DINE IN COMFORT
Diner dishes to savour on sofas
We Canucks all know what a chesterfield is. True to its name, Chesterfield’s Gastro Diner has several couches for its guests to get comfy on while eating breakfast and lunch.
But perhaps it’s a little less clear what a gastro diner is. Compared to a more run-of-themill, unmodified diner, is a gastro diner more refined? Quirkier? Simply better?
In the case of Chesterfield’s, which opened in late August, sometimes it’s a little of all three.
Its space, which was Illume Espresso Bar until its closure in March, is very relaxed and a little rustic, a bit like Wakefield come to Wellington Street West, with second-hand decorations and mismatched plates in addition to those sofas. Shelves near the front door are stocked with Coles Notes and crayons.
Beyond its ambience, this small-scale place of about 40 seats, sofas and swivelling high stools has principles too. “We run solely on hydroelectricity, use no Styrofoam and we recycle. We are always open to any suggestion in how to reduce our carbon footprint,” its website says.
In the open kitchen, casually dressed and cheery staff aspire to make healthier food using a steam oven for much of the cooking, replacing a diner’s usually well-oiled flat top grills. “We are ‘a not so greasy spoon,’ ” the website continues.
What I’ve eaten here over several visits has been made in-house, straightforward and simple, generally without the salty, oily hit of similar dishes elsewhere.
I thought quite highly of Chesterfield’s tourtière, which got its seasoning and meatiness bang-on and was topped with a fried egg substituting for gravy.
With two sides — I picked some pita chips with mild baba ghanouj and an unfussy tomatocucumber salad — it was the dish at Chesterfield’s I’d go back for repeatedly.
The so-called “Israeli” breakfast was a nice assortment, which included a bun of challah bread, smoked Gouda and grapes and was centred around poached shakshuka eggs, meaning eggs in a tomato sauce perked with spices and a bit of harissa.
A vegetarian banh mi sandwich was very liberal in its interpretation of that Vietnamese classic, with roasted cauliflower, pickled turnips, baba ghanouj, cucumber, carrots and Sriracha hot sauce in its bready embrace. While it was arguably as Middle Eastern as it was Asian, it was pretty good. Of the sides on offer, fennel cabbage slaw had good crunch and an approachable, sweet dressing.
A substantial chicken schnitzel sandwich, featuring a thick, “airfried” cutlet, lacked the pleasing crisp coating of a traditional schnitzel and was a wee bit dry. But its marinara sauce had good, redeeming brightness to it, and the side-order soup, a potato leek potage, was thick and hearty.
The same schnitzel appeared with waffles, in lieu of traditional, and health-threatening, fried chicken. Again, the meat was just a touch dry, underseasoned, and this time visibly a little scorched. But with some chipotle mayo or maple syrup, it was easy enough to finish, and the waffles were impeccable.
The item that I thought needed a rethink was Chesterfield’s steak, which was part of a hash (it also figures in a sandwich or with Eggs Benedict).
My dining companion and I both thought the beef was overcooked and disagreeably marinated.
Cobb salad featured most of the right components (egg, avocado, tomato, chicken, bacon — but no blue cheese) in reasonably good shape, but needed more artfulness or zippy flavour to be vivid and special. You could say the same about the diner’s traditional two-egg breakfast.
Coffee and squeezed in-house juices have been fine. Alas, there are no diner-staple pies here. The closest Chesterfield’s has served to dessert has been a berry-rich smoothie.
So, “gastro” in Chesterfield’s case does not mean “deluxe.” But it does mean honest, affordable food served informally and cheerily in a well-intentioned setting. A few dishes stand out. Do you ask for a lot more than that from any diner, gastro or otherwise?
