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| - The front of the house, i.e. reservations by phone and seating et cetera is efficient and responsive. You can actually talk to a pleasant and understanding human being, a rarity these days and definitely an asset.
The restaurant is in a long rectangular room which I suspect is quite noisy when full, which it normally is at the moment. We would recommend the chefs bar, which has stools with backs to them and enables you to watch all the skilled preparation of the food going out of the kitchen. The interaction can be fun too, particularly if you pass over a glass of wine or two.
We had the octopus which is whole - not just a large tentacle but a complete small octopus and is outstandingly grilled on open flames, with a small amount of mint pesto on its arms and a beautiful white naval been base. The portion is big, plenty to share. Probably one of the best octopus dishes we've had in Toronto. We followed this with the mushroom pasta - firm pasta, great mushrooms (hen beak?) and beautiful cheese: Well executed. The pizza was thin, hot and tasty in the extreme. The halibut on the bone was also worthwhile. We found our rapine to be a bit tough, although it looked good!
The wine list is sufficiently extensive, we had an interesting Corsican white followed by a very good Burgundy ($120).
We watched the large and expensive porterhouse steaks going out of the kitchen, they looked superb.
Overall this place is not cheap, but the quality makes it very worthwhile.
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