COUNTRY COOKING
1627 Dupont St.,
416-561-9114 After taking his pet ferret Sredni Vashta to Harvey’s Cat Hotel in the Junction — the Four Seasons for pampering a small furry mammal — an old friend stopped for a beer at Farmhouse Tavern on the corner of Dupont and Edwin. Barnyard chic, he thought, as he sat on a tractor seat and quaffed a local Beau’s Lugtread in the woodsy bar. But when he started looking around, the chump change dropped. The dining room next door may have barn doors but it also has a spiffy open kitchen. On the other side is a large patio — 140 seats, he thinks, a serious resto. In fact, this artful memory of an Ontario farmhouse is a canny piece of stagecraft — a sophisticated operation hiding beneath Rescue decor. The manager is the seasoned Darcy MacDonell, last found managing La Société Bistro, while the chef Daniel Janetos is well-travelled in Europe, most recently sous chef at Buca’s excellent kitchen.
Getting into the spirit, we throw on rustic gear, and settle happily under an umbrella on the patio. Our server looks terrific in white hot pants and a black tee inscribed on the back with “a little country, a lot rock & roll.” She’s just finished writing the menu on the chalkboard — it’s short, and short on details. It’s good to see P.E.I. oysters there, always a sign of gravitas. We skip the easily recognized hamburger and steak/frites — too last century, we think, recalling that noseto-tail is almost 20 years old. We turn to the server for help in decoding the other dishes on offer. Even so, we’re still a little hazy about a couple of the dishes we’re going to order, but it’s like omakase, we must trust the chef. As it turns out, our picks are four winners.
First up, the daily soup ($7), a far more lissome leek and potato purée than the usual Vichysoisse, its richness derived from the careful, controlled mingling of flavours — tiny pork nubbins, a swirl of oil made from the herbs growing on the patio — rather than from too much cream. Wonderfully cooling on a hot evening.
The soup is followed by red, black and white plate of mushroom gnocchi ($19). Bitesized potato dumplings are garnished with musky, sliced mushrooms and sweet, cherry tomatoes and dusted with fried sage. To savour the full effect, it’s best to spoon in the ingredients all at the same time. Once again, the chef has manipulated just a few flavours to the max.
Now what’s he going to do with the garden dumpling ($20)? What is a dumpling, after all? It’s whatever the cook chooses to do with a ball of dough — one minute a quenelle, the next a potsticker.
At first, the plate looks like an orgy of veg. But wait. It’s an heliacal rising. Floating on top is the unique Janetos dumpling. Actually, four dumplings, triangular pouches of airy potato flour stuffed with creamed spinach and nutmeg, then
Exceptional •
Very good •
OK browned in foamed butter. They are gobble-worthy; light is too heavy a way to describe them. They are supported by a sea of greens, sautéed beet greens, fresh peas, a bright carrot, a sliver of zucchini, a shaft of white asparagus, a basil leaf and spicy avocado sauce. A dish to turn me vegetarian.
Follow that! We fortify ourselves with an oaked chardonnay from Prince Edward County’s Closson Chase ($11 a glass) while we await the enigmatically named Fish Dish ($23). It is an artistically presented combo of two neat parcels of pan-seared fish, one on top of the other, paired with a tranche of grilled bread, a scale model of Sugar Loaf Mountain. The farmed rainbow trout is delicate and tender — I’ll take it any day over farmed Atlantic salmon. But we yawn a little at the pickerel, local to be sure, but not likely to win a popularity contest even when bathed in an intense fish reduction with saffron and tomatoes. We break off chunks of the sugar loaf, dip them into the sauce and another addiction is born — charcoal and saffron.
A brownie, apple pie? Good no doubt. But this is an evening for a little waffle cone with orange ice cream ($4). Pleasingly unpretentious, like the dinner itself.