Catering Diaries: Toronto

We live in a different universe. We live in a microwave.

The menu adorned with my chicken scratch.

Months ago, Hawksworth asked me if I would like to accompany him to Toronto to help out with a charity dinner he had been invited to cook at. I said yes, and when the day arrived to leave, I got on a plane and left. It worked out perfectly, as it was right in the middle of a little two week vacation between jobs -  no begging and pleading for days off, or any of the guilt sometimes associated with taking leave, which was nice.

The Grand Cru Culinary Wine Festival is an event held in Toronto that sees chefs from all over North America converge on the city. The chefs go into private homes and cook multi-course meals that are paired up with various Grand Cru wines from France. All the proceeds of the event go to research at the Toronto General and Western Hospitals. At each dinner, the vintner of the wine is in attendance, as well as a scientist from the hospital to explain where the money will go. Really great event.

When we got to Toronto, we met up with my good friend David Zilber, who used to cook at West back in the day. He is a Toronot native, so we relied on him a lot for his knowledge of the city during our stay. He had already sourced out and ordered the meat for the dinner, from a place he just finished working at called The Healthy Butcher, so we were ahead of the game on that front. The biggest thing Dave did though, was to secure us a kitchen to prep in. The festival had lined us up to work at a place called Pangaea, but Dave did some reconnaissance and found the kitchen to be way too small. We would have been elbow to elbow with the staff there, and would have annoyed the shit out of them for sure. Instead, Dave arranged it so we could work at the roomy C 5 ktichen in the Royal Ontario Museum. He used to work with a lot of the staff there and without their help we would have been in a bad spot. They had all the tools we needed and more, let us have access to their dry stores, and were really down-to-earth, nice guys.

Prep went smooth. We anticipated a long, hard day, but by 4:30, we were feeling good enough about the list to take off and check out a couple places.

Here are some pictures, scroll down for more blabberings……….

Hunting and gathering.

That’s where they keep the mummy.

Marinating sablefish.

“You’re not going to put this on your fucking blog are you?”

Art Gallery of Ontario.

October 29, 2009, 6:30 p.m. Four Seasons Hotel, room 2209.

If you’re in Toronto, you have to check out this place called The Black Hoof. Tons of house-made charcuterie and other tasty shit. Oh, and my old friend Kyle tends bar there. Look out for him.

Raw horse sammy at The Black Hoof.

The morning of the event came, and the team, minus one, met up for breakfast. We were missing a cook. We had parted ways with him at around 1 a.m. the previous night as he was going to meet up with some friends at a bar. I called his room and his cell phone, but there was no answer. I sent a text telling him where we were and to make his way there soon. I got a response a little later saying he was in a cab and would be there shortly. We went to do some more prep at C 5.  A couple hours went by with no sign of him. Finally he sends a message saying he would have to sit this one out, as he was puking. I responded with “You are a fucking asshole”, which must have got his attention, as he was in the kitchen cooking within twenty minutes – a little shaky, but functioning. It turns out he ended up in some town called Bradford, over an hour away, and had to swallow an $85 cab ride to get back into the city. No sympathy.

Loading up.

Then we loaded up the truck, headed over to the house and cooked dinner for a bunch of rich people. I didn’t get a picture of every dish we did, but peruse the rest of the photos for a glimpse into what was done. Toronto is a fun city with lots of great restaurants. I didn’t get a chance to try a whole lot of places, but the ones I did get to, were very good. I highly recommend you all take a trip there real soon. Definitely go to Terroni, The Black Hoof and C 5.

Dirty thoughts.

Scallops.

Fucking around. Not a real dish.

The venue.

Boil-in-a-bag.

Lambs tongues.

Amuse-bouche.

Best dish of the night: Sablefish, potato foam and black onion powder. Everything worked really well together.

Sampling some of vintner Henri Boillot’s wines.

Cast and Crew

The Hawk.

My name is Owen.

David Zilber, our Toronto connection.

Robert.

This is Neslon. He is from Toronto and works at Scaramouche and Noble Culinary Creations. Good guy.

Go to Toronto.