A couple of months ago I was speculating on the fate of the small reasonably priced family-run bistro in the age of fast food. Like everything else, dining out is being split into more and more categories for marketing purposes. The newest rave is fast casual food, the slow food version of fast food joints. It seems a pretty elastic term as it includes more complex dishes, even wine, McDonald’s Feng Shui makeovers and Tim Horton’s Deli Trio sandwich.

At the high end, fine dining prevails. I always wince when I hear the term “fine dining” which sounds evasive the way “loved ones” - the original mortuary euphemism for surviving family members - does.”Loved ones” is now ubiquitous even in newscasts and sometimes accompanied by a muffled sob. This is a triumph of hope over reality. How on earth anyone knows whether members of families automatically love one another beats me and should surprise psychotherapists. Everyone knows that the true loved one is cute and furry with green marbles for eyes, and added value, the newest medical claim is that cats ward off their owners’ heart attacks. Probably because they don’t talk back. Actually cats could talk but they’re too smart to go there having referenced Saki’s famous story Tobermory where an American psychologist taught a cat to talk between luncheon and tea with disastrous consequences.


I’m leery of the fine dining brand because this retronym is often an oxymoron. I feel less doubtful about casual dining, also called sit-down restaurants, which slips into the niche between fast casual and fine dining and encompasses the bistro. Now bistro is used with abandon in Toronto. The original family-owned resto in Paris with a few seats, a menu set in stone, and bill modest enough to prompt another Calvados, is applied here to the l00-seat-plus Tati and to Reds, a suit place which requires invested plastic. But don’t be deceived. As I’m finding out, the bistro is alive and cooking in the settled ‘hoods where familiar food has enduring appeal.

My latest foray is to Bistro Tournesol south of the railroad, north of the annex,leafy streets, million buck real estate, tenured academics. Tournesol was opened in the nineties by Yves Robert and Martha VanReet channeling French provincial charm and the sunlit fields of sunflowers. I always felt I left with a sun tan. Three years ago Yves and Martha removed to Southwest France, but they didn’t abandon their customers. They sold Tournesol to their employees. Now the bistro has assumed the elegant muted colours of Toronto along with pretty French prints but it has the same welcome informality.

Mel Bryan mans the little bar, Philip Lewicki is the maitre d’ and Craig Lockhart is in the kitchen. On a Friday night, we walk into a packed restaurant without a reservation but Philip doesn’t miss a beat. No problem if we wouldn’t mind waiting in the bar. That gave us time to marvel how 30 seats are comfortably accommodated in space the size of three packing cases.

Once you’ve swallowed a few oysters as hors d’oeuvre you can survey a really great deal, the $27 two-course menu which is full of reassuring dishes. I don’t think a bistro can be beat for the variety of food offered. A roasted garlic soup, smoked trout fillet, panko crusted white bass along with natch, steak and roast chicken. Our picks are right on. Snails with garlic/butter are straight up. Duck pate with OTT celeriac remoulade is irreproachable, a delicate crepe stuffed with goat cheese and shitake, an ineffable bouche.

A bowl of frites appear miraculously. The house merlot is $36 a litre. The dinner is unrolling most satisfactorily. I can’t believe how tender and tasty the rare slices of duck breast are and they’re perfectly counterpointed by blackberry demi-glace. But there’s a glitch with the sauteed calves liver. It’s provimi, tender enough and medium rare but one or two slices are mushy, rather like liver sausage and the meat is literally drowned in a dark, rich demiglace made with pinenuts and caramelized onions.

The dishes come with undercooked veggies. Why oh why. Sure forty years ago, veggies were overcooked but the overreaction is out of date. I don’t want to gird myself to bite a carrot bullet and anyway, I’m not getting invaluable Vitamin C unless the carrot is cooked. I’m not crazy about broccoli cooked divinely, I’m definitely not crazy about it when it’s bristly, and I have to say the least appealing sight on a plate to me is a practically raw slice of red pepper.

Say the word bouillabaisse and I think of the roiling stew of the port of Marseilles where Popeye got rolled by the corrupt flics in The French Connection II. In other words I expect something spicy and sloshy and smelling to high heaven of garlic. But bistro cooking’s integrity lies in the idiosyncratic palate of the chef. Craig’s take is a mild version, a gentle pleasant fish broth in a bowl that is almost too full of shellfish and veg. Good in its way but not very exciting. We end the meal with a classic lemon tart and a sensational phyllo purse of white chocolate, strawberries and blueberries,dark Belgian chocolate – a sprig of tarragon.

Tournesol has a good to moderate noise level – I can’t believe that post-Oscar they won’t be playing Vie en Rose and other Edith Piaf tracks. But discreetly. This is a definitely customer-friendly kind of place.Two stars out of four.

** Bistro Tournesol 406 Dupont St 416 921 7766 No wheel chair. Dinner for two: $27 prix menu plus dessert and taxes: $81.

gina@ginamallet.com www.ginamallet.com