and not push it.
So what if the lobster empanada starter for 15 bucks is dried out and the aforementioned duck two ways involves a tiny piece of overcooked confit and over-salted cured breast meat, with a small bolus of deep-fried risotto with pecorino, ho hum. As for the $18 curried lobster tart, its fruit chutney and cookie-like pastry both distract from the lobster, which should always own centre stage.
Another thing our waiter is really good at (or more likely well-trained by his bosses) is selling up. We are strenuously encouraged to order sides, which are less than enchanting: Corn cakes recall Canada's favourite sport; their accompanying shredded turkey and salsa do not sufficiently help matters; mashed potatoes with lobster and foie jus are a really cool idea (like so much else this kitchen does) that requires expert execution. Overwhipping the potatoes so that they have the texture of raw pancake batter doesn't help.
This is an ambitious restaurant, with a complicated menu that visits South America, the Far East, France et al. The menu demands the artistry of Susur Lee and the big clean flavours of Mark McEwan. But they're not here. Instead, we're given overcooked flounder with banal citrus glaze, overcooked ribs with fig mush atop malanga cashew mash (unbearably starchy, with all the taste of a torchon), and sugar-cane beef, which features chewy beef slices stacked atop starchy yucca frites with pleasant but unexciting black bean broth.
Once upon a time, a restaurant had to cook good food to be popular. But those days are over. Now, if it's on College Street, offers a trendy fusion menu, has good-looking wait staff and cool décor, it's the place to be seen. Barnum and Bailey, take note.
R.I.P. We are sad to report that Patriot, the clever Canadian restaurant in the Colonnade, closed during the summer. Also Arlequin, the cluttered and cozy takeout cum French bistro, closed for the summer and reopened last week under new ownership. It's still serving French bistro food, but with a completely new look. Look for minimalism under the stewardship of Scott Saunderson, formerly chef at Goldfish.