Toronto Life
April 2009

Top Ten Restaurants

By James Chatto
Photographs by Ryan Szulc

These are the places of proven and consistent quality that set the city’s fine-dining standard: the stars in our gastronomical firmament

No. 3 – Splendido
Splendido, the torchbearer of Toronto’s fine-dining scene, unfailingly delivers impeccable service and luxurious food

Every city needs somewhere like this – a place for serious fine dining, starting with the champagne cart and a minaret of canapés before the menu is even presented. This year, the owners, Yannick Bigourdan and chef David Lee, were often away building Nota Bene, but nobody noticed as flawless lieutenants (including chef de cuisine Victor Barry) took the bridge. Lee’s food is the kind that wins the stars in Europe – poised and perfectly balanced rather than exuberant. It’s saved from potential fussiness by technical discipline and the elegant sensuality of such flavour combinations as succulent lobster in a chilled cauliflower soup. Gourmets who don’t feel like participating in the full theatre of the evening can dine at the bar.

Standout Dish:
Lee’s whimsical “English breakfast” dinner entrée is a masterpiece of technique. Egg yolks are warmed sous-vide and turned almost to jelly, then pressed between tissue-thin bacon; beans are spooned over toast points crisply fried in duck fat. I still don’t know how he gives such flawless texture and spicing to a black pudding no bigger than my thumb.

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