College Street Rocks-it

It’s around 9 pm on a Friday night and Grace, the new madeover Xacutti on College and Bathurst is doing Toronto’s version of Sex and the City: hipless chicks dangling Carrie’s favourite Jimmy Choo’s and shaven-headed metrosexuals from the fashion/promo trades darting out to have a smoke between cosmomartinis.

Gone is the faux friendliness of Xacutti’s communal table. Instead, a brightly lit white space, the backdrop for the most desirable demographic, young impulsives. The playbook is slick.Small concise menu, no entrée over $25, good list of wines by the glass.

Service is glossily professional. I have trouble getting a table for four on this popular night when Oakville young and impulsives stay over in the city for r and r  – the maitre d’ says three’s the limit, she just can’t recommend that another person be squeezed in to a table meant for two. She frets about our comfort. In fact, when we arrive we think there’s space for four – and hurriedly call the abandoned foodie to bustle down and join us. But we’re glad she warned us. It’s extra touches like this that give us a warm feeling for the place.

We had to wait to eat. But we didn’t care because the menu is refreshingly unfamiliar and we liked taking time to discuss the choices. Chicken Pot Pie launches a discussion about where may be found the best chicken pot pie in the city. Jury out. This must be the only place in town without a beefsteak. But what about the pork steak with bone marrow, potato salad, green beans? Nifty spin.

Now since I freed myself from the tyranny of three courses, I like a menu that cuts to the chase and simply lists food by genre  – Meat, Seafood, Vegetable. But Toque, a former chef who’s come along to monitor trends, objects that he can’t find any starters. Just look for the lower prices! Chicken Liver pate at $12. Doesn’t always work because there’s quite a lot of dish/price merge – is parpadelle ragu with braised beef ($16) meant to prep the tastebuds or satisfy ‘em? And does it really matter? Not enough? Order more.

I order the corn soup and crab cakes ($9) and what should appear but a little tray with a bowl containing a few crispy shards of crab accompanied by a teapot of hot soup to be poured over them. Very elegant. Must be part of owner Leslie Gibson’s homage to her grandmother Grace for whom the restaurant is named.  The tomato and avocado salad with fresh ricotta is laid out like the leaves of a book –but what Toque is curious to know is bacon vinaigrette? You guessed it. A smoky mélange of macerated bacon in oil and vinegar.

I resist the pan seared scallops in a cucumber and pernod sauce with charred tomato and fried capers ($18) and pick instead glazed quail that looks like a gleaming hermit crab’s shell, stuffed with spring vegetables and garnished with parsnip puree and peas. I have no difficulty eating the whole thing except for a couple of bones.  The fishfiend at the table can’t say enough good things about the halibut poached in olive oil with a citrus and fennel salad but the order of roast lamb is a teeny bit controversial.

The lamb arrives medium pink and the eater is disappointed. Why didn’t the server ask her how she liked her lamb? Good point. On the other hand, advises Toque, why didn’t she say how she liked it?

The server says the lamb is cooked the way the chef likes it. Another good point. Roast lamb isn’t like a steak – it’s an organic dish, the flavour is in the cooking. We all taste the tender lamb and three of us think it’s cooked just fine. The disgruntled eater yields to peer pressure “Oh OK”  after she’s eaten the excellent accompaniments of wild ramps, fava beans and sunchoke.

Toque is pushing around the roasted chunks of sweet potato that have come with the BBQ short ribs and defines the taste of the evening: sweet. Pairing sweet BBQ and sweet potato is too sweet. The sugar factor has been troubling me since the corn soup – sweet corn these days is enough to make a diabetic swoon. While the soup is instantly appealing, its undiluted sweetness robs the crispy crab of any taste. Even the lacquer on my quail is more than normally sweet.

Of course sweet was a defining taste at Susur where chef Dustin Gallagher was sous chef. Sweet is the only fault I can find in a meal remarkable for its precisely calibrated tastes and original choice of ingredients.

Ironically, carrot cake, which should be gooey with sugar, isn’t sweet enough. Needs more than a dribble of the accompanying orange honey butter. But the Marscapone ice cream is ***.

We can’t resist the cheese.  The cheeses are $7 for a 30 gram, a bit OTT, but the choices are educated - our server is taking a cheese course. A cream with a bite, raw milk Magie du Kadawska and Chaput’s raw milk, ash covered soft goat cheese.

Excellent eating – but the loud music! The most desirable demographic cannot eat without music. Atleast give us a chance to hear music we like. Bring back the jukebox I say to Rock-it Promotions which has shaped Grace’s image - and let us put another nickel in. Leslie Gibson’s grandmother would cheer.

We step out into the rush of College Street and can’t believe how quiet it is. It’s like the old one about the driver veering off the road onto a rutted field and crying as he goes over the cliff “Macadam at last!”

** 1/2 Grace. 503 College St.416- 944 8884. No Wheelchair access. Very Noisy. Dinner for Two, Food plus tax $100