MUSEUM PULLOUT
ROM’S restaurant will serve last meal at end of April,
Why can’t one of Toronto’s premier cultural institutions feed its patrons in style?
For the second time, the Royal Ontario Museum is closing its flagship restaurant. The C5 Restaurant Lounge is closing as of May 1, when operator Compass Group Canada, a billiondollar food services company, pulls out early from its 10-year contract with the museum.
Compass did not respond for comment. It continues to operate fine-dining restaurants in such American museums as New York’s Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts.
Financial information on C5 is confidential, but one insider said it is profitable. The closure follows the earlier shuttering of JK ROM, which celebrity chef Jamie Kennedy ran for eight years until 2003. Kennedy then moved across the street to the Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art. (This week the Gardiner announced catering firm à la Carte Kitchen is replacing Kennedy at the Gardiner Cafe.)
“We think fine dining is a great part of the museum experience. We were very happy with Compass Canada and were disappointed by their decision,” said Glenn Dobbin, ROM deputy director and chief operating officer.
The ROM is looking for a new partner to run the fifth-floor restaurant, but so far interest is deader than the star-attraction dinosaurs a few floors down. Only one company submitted a bid after the museum contacted 120 potential vendors and publicly invited proposals last September.
The two other food-service elements handled by Compass — catering and running the Food Studio basement cafeteria — generated “multiple bids,” said Dobbin.
The museum is streamlining the C5 request for proposal — “it was a big document to get through,” acknowledged Dobbin — and hopes to have a new operator by the start of 2014.
“We have a lot on the go for the next little while, so I don’t think the hat will go in that ring,” said restaurateur Mark McEwan, now opening the Fetta Panini Bar at Toronto Pearson International Airport. When it opened in 2007 under chef Ted Corrado, C5 was as cutting edge as the Daniel Libeskind-designed Michael Lee-Chin Crystal. Diners would ride a dedicated elevator up to the light-filled dining room, order a sassy cocktail and dine on pulled rabbit with sweetbreads and fresh peas. “The first three years, we were jam-packed lunch and dinner. Only when the recession hit did we slow down, but we held our own even then,” said Corrado, now corporate executive chef of The Drake Hotel, overseeing three properties including a standalone restaurant at 150 York St. opening in July. When Corrado was promoted to oversee Compass’ Canadian leisure properties, TV chef Corbin Tomaszeski was brought in to consult on C5, lowering prices, switching to a comfort-food menu and axing dinner service. In 2010, Janet Carding replaced William Thorsell as CEO and director. “None of the management changes at the ROM are related” to Compass’ departure, said Dobbin. The museum gets around a million visitors a year. Corrado remembers it was “a great time to eat in the city” when three museum restaurants opened at the same time: C5, the Gardiner Café and Frank in the Art Gallery of Ontario. “This is hopefully a little hiccup,” said Corrado. “They need to get a restaurant in there.”