TASTE OF CUBA VIA FLORIDA
Good food, cocktails abound at Tocador
Let’s face it. Cuban food isn’t a thrill a minute. The revolution stunted refinement thanks to trade and food privations. It speaks of Spanish colonialism and African slavery in its flavourings.
When Dale Styner and Guy Stowell took over Charlie’s Little Italian on Main Street to open Tocador, they wanted to capture the lively part of Cuba, fuelled in part by rum. Tocador has more than 30 rums on offer and is known for fantastic cocktails, many of them rum-based.
The room is splashed with vibrant colours and a mural and the staff are super friendly.
The music is cool school Latin Cuban and Afro-Cuban jazz.
Styner once tended bar at the cutting-edge Kissa Tanto and the Mackenzie Room, and before that was general manager at Cascade Room, next door to Tocador.
Stowell, Styner says, is “one of the foremost spirits experts in the city.”
He worked at Ahn and Chi and Bao Bei and is known for his expertise in pairing spirits with chocolates and other foods.
Cuban-influenced cocktails include the El Presidente with Havana Club rum, Cointreau, bianco vermouth, house-made grenadine, and the Hotel Nacional with Havana Club, Old Sam rum, apricot liqueur, pineapple juice and lime juice, both with options of rum upgrades.
And the night I visited, I noticed noted mixologist Sabrine Dhaliwal and her hubby waiting for a table.
For food, Tocador looks to Miami with its freer style Cuban cuisine. The chef Tinh Truong comes from Honey Salt at Parq Vancouver and before that, Ahn and Chi and Forage.
The most familiar Cuban dish is the Cubano ($15), a staple in Florida’s Cuban communities: Cuban style bread (a simple white bun), ham, roast pork, yellow mustard and a slice of Swiss cheese to glue it together. Grilling gives a crunch to the bread and a melt to the cheese. Simple but delicious.
“Traditionally, they cook a pig on a spit, and braise down the meat with tons and tons of spices. We do a pork shoulder, slow-roasted in its own juices,” said Styner.
I liked the croquetas con cerdo (spicy pork, corn, pea and potato croquettes, $15). There were five of them with a buttermilky sauce. A jicama and mango salad ($13) was fresh and fluffed with adds of pickled onion, goat cheese and toasted coconut.
My pan-roasted halibut ($25) had a hotly seared golden crust and came with zucchini and orange segments and onion veloute sauce. The halibut was a bit overcooked but fresh. It won’t be on the menu long with the season on the wane.
Mojo-marinated skirt steak (medium rare, $22) was juicy and flavourful. It had some chewy spots but was a sensuous dish with an arugula salad, cherry tomato relish and an extra boost of flavour with a chimichurri sauce and tomato relish. The meat is marinated and vacuum sealed for 72 hours for infusion before grilling. Meats are from Two Rivers and seafood is local.
For dessert, the coconut panna cotta with lime mango coulis was
sold out, so I went for a hazelnut chocolate mousse tart ($8) made by nimble pastry hands.
Diners were a nice mix of old and young.
It does get noisy in the room as it fills up, but it doesn’t reach headbanger levels.
When doors and windows are thrown open, you get the traffic noise, too. It’s a vignette of Main Street, the liveliest street of locals in the city.
And by the way, Tocador means vanity dresser. In Cuba, the owners saw many vintage vanities serving multiple purposes. At this restaurant, it’s bar furniture.