Casual take on fine dining
Since then, he says, he’s embraced its casual approach to fine dining.
When the yet-to-be-designed restaurant lands at100 King St. W., Bay Streeters can expect classic Feenie — beurre blanc sauces, slow braising, fine herbs — but in more approachable dishes, such as Koreanstyle lettuce wraps, butternut squash ravioli and BBQ duck heaped on pecan fruit bread.
To underscore this point, Feenie whips up a batch of Asian sloppy joes. An haute take on the drippy grey classic his mom used to make and a recipe in his new book, it could appear on Toronto’s Cactus Club menu, he says with an anxious glance toward his publicist.
“Who knows. Maybe a tighter version.”
Spatula poised to shuffle around two pounds of lean ground beef laced with garlic, ginger, lime and Asian hot sauce browning on the Star’s stovetop, Feenie says substituting lean turkey or chicken works well in the dish.
With that, he flings out a term that seems a better fit with his vocabulary than the word “sloppy.”
“It’s part of our kaizen approach,” he says. “Cultural improvement.”
What Feenie believes distinguishes Cactus Club is its “food program:” a focus on fresh, sustainable, local food.
Boasting Ocean Wise and Green Table certifications, the chain uses only line-caught fish — nothing dragged in by net — and meat and produce grown and harvested within a certain radius of the restaurant.
With three more Cactus Clubs opening in Western Canada in the new year, Toronto’s menu won’t be firmed up for a while, but Feenie offers his assurance that this city has some great local fish, such as albacore tuna, guaranteeing that items such as tuna tataki — green papaya slaw, pine nuts, orange and yuzu vinaigrette — can remain on the menu.
He may include Niagara or Prince Edward County wine.
“I’m being modest,” Feenie says, deftly spooning the aromatic but messy meat mixture onto mini slider buns laid out before him.
“In my mind, for casual fine dining, we kind of set the bar.”
When Feenie thinks about his competition, it isn’t Toronto’s growing clutch of small, bespoke eateries that adhere to the same green principles. It’s the similarly sized chain restaurants that also hail from Western Canada, such as Earls — there’s one on King St. close to Cactus Club’s future location — Joey in the Eaton Centre and Moxie’s Classic Grill.
What Feenie doesn’t mention is that Earls and Joey are owned by the same family-run company that has a stake in the Cactus Club. A family member, brother Stan Fuller, is a silent partner, Feenie’s publicist confirms.
It will be fun watching to see how the battle of western chains in Toronto shakes down.
In the meantime, Feenie summons his mentor, Chicago’s great Charlie Trotter, when putting the finishing touches — a heap of cabbage-cilantro slaw — on his artisanal joes, noting that casual cooking doesn’t preclude excellent food.
“Perfection is impossible,” he says, quoting Trotter. “Excellence isn’t. I believe we’re close to that at Cactus.” mhenry@thestar.ca
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