Sherry vinegar on steak salad might be worth singing about
Baka Gallery Café in Bloor West Village uses hard-to-find Spanish condiment
Sherry vinegar deserves more love.
The origin-protected Spanish liquid is the little black dress of seasoning, suitable for any occasion. Mellower than wine vinegar, it is less fruity than apple cider and more nuanced than rice vinegar. It packs the same complexity as balsamic without the sweetness.
Yet sherry vinegar is hard to find in Toronto outside of gourmet stores, where $15 to $20 gets you a 375-ml bottle of Bota Vieja brand vinagre de Jerez. Distilled in the so-called Sherry Triangle of Spain, by law it is aged at least six months in oak barrels.
At Baka Gallery Café in Bloor West Village, the rich brown liquid is used to refreshing effect in a lunchtime steak salad ($8.95).
For economic reasons, chef Spencer Malkovich (ex-SIR Corp.) uses Taste of Spain vinegar, made according to the traditional solera barrel method but not in Spain itself. His is a deliberately subtle recipe in which gentle canola oil, lemon juice and a touch of white wine vinegar infused with chopped onions are supporting players in the vinaigrette.
“You can’t mimic the flavour of sherry vinegar. Instead of sourness, it adds robustness,” says Malkovich.
John Marion (Baka Communications) opened the sunlit narrow café in 2013, naming it after his Croatian grandmother. It serves palacinke (crepes) cooked to order and Karlovacko beer in cans. For the past four months, it has also served dinner.
The steak salad is part of the daylong menu of panini, soups and wraps. The grilled sirloin is the weakest element, the slices too thick and chewy. They are hard to cut inside the steeply sloped bowl. Next weakest are the sticks of fried potatoes, some hard as nails.
The rest works. Nestled amongst the gently tangy red leaf lettuce are morsels of goat cheese, roasted red beets and a hard-boiled egg sliced in half. When mixed together, the goat cheese clings to the leaves along with crumbs of egg yolk, everything stained the same pale pink.
That’s when the sherry vinaigrette really proves its versatility, as welcome as a spring breeze. Baka Gallery Café, 2256 Bloor St. W. (at Beresford Ave.), 416-766-2252, bakacafe.com. Open Monday to Saturday, 8 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Sunday, 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. apataki@thestar.ca, Twitter @amypataki