Bruyea Brothers
640 College St., Toronto.
416-532-3841.
Washrooms not accessible to people in wheelchairs.
Dinner for two with wine, tax and tip, $160.
'A bit ambitious, I think," the killjoy Englishman said in his best Colin Firth voice as he and his companion studied the menu at Bruyea Brothers restaurant.
"What's wrong with that?" we wanted to say, but by then it was too late. They'd already blended in with the rest of the College Street crowd whose ambitions soar no further than the search for the next great martini.
When you've been the only customers eating dinner in a place that aims higher, you can't help but feel a little partial. We wanted to do something about the unfairness of it all, to go up to those diners decorating the terrace of Brasserie Aix or lining up at the Café Dip and say, "Don't be such sheep! Try something new!"
Would they be happy at Bruyea Brothers? Not if they need the reassurance of a crowd.
But how could anyone go out of their way to avoid the creamy yuca fries on the Latinish menu, which with a little mint aioli and a fragrant glass of Kim Crawford New Zealand Chardonnay prove that these guys can do simplicity as well. Hey, the chardonnay even comes with a screwcap -- how can you go too far with that?
The fries are a side dish, admittedly, and when they turn up on a main-course plate it's in the company of sugar-cane beef in a black-bean broth with chimichurri. That presumably is what the man in the street means by overambitious -- the apparent strangeness of sugar cane and black beans and whatever chimichurri may be alongside good old-fashioned beef.
But the beef is delicious, the light caramelized char on the outside more than matched by the intense sweetness of the pink flesh and the natural sugars of the crispy fried yuca (a.k.a. cassava).
Now it's true that there are probably more ingredients listed on chef Aldo Lanzillotta's menu than a diner in a hurry wants to read.
There's poblano mole here and kalamansi there, Malanga cashews in the mash with the glazed pork ribs and mint mojo underpinning the rack of lamb.
If you're the kind of person who can't tell mole from mojo, who feels threatened by ingredients that can't be found in Larousse, then Lanzillotta's dishes may seem a little de trop.
But it's not like he assumes you should know these things. There at the bottom of the menu (under the head "What?," which is at least better than "Whaaaa?") is a minidictionary of words you may not have previously come across in your wanderings along College.
Kalamansi, which joins daikon, bean sprouts, avocado and peanuts on the grilled octopus, is a tangerine-flavoured Thai lime. The mole that adds such a smoky pepper accent to the lobster empanada ("single-serving Latino turnover") is a sauce made from poblano chilies and flavoured with bitter chocolate.
But maybe all this menu-reading is a needless distraction.
The lobster and corn empanada turns out to be much simpler than expected, and much less lobster-inflected than the $15 price tag suggests -- it's still delicious thanks to its flaky, crisp turnover pastry.
However much fun it is to go hunting for the taste of smoked lime in the bay scallop ceviche once you know it's there, the flavour's very much in the background, probably as it should be.
Too bad, then, that the fingernail-sized scallops swimming in their vinaigrette are so mild -- the best part of the dish turns out to be one of those ingredients that strains the patience of menu-readers, the attention-getting slices of candied jalapeno pepper.
Such not-so-hidden extras are everywhere in the meal -- the roast skate is meaty and juicy and carefully boned, and its understated lobster beurre blanc doesn't detract.
But it's the chorizo sausage slices partnering the potato and the succulent dried cherry tomato alongside that make a jaded College Streeter sit up and take notice. A deft dulce de leche sauce nicely completes a runny chocolate cake, smooth pine nut ice cream balances a tart lemon tarte, and while we're still debating halfway through the meal whether the shredded duck confit amuse-gueule was too salty for its mild daikon radish base, it's the taste of the duck's candied grapefruit-peel topping that we can't shake. So what's wrong with occasionally expanding the possibilities?
Even if you didn't bother reading the menu, even if you just sat in the long narrow room at the corner of College and Grace and contemplated the passing streetcars over a glass of Ironstone Sierra Zin --the short, mostly New World list is smartly chosen, and yes, there are martinis -- this is a place where worries about ambition can be safely set aside.