Made of 120-year-old reclaimed wood, the counter that overlooks Origin’s bustling kitchen provides one of the best shows in town.
Origin
107/109 King St. E., Toronto
416-603-8009
$200 for dinner for two including wine, tax and tip
Food city had been crying in its cabernet for more than a year now. Nothing opening, no big new food news, a recession that cut food frolicking off at the knees. Everybody was too nervous to spend the big bucks in restaurants. They tell us now that the recession is over, which fits nicely with the opening this month of no less than four new hot spots: Origin, Boehmer, Malena and Ruby Watchco.
Origin comes to us from Colborne Lane chef/owner Claudio Aprile, the darling of the downtown cognoscenti for his molecular gastronomy pyrotechnics. But the long-awaited Origin, which opened on March 20, is not an offshoot of Colborne Lane; it has its own identity. It's a tapas joint with an informal vibe, purposefully loud music (warning to anyone over 40) and simple food. Hence the name: Chef's intention is to honour the originof ingredients without gussying them up too much - and to sell a cheaper dinner than at Colborne Lane.
The room is everything urbanites expect - it's cool, hip, retro. Aprile restored one of the oldest buildings in Toronto with the sensitivity he displays at the stove. There is exposed brick, fabulous post-industrial light fixtures and, in the middle of everything, the centrepiece, the raison d'être, the throbbing heart of the matter: chef's gleaming stainless-steel open kitchen, where five cooks moving at light speed are surrounded by an eating counter built of 120-year-old reclaimed wood. If you're dining alone or à deux, this counter is the best show in town.
But we're waiting for Claudio to get his groove, food-wise. The menu is cleverly sectioned into snacks and sides, raw bar, mozzarella bar, chilled, hot and sweet. But having eaten much of what's on it, I found only islands of the Claudio Aprile brilliance in the stream of the less than exciting.
The mozzarella bar is bang on, true to the restaurant's mission. What could be simpler than a scoop of mozzarella? Or better, if you can source mozzarella so fresh, so perfectly made, that you could close your eyes and be on the Amalfi coast? Chef serves it on a base of nicely grilled Calabrese bread; a most interesting garnish for the cheese is the surprisingly harmonious combo of poached pear, rosemary oil, toasted pine nuts and fragrant honey.
Chef has said Origin's menu is inspired in part by his travels in Asia, but the Thai foodie I took to Origin found little favour in Bangkok beef salad. The seasoning was badly underpowered, even factoring in its toning down for Canadian palates. Where was the perfume from Thai basil, the heat of prik kee noo chilies, the savoury tie-in of fish sauce? Same problem with the cured wild salmon: The salmon was impeccable, but its go-withs (potato salad, pork crackling, cucumber and cream cheese) all live in the realm of the ordinary.
We do not expect ordinary from Claudio Aprile. Same issue with uncrisp fried calamari and with chorizo-spiked manchego rice. We couldn't find the manchego flavour in the bland rice. Its salsa verde is properly and delightfully piquant and the dried black olive fragments are a clever touch, but nothing rescues a pile of bland white rice. Ditto with grilled rock hen, a juicy little bird, but bland. More harissa maybe?
Is Aprile pulling his Asian punches to cater to us? His samosas are ungreasy and cleverly filled with fabulously fresh paneer with dried fruit, but the sweet tamarind sauce lacks punch. Same for the nicely cooked shrimp with smoked tomato and garlic sauce: The sauce is good enough to spoon, and it could be so much better with more assertive spicing.
Could Chef's well-documented micro-focus on new technique, shaped by his "stages" with several high priests of new-order gastronomy (most notably Ferran Adria of El Bulli in Spain), mean that unless he hits the heights of molecular gastronomy, we're disappointed? That good-tasting (which his food mostly is) isn't good enough from him to get our attention?
It goes on: His squash soup, which has a delicious rich flavour and is topped with an entertainment of crisped toasted spices with coriander seed dominating, is lovely but not dazzling and hence a disappointment. Same for chinois duck wrap of tender sweet duck flesh scented with hoisin. Nice but not exciting. Likewise with chili beef spiked with fresh, hot red chilies and black bean sauce: good-tasting but not exciting.
Excitement, though, sometimes comes in surprising places, like miso-glazed black cod, which may be the No. 1 cliché of Toronto bistros but is reinvented here, with the miso caramelized on the cod, its sweetness in harmony with Jerusalem artichoke purée and all of it underpinned by deep, strong shimeji mushroom broth.
Origin also gets out in front with its sweets, such as melt-in-the-mouth curls of frozen aerated milk chocolate atop subtly spiced silken chocolate pudding. Other highlights: soft-serve ice cream, a cloud on the tongue, beside molten chocolate cake; caramel crunch as carapace on brioche; dolce de leche with a zing of espresso ice cream and caramel crunch.
Over all, though, managing expectations is the name of the game - and we can't help expecting better from Aprile in the savoury department.