“It is chicken which defines a restaurant’s quality”

Who said that? Someone at my table at Reds, a glittering Bay street eatery. It is said ironically because we know that chicken is the most degraded meat in North America, little more than cheap industrial fodder for Kentucky Fried Chicken franchises. It all comes from taking a French king too seriously. Henry IV wanted every French family to have a chicken in the pot on Sunday and North Americans took the idea and ran with it. But the bird itself! Take one of those pathetic battery-raised creatures home and cry when you see its paltry flesh and gobs of pinkish fat. Even Joel Rebuchon’s amazing Poulet Roti Grand-Maman can’t disguise the sad reality that the battery hen’s flavour is MIA. But then of course Rebuchon would have had access to the AOC Bresse chicken, a great gamey fowl with clear running yellow fat and flesh that obediently yields to a fork. I don’t know whether Torontonians are really up for a gamey meat after so many years of blandness or for that matter, a very expensive bird.

The best tasting chickens I’ve found in Toronto are usually kosher. Kosher chickens live in ski chalets and they are brined (pre-salted) which brings out the flavour. They cost more but not as much as the organic chickens which are unreliable in the flavour department.

My eyes slide past the Voltigeurs Chicken Supreme on Reds menu. We’re six at the table pledged to each eat something different but when the orders are totted up, nobody’s gone for the hen. A little armtwisting ensues. With martyred look, the designated chicken eater digs in – and then she has to hide the plate. The chicken is to die for. Chef Michael Steh restores the glory of the forgotten fowl. The free-range chicken is from Quebec and Steh has composed fat little rounds of juicy tender chicken breast with smoked bacon, delectable jus and a little pot of potatoes gratin dauphinois, a rich buttery crusty spin on homely scalloped potaoes.

Steh is a meat champ. Give him veal striploin and he makes it a feast of perfectly pink slices lapped by little pasta folds in veal gravy. Hand him a pig and he produces a silken suckling (sic) pig chop with some melting belly fat plus a smoky leg. I order a side of seasonal vegetables and what should appear but a narrow little rectangle of tiny veg, as small and young as primeurs (the early spring vegetables grown in Paris). Where do the baby carrots and green beans come from this time of year? Local greenhouses.

Except for the luxurious butter poached lobster, fish does not spark Steh’s genius. I order the B.C. wild ling cod and all I can say is that those Atlantic cod should stop frolicking on the grand banks cos they’re needed. The Pacific cod falls apart in far less exuberant shales than the Atlantic.The soup bowl is too crowded with a truffle mousseline – not truffley enough – Jerusalem artichokes and a bite of pasta. The striped bass is likewise overcrowded with warring flavours ginger, fennel, citrus, olive oil and artichokes.

Starters are mixed. Grumpy has come along this evening casting his baleful eye on the menu. He rejects his Hokkaido scallops with potato and sour cream fondue and enchanting dehydrated onion rings so I eat them. Love the beefy Hokkaidos. Grumpy samples my curry scented Dungeness crab cake with spiced peanut and coriandor chutney and loves it. The stained foiegras terrine with orange jam and gingery brioche is a star, and the knockout is elk carpaccio. Finally elk tastes of something, namely a black truffle vinaigrette.

We end with the cheese plate from the Cheese Boutique. Such unfamiliar choices including a Canadian Bouq’Emissir, ashes covering a tangy semi firm. Never eat cheddar again after you’ve sampled the sweetly sharp Isle of Mull Cheddar.

We’ve eaten the Table d’hote menu which suggests wine pairings from Reds’ Top Forty Wines by the glass. I’ve asked along Margaret Swaine, for my money the most perceptive wine writer in Canada, to comment. She applauds the list “Pairings are deft enough, although no wine on earth could match the artichoke rich sauce on my striped bass Chef’s food with all its flavour combos is hard on wine. And buyer beware that a seven ounce pour of the J.Lohr Merlot (suggested for the veal) will knock you back twenty bucks and the Oz Shiraz ( paired with a Kobe beef plate) a hefty $26. At these prices a four course pairing can cause cheque shock.”

First time I came here I ate the $70 prix fixe and I think it showcased Steh’s strengths admirably, and we had just a simple bottle of wine.

Housekeeping note. The mezzanine dining room is projected over the roofless bar. It’s as if we’re in the first class dining room in a cruise ship assailed by tourists having a knees up. I test my brand new noise meter. Ohoh there are times when it’s real loud like 80 decibals. Why can’t the restaurant be glassed off from the bar?

Even so, we have been in no hurry to leave and Grumpy wipes his brow with relief. You see he was thrown out of a wellknown Toronto eatery because HE OVERSTAYED HIS WELCOME. He hadn’t finished his coffee when he was sternly advised his 90 minutes were up.

Monty, our excellent waiter, would never be so uncouth. Nor would the warmly welcoming Reds.

***Reds. 77 Adelaide St. W. 416-862-REDS. No Wheelchair. Noise: Loud. Dinner Food and tax:$140