Glazed BC black cod with northern woods mushrooms, brussels sprouts, butternut squash and Newfoundland rum at TocaDella Rollins for The Globe and Mail
As the work day wanes, princes and princesses of finance come down from their castles in the sky to the new bar at the front of the Ritz Carlton Hotel. This would not be relevant to foodies seeking a fix except that hanging slightly over the bar, with half walls and no sound barrier, is the hotel's snazzy dining room, Toca by Tom Brodi. These are the first two miscalculations in the setup of a restaurant with lofty ideals and some great moves.
Why miscalculations? For one, who's Tom Brodi? Unless your chef's name carries star power, you don't put it in the title of the restaurant. It took Google for me to find out that Mr. Brodi cooked at Canoe from 2001 till 2010. Not quite the gastronomic pedigree of my dreams. The second miscalculation is aural. Because the restaurant is open and just above the bar, we hear the rock 'n' roll from below. All good in its place - which is not a formal restaurant.
The space is otherwise unusually charming for a hotel dining room. It feels like a floating wood-and-glass platform, a feeling is heightened by the translucent glass bridge (over the lobby) to the washroom area. It's a suave room, its dark tables punctuated by candles in onyx cubes, its floors planked in wide wood. Farmhouse goes luxe.
The dinner menu is carefully calculated to hit the high notes (foie gras, Dungeness crab, a $68 steak) while keeping most entrees well under $40. We get to know the menu better than we might have wanted when the waiter interrupts our conversation to recite a significant portion of it. Clearly the poor guy has been trained and told to do this. Quick, somebody tell the Ritz Carlton that Torontonians can read. And that the right answer from a waiter about a wine is never: "I don't know, I haven't tasted it." Another evening they can't figure out who ordered which dish at our table. For a restaurant that opened in mid-February, they should have that figured out. And quit the lecturing! That evening, when our waiter brings mains he tells us every little thing on each plate. Carrots! Potatoes! Scallops! If you're serving arcana such as foams and gels, talk away, but lecturing diners about spuds 'n' root veg? Kinda pretentious.
Most of Toca's food is well-wrought Canadiana. Chevre soufflé could be cheesier but is correctly light, its subtlety a good match for tiny bacon-spiked lentils. Pan-seared foie gras is perfectly cooked, with a soft centre, but garnishing it with two big puffs of maple-flavoured candy floss is a) butt dumb and b) taking Canadiana too far.
Better is the deeply sinful "fish and chips," beer-battered perfect lobster with fries with espelette-chili-zinged tartar sauce. One small change is required: Chef uses named potatoes (taking the provenance craze about three steps too far) and the Kennebecs he uses turn to mush when fried. Stick with Yukon golds for a firm frite.
His only appetizer miscalculation is B.C. Dungeness crab marrow, wherein impeccable sweet fresh crab is mixed with poached marrow inside a long marrowbone and topped with fennel foam and thin strips of candied fennel. My goodness, what a lot of work to end up with a weird combo that doesn't quite work.
When Chef Brodi restricts himself to simpler plates, he does better. Glazed B.C. black cod is perfectly cooked, nicely marinated in maple syrup, Screech (playing the Canadiana card again) and miso for bite, and served with a wonderful little veg sauté of perfectly cooked Northern Woods mushrooms, fresh green limas and Brussels-sprout leaves with lighter-than-air squash puree that's almost a mousse.
Baked organic rock hen is very fine roast chicken, juicy and plump. We can't see its promised foie gras butter, but the taste of the pan juice must be it, a silken butter mouthfeel with a sweet, dangerous foie gras back story. The chicken comes with superb roasted baby root vegetables; in particular the lightly caramelized parsnips are exemplary.
Chef's pork stew is astonishingly tender meat with equally fragile browned spaetzle, pickled cabbage, light paprika-spiked tomato sauce (in honour of his Hungarian heritage) and a marvellous collection of root veg.
Another evening we sit in the back of the dining room, with a view into the partially open immaculate white-tile kitchen. We're beside the glassed walk-in cheese cave. Here, under the weekly supervision of Cheese Boutique mandarin Afrim Pristine, they age $250,000 worth of cheeses, 80 per cent of which are Canadian. But each evening they offer only their choice of three cheeses! Do I want Thunder Bay gouda, Quebec Ermite and Quebec Filou? Not so much. Do I want them served cold, straight from the 13-degree cave? Also not so much. And served with humdrum sides (dried apricots and cranberries and granola)? Not exactly a fine cheese program. More like smoke and mirrors.
As for sweets, bread-and-butter pudding is too sweet and has been cooked too fast, resulting in syneresis (when water weeps from custard and it separates, due to excessive cooking heat). And restaurants that offer soufflés should be careful. You charge 15 bucks for a dessert, you tell people it takes 20 minutes, you had better manage those expectations. Toca goes a step farther by offering double chocolate soufflé. Which, to me, means very chocolatey. It's so disappointing: The soufflé itself lacks chocolate punch. Its accompanying chocolate sauce recalls Hershey's. And quick, give the Ritz the phone number of Gelato Fresco, because the vanilla ice cream they send with the soufflé is uncreamy and thin-tasting. The ice wine is room temperature and no server comes by for a pretty long time. Unfortunate.
Despite the wonderful meats and seafood, there's a consistency issue. After paying $18 to eat three cold cheeses not of my choosing, and quaffing room-temperature ice wine, do I feel well taken care of? Pampered? Like the spoiled brat we all want to be? Not a chance! If the Ritz is gonna put on the ritz, they had better mind the details. Pronto.