Polipo octopus with ceci bean, genoa salami, baby arugula and chili.Moe Doiron/The Globe and Mail
I should not be upset with Mark McEwan. Really, it's quite immature of me. People change. And, shocking as it seems, not necessarily to meet my needs. Over the course of a lifetime one's interests shift. Mine certainly have. My palate used to be in thrall to hollandaise sauce and demi-glace but these days my allegiance is to bolder, brighter flavours.
I'm trying to let go of being mad at Mr. McEwan for leaving the kitchen for the corporate suite - metaphorically speaking. I know the guy still cooks, kinda. But really, the McEwan whose fan club I joined was all chef. Dinner at North 44 (when it was his only restaurant) was an adventure in fabulous flavours, the kind that make you feel almost overwhelmed with sensory excitement. Mr. McEwan has the cooking talent to buttress big ideas with flawless technique.
When a chef opens two more restaurants (Bymark and One), a grocery store (McEwan) and then a fourth restaurant (Fabbrica), it's time to acknowledge that the guy has shifted gears. He has a new career running a food business. And he does it pretty well. The food at a McEwan resto (or store) is significantly better than at other mini-chains. He blows Oliver & Bonacini out of the water on food quality.
But it's still not Mark McEwan cooking. It can't be. The guy who runs the business has bigger fish to fry. I imagine he okays the recipes, but it's not the same as being in the kitchen every night. Supervising chefs is much harder than being the chef. Hence the ordinary flavours at his new casual Italian place, Fabbrica, in the Shops at Don Mills.
Fabbrica (Italian for factory) is softened industrial chic, a gorgeous room with worm-eaten vertical two-by-fours on one wall, deep blue on another, big red baffles to absorb sound up top, and, as a focal point by the open kitchen, a huge Neapolitan pizza oven. Wood-fired, of course. There is the requisite glassed-in prosciutto 'n' preserves room, with excellent charcuterie.
But I find the pizza unexciting, its crust a tad thick. One evening I ask the server if we can have two different bruschettas and it's a federal case, requiring (as she tells us) permission from the manager. C'mon. Is this the mentality that makes bread a $3 menu item instead of a pre-meal giveaway? When the two bruschettas finally arrive, they are merely pleasant: The preserved tuna on one tastes just like canned, and the bone marrow and horseradish on the other is a great combo, but there is hardly any bone marrow. The polenta starter is equally ordinary. Not bad, but spreading polenta thin on a plate makes it hard to taste; the promised "crispy" pig tail isn't; and I can't figure out why there's a lot of almost-raw egg yolk on the plate.
Far better, indeed a triumph of bright McEwanesque flavours, is tender octopus with white beans, slivers of strong salami and baby arugula with a chili-kissed tart dressing. But the orecchiette with rabbit and rapini is, like the bruschetta, competently unexciting, thanks in part to overcooked bunny. The sweetbreads are delightfully crisp but in the crisping they too have been overcooked. And their nice brown sauce tastes like the equally nice brown sauce on the perfectly braised lamb neck.
Fabbrica is trying to be Italian, which means you have to order (and pay for) veg separately. We're non-plussed by Roman broccoli, which, says the menu, comes with fonduta and preserved chili. To the eye (and mouth) it is topped with thick béchamel sauce. Bland. I ask the server what's on the broccoli and she says: "Béchamel sauce." Oops. The roasted potatoes taste like what happens in my house when I cook them in too much oil and for way too long. And the supposed agrodolce on the squash is neither sweet nor sour enough.
The desserts symbolize Fabbrica's persona: They, like everything else, are good: Good - and ordinary. Good warm chocolate cake. Good cannoli (though a mite tough). Good doughnuts with custard centre.
The thing is, from Mr. McEwan, we expect the extraordinary.