Chez Victor in the Hotel Germain
30 Mercer St., 416-345-9500. Dinner for two with wine, tax and tip, $175.
Toronto is getting more like New York every day: The traffic has become horrendous and we've become a city of restaurants. More open (and close) than anyone can keep track of, and the competition is fierce -- which means that in order to survive in this town, a restaurant has to be better than good.
We are a city of foodies; we take no prisoners. Which bodes extremely poorly for the new Chez Victor in the Hotel Le Germain. Without being sentimental about the loss of Luce in that space, we were ready to love Chez Victor.
Luce was owned and run by Michael and Guy Rubino, who also own Rain. A landlord-tenant war had waged between the Germain family and the Rubino brothers since before Luce opened, and it never ended -- until Luce closed and the Rubinos decamped.
The Germain family first put in chef Alain Labrie, who had run the kitchen at their late, lamented Auberge Hatley in Quebec's Eastern Townships; it burned down in March. Then they hired chef Hans Vogels, who left in early September. And now they have David Chrystian cooking. He made his name on College Street at Café Societa and later cooked brilliantly at the now-defunct Accolade and Patriot.
Chez Victor is magnificent: three storeys of glamour thanks to a glass and steel wall on Mercer Street and huge wooden shutters on another wall. We love the grace notes: tall upright barrel staves of beautifully finished wood, both light and dark, cradling flickering candles.
Does it matter that we sit a full 20 minutes before anyone offers us sustenance in any form, either liquid or solid? When bread and apple butter finally arrive after 25 minutes, we fall upon them and quickly demolish the bread, which is never replenished.
More's the pity about the pathetic service, because the food at Chez Victor is quite marvellous, thanks to chef Chrystian. It's hard to picture a chef as artistic and independent as him lasting a long time in such a chilly environment.
The wait staff at Chez Victor seem profoundly uninterested in us; two of them chat merrily nearby while we sit and wait to order, menus downed, time passing.
It takes 25 minutes for a server to take our order, and when they bring the food, they do not manage to set things down in front of the actual person who ordered the dish. Which is fair enough when it's cheap 'n' cheerful, but when my appetizer costs 20 bucks, I figure I'm paying for them to know who ordered what.
Chrystian's mind plays wonderful games with the simplest ingredients. He does cloud-light gnocchi with the counterpoint of sweet plumped-up raisins, savoury Ermite cheese (a sexy blue) and bitter braised chicory.
He roasts huge scallops perfectly and sits them on a "risotto" made of al dente Jerusalem artichoke shreds scented with porcini butter. In a clever pun, he deconstructs French onion soup, serving it with foie gras cooked "à la torchon" (squeezed in a towel) sitting atop a crouton in a tiny pool of beef broth afloat with onion marmalade. His duck confit marries nicely with olives and silken polenta.
Again with mains, the servers have no idea who ordered what. But quelle audace, chef invents a two-course vegetarian item called vegetable blackjack: 21 vegetables served in two courses, the first hot, the second cold. The first includes such tiny, clever touches as one cherry tomato peeled and marinated, atop three mache leaves and slices of three different coloured beets.
The second course includes a pie of squash with a squash "crust," little eggplant batons and a tasty little stew of cabbage with tomatoes.
This is a chef who adores vegetables with a grand passion -- but pays no less careful attention to the pleasures of flesh: His roast venison is red, juicy, flavourful, and splendidly garnished with squash and apple gratin and nutty pecan sauce.
Not only does Chrystian make beautiful vegetables, he also avoids cream and butter, preferring to enrich via reduced stocks. Our arteries bid him thanks. He sears pickerel with steamed cabbage and mussels and sits them on top of a sauce of reduced red wine -- an unusual sauce for fish, but it stands up well with the strong flavours of cabbage and mussels.
Only his pork disappoints, big hard crackling skin with too much fat and too little meat on it. Although the pork's accompanying macaroni and cauliflower with cheese is a divinely decadent throwback: This is Kraft Dinner for sophisticates.
The menu offers an assortment of cheeses (75 grams for $15, 100 grams for $20). Nobody offers us that option, and a new server appears with a tray of desserts to choose from.
We ask for a cheese plate to share. He doesn't ask which size we want, and when the bill comes, it turns out they've brought us two orders of 100 grams each, for $40. Fifteen minutes after we order it, our cheese plate arrives. We ask the guy what he has brought us.
"Holland," he says, pointing at what might be a gouda. I ask why it's called Holland (having never heard of cheese of that name). He says: "It's from Amsterdam." He then identifies what can only be brie or Camembert as Gruyère, and hurries away before we can ask any more questions. The cheeses are all fridge-cold and hard, a heinous insult to expensive cheese.
Then appeareth (again) the dessert tray, with a collection of small mostly mousse and custardy things in small pots. When I ask what's in one, he says: "Honeydew." "Honeydew what?" I query.
"Honeydew," he replies. Twice. No honeydew melon I ever met came in mousse form, but maybe Chez Victor knows something I don't know.
Clearly Chrystian is not on the dessert case, for while pleasant, they do not rise above the ordinary.
Will Chez Victor make it in the cut-throat world of Toronto dining? Sure. And I'm Dolly Parton.