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| - For the caliber of the name and the hype that Teatro garners, I can't help but say that my experience has fallen short of the high expectations set for the restaurant. I visited Teatro for the Chef's Tasting menu to celebrate a friend's birthday. The ambiance is wonderful - the décor is tasteful and the high ceilings of the former TD building made for a character dining experience. The kitchen is open concept, which is cool. We were seated at a "desirable" table which was a round table for two with a semi-circular booth seat, which personally I didn't find very comfortable as I found myself with a neck kink after having my head 70 degrees to the side to talk to my friend over dinner for 2.5 hours. I personally prefer traditional seating, but I suppose some people like that intimacy!
My friend let the waitress know that he had a seafood allergy and if they could please modify the menu so that there was no seafood - they were wonderfully accommodating about that, but this would come back to complicate things later that evening, as apparently HIS allergy meant that I wasn't going to receive the original tasting menu with seafood. I wasn't informed of this fact, and obviously by the time I had found out, it was too late to have that addressed.
Over 7 or so courses, I found that in general the food wasn't to the mind and tastebud blowing quality that I've come to expect from tasting menus at restaurants of this caliber and price range. A few specific comments about the courses:
The "modern/hip" style caprese salad with heirloom tomoates was not appropriately seasoned. With only a few small pieces of tomato and an unseasoned soft mozzarella-like cheese, the cheese had no flavor and a touch of salt and pepper would have made a world of difference and brought out the flavor of the cheese. In fact, it was so bland that I couldn't even finish the conservative portion.
The butternut squash soup - exquisite, it was smooth, velvety, rich, and absolutely a treat.
The "gnocchi" with pancetta and cheese "strips"? I found to be a over salted, dry, and really not that tasty.
The first main, which was a rolled pork tenderloin? cut, served with a tangy berry based sauce and a creamy sauce with mushrooms, I was actually disappointed in. I suspect this was supposed to be a seafood or fish course, which was swapped out on account of my friends dietary restrictions, so perhaps it wasn't perfected.... The salt used to season the skin side of the rolled meat cut was chunky, and used too liberally to the point where I could literally feel the salt melt in my mouth and made for a less desirable experience.
The second main was a cut of duck that was absolutely a redemption - it was tender, juicy, and delicious. I would have chosen to have double that!
Service, in general, was 100% excellent. Upon realizing that the dessert was chocolate and that my friend didn't previously inform on his chocolate allergy (yes, he's a difficult one), they were extremely thoughtful in offering him sorbets on the house instead. (I had both chocolate desserts, oops.)
I think for this caliber of fine dining, our experience definitely left a fair number of missed opportunities on the table (or rather, in the kitchen). For this price range ($300 for two), I routinely had my mind blown on tasting menus in Montreal, so I'm hoping that this was just a bit of an off experience due to the unusual dietary restrictions, so with that in mind I'll definitely give this another shot eventually after I've tried some of the other tasting menus around town.
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