Tender and pink, Il Mulino’s veal chop is perfectly grilled, but the sides could be more Italian.JENNIFER ROBERTS
Il Mulino
1060 Eglinton Ave. W., Toronto
416-780-1173
www.ilmulinorestaurant.com
$140 for dinner for two with wine, tax and tip
When a new owner takes the helm at a restaurant, one always wonders: Will things be as usual in the kitchen? If the chef doesn't change but the owner does, how does that influence matters gustatory? And do things change in the front of the house?
I ask this because when Oscar Valverde, a front-of-the-house guy, bought Il Mulino this fall, the service needed improving like Johnny Depp needs cosmetic surgery. Since it opened in 2002, Il Mulino has been a well-kept Forest Hill secret, a far more serious Italian restaurant than most neighbourhoods get. The food has always been razor-sharp, demonstrating great technique, nothing too complicated. It's robust Italiana with no shortcuts. And the service! To sigh for. There is one older Italian waiter who is smooth like silk, super-knowledgeable, with a twinkle in his eye and a subtly flirtatious way with the middle-aged Forest Hill ladies.
Could this explain the explosion of crowds at Il Mulino on Saturday nights? During the week, the place is calm and quiet, the service about as gracious as it gets in Toronto. But on Saturday night, the place is perennially packed, suggesting that the citizens of Forest Hill prefer staying uptown for high-end pasta, permutations on veal and Il Mulino's impressive wine cellar rather than tackling downtown parking.
Saturdays, consequently, are the nights on which we notice the unfortunate line of tables running down the middle of Il Mulino's long, narrow dining room. Diners seated at tables against either of the long walls are mostly protected from the hectic scurry of the wait staff, but woe betide the poor souls seated in that middle row. Wait staff race by on both sides, occasionally bumping into one another or one's own elbows if they're not kept nicely in. At one point, Valverde himself races by us, muttering "Oh my God" under his breath.
Which brings up the question of the role of the captain of the ship. Especially a new captain. One wants the leader to set the tone, and in a restaurant - especially on a crowded Saturday night - the tone needs to be calm, gracious and controlled. Valverde looks overwhelmed, he's moving too fast and his one hurried visit to our table only reinforces that impression. Somebody give this guy a calm transfusion. Maybe a Christmas gift certificate to a meditation crash course?
Valverde has been in the business for 30 years, working for Franco Prevedello at Centro and then at Splendido, Mistura and as manager of Sotto Sotto. His influence on Il Mulino? Dunno yet, but the food is slightly less consistent than last time I was there. The previous owner, Michael Paglairo, supervised the kitchen closely; one wonders whether Valverde's fingers are in the pots as much as they need to be.
They still start you off with their signature warm crusty bread drizzled with oil, sea salt and rosemary, all crunch and savour. Gnocchi of ricotta and grana padano bathed in four-cheese reduction is a slow, oozing river of snazzy butterfat.
Orecchiette with lamb sausage, rapini and cherry tomatoes are a clever contrast between the bite of rapini against the sweetness of lamb, mellowed by oil and garlic. Veal chop is perfectly grilled, tender and pink, jazzed by pearl onions braised in long-reduced veal jus. Veal tenderloin with oyster mushrooms and melted buffalo mozzarella is also properly cooked, if a tad heavy.
One wishes, however, for something more individual (and more Italian) than the generic veg sides (a medley of roasted red pepper, home-style mashed potatoes with lumps and skins, asparagus, broccoli and zucchini on every plate).
Another evening, they're doing fish specials, but neither octopus carpaccio nor lobster risotto lives up to Il Mulino's previous standards. The octopus has been shaved so thin that it's hard to taste the octopus flavour. The rice is slightly undercooked, and one would have expected a claw or some other significant chunk of lobster in a main course risotto. But it has only tiny pieces, and less lobster flavour than it ought.
Linguine is much better - it's served with smoked duck and a deep, tasty stew of many mushrooms with pink, pretty duck in veal reduction deliciously spiked with truffle oil and bound with a hint of cream. But the short ribs with sun-dried tomato polenta are just plain dry: dry short ribs, dry polenta with the sun-dried tomato MIA and generic veg again.
As for Il Mulino's new owner, we would like him to taste every single dish that the kitchen proposes to serve and then edit like his living depends on it. And calm down.