Tapas diners learn to share
Amy Pataki Dining Out. Toronto
Star. Toronto, Ont.: Dec 17, 2005
Tapas is the new sushi.
If you're looking for the city's latest
restaurant trend, this is it. What started in Spain as a
bar snack - a wedge of potato omelette, say, to tide you
over until dinner - has mutated into a sit-down meal of
small, shared dishes. Chefs are embracing tapas with a
fervour not seen since the Spanish Inquisition. Every day,
it seems, a new tapas restaurant opens. Some skew Asian
(like Lee or Supermarket), some borrow widely from the
Mediterranean region (as at Li'ly) while others
miniaturize main courses for two to share (Jamie Kennedy
Wine Bar).
But have Toronto diners warmed to the
idea? To be a successful tapas eater, you must be willing
to share, patient about the haphazard order in which the
food comes out of the kitchen, and accept that you get
just one bite of anything good before you must pass it
around the table. Not everyone fits the profile.
"I don't want to share,"
complains one 50-something I know. "If I go to one of
those places, I tell my wife we're ordering two of
everything, so we each get a plate."
I think I'll borrow that idea the next
time I eat at Relish Bar & Grill, a six-month-old
tapas bar in the east end. That way, I could keep every
morsel of their fresh pickerel fillet to myself, the
sublimely sweet flesh seared crisp then garlanded with a
tangle of pickled cucumber strands. This is a dish worth
fighting for, diplomacy be damned.
Nor is it the only one. That Relish has
a good kitchen isn't a surprise. The chef-owner is Joanne
Clayton, a Culinary Institute of America graduate who last
toiled in the fiery open kitchen of Gio Rana's Really,
Really Nice Restaurant. There she proved that a
French-Canadian girl from Winnipeg could make a
summer-bright tomato sauce with the best southern Italian
grandmother.
What is a surprise is the breadth and
depth of her menu. (Prices, too, are a revelation, with
all dishes under $8.) Less than half the 34 tapas are
Italian. Instead, Clayton has amalgamated the influences
of half a dozen countries into a cohesive whole. Tart
pomegranate molasses from the Middle East underscores the
richness of lamb empanadas from Chile, while the barbecue
sauce burnishing a trio of pork side ribs would do a Texan
proud.
"I think Canada is a melting pot
as it is," says Clayton. "I choose things I
really love, and I look all over the world for
those."
Relish is a sweet little neighbourhood
spot. The skinny corner storefront stretches out as long
as a railway car, with the bar and open kitchen on one
side and tables on the other. At the back is a
retro-styled lounge where young hipsters congregate; the
rest of the customers seem to be middle-aged homeowners
from the northern Beaches. Miniature disco balls hang from
the ceiling on ribbons, making the room twinkle. Above the
bar, jars of homemade chili oil glow red.
The pair of waiters add to the charm.
Helpful and polite, they are also refreshingly unaffected
If that's Dionne Warwick playing, expect to hear humming.
Also expect to hear well-informed comments about the small
but astutely chosen wine list. Follow their grape
recommendations blindly, along with those for food. They
suggest ordering three dishes each to start, and leave the
menu on the table for further reference.
This is where logistics fly out the
window. Dishes arrive fast and furious, sometimes
confusingly so A pair of grilled lamb chops lands on the
table before the soup does.
Small, pretty plates are used both for
serving and eating; I'd prefer my dirty dishes were
changed more frequently, along with the cutlery, to avoid
mixing flavours. I'd also prefer more time to savour the
food and the wine, instead of racing through six dishes in
40 minutes.
As befits a tapas restaurant, there's a
lot of Spain at Relish, from the shavings of manchego
cheese over crisp eggplant fritters ($5) to the nubbins of
fiery chorizo perking up a hearty corn chowder ($5). But
the core of the menu is built around the Italian
powerhouses of chopped tomatoes, roasted red pepper strips
and a flurry of fresh basil. These ingredients are behind
many of Relish's finer culinary moments, like when said
peppers partner with home- preserved artichoke hearts
first kissed by the grill and then drizzled with black
olive vinaigrette ($5).
Minced chicken, mushrooms and roasted
garlic are stuffed into a pair of jumbo pasta shells ($6),
the whole suffused with 24-carat tomato sauce. Clayton
keeps it old school with a rich square of polenta ($5)
gussied up with a slick of elemental tomato sauce,
crumbled goat's cheese and a dollop of fragrant pesto.
Pesto also embellishes gnocchi ($5) of such fantastic
fluffiness that other chefs should be lining up for a
tutorial.
One bite of Clayton's heady
pork-and-beef meatballs ($6), bathed in madeira-goosed
gravy and showered with sauteed mushrooms, makes me want
to keep all three of the fist-sized orbs to myself. The
crisp roasted new potatoes ($4) inspire similar
possessiveness in the Designated Eater. In a compromise
worthy of a UN negotiator, I waive any further claim to
the potatoes in order to secure his meatball rights. This
is what tapas can do to you.
What's easy to leave on the table are
potstickers ($7) whose delicate ginger-lobster filling is
muscled out by excess frying oil. Roasted eggplant dip
($4) blends unsuccessfully with almond butter; we scrape
the sludge off to the side and dig into the warm homemade
pita instead. But nothing can redeem sauteed shrimp ($8)
that wrinkles the nose with its smell.
Nor are desserts ($5) worth sharing.
The best of the lot is a dense chocolate polenta cake, a
holdover from Clayton's Gio days. Better to order another
glass of wine, or the fragrant vanilla chai ($2.50), and
plan your next tapas meal. Sharing optional.
apataki @ thestar.ca
Relish Bar & Grill
ADDRESS 2152 Danforth Ave.,
416-425-4664
CHEF Joanne Clayton
HOURS Tuesday- Sunday, from 5 p.m.
Sunday brunch, 10 30 a.m. to 2 30 p.m.
WHEELCHAIR ACCESS Yes
PRICE Dinner for two with a glass of
wine, tax and tip $75
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