The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) is steadily growing in size as it is in status, and swiftly coming upon the heels of its elder transatlantic cousin, Festival de Cannes, in France. And, as the festival’s program widens, so does the frequency of its celebratory soirees and the number of pop-up restaurants/lounges.
For the latter of these — the pop-ups — at Cannes this year, it was acclaimed Chef Nobu Matsuhisa’s takeover of the kitchen at 3.14 Hotel Cannes that had the visiting celebrity and media vying for a table. During TIFF’s recent run, it was the culinary delights served up by the Grey Goose Soho House’s international chefs that kept the palettes of visiting Hollywood dignitaries entertained for the second festival in a row, including pop icon turned director Madonna, who sat down to dinner at the Grey Goose Soho House with cast and crew while in town for the premiere of her feature debut W.E
When traveling around covering the international film festival circuit, one learns the pains of surviving off of hors’ deuvres with little to no time to schedule in meals. Hence, when mother fate and father time allow me the opportunity to pass on the chicken satay skewers and sit down at an illustrious festival dinner, I value the invitation more than entrance into the grandest of premiere parties.
This TIFF, it was the arrival of an invitation to lunch at the Grey Goose Soho House that I would cling to as my culinary salvation from fresh rolls and sliders with caramelized onions — and, on top of the gastronomical perks, it would be a relaxing hiatus from working the festival: a moment to decompress. This is what I believed before closer inspection of the invitation; it was a chefs’ lunch, and my Chef was on the guest list. Decompression for me would be about as easy as having the chefs not scrutinize the lunch.
Chef and I arrive together and within minutes, he’s found his culinary compadres and begins talking about food, food and more food. I sip on a flute of Le Fizz (a delicious concoction of vodka, elderflower cordial, fresh lime juice and soda water prepared by Dimitri Lezinska, Grey Goose’s visiting brand ambassador from London) straining to make eye contact with one in the lot so they can see me nodding like a good participator — “yes, yes, I like food too. Yes, this is beef tartare with black truffle on crostini I’m eating. You want to talk about the aging process of beef? Why of course!” The circle of chefs become even tighter as they delve into Soho House’s farm-to-fork food philosophy highlighted in their magazine Cookhouse — our host this afternoon — and honoured by the featured chef, Andrea Cavaliere, executive Chef of Soho House USA, who sums up his approach to cuisine as “based on farm to fork sourcing, using as much local produce where possible to create a classic, yet rustic, style of cooking."
As the first course is placed before us — an anti-pasti platter showcasing burrata served alongside cherry tomato with basil and grilled baby octopus — I predict that infinite feedback about the dish (and those to come if Italian is the leaning of the lunch) from our table is inevitable: there is more Italian being spoken at the table than English, with industry personalities including the executive chef duo from Terroni, Giovanna Alonzi and Fabio Moro. Also, every chef seated helms a restaurant focusing on Italian cuisine. No cause for worry though, Cavaliere’s got heritage and a training stint in Italy on his side. “I was first inspired to be a chef by my Italian uncle,” shares the chef. “His influence has stayed with me throughout my career and is now given a twist by my experiences around the world.”
Cavaliere’s inspiration is clearly in the food, and that delights this panel of judges. Chef is taken with the simple presentation of the baby octopus, tender and infused with the smoky flavour of the grill; seasoned just right, it needs nothing more than a modest squeeze of lemon to enhance the flavour. I try the burrata and feel proud to know how to decipher good burrata from bad: bad burrata is sour, this is not, so is therefore good. Fresh and creamy, it does well served simple, like its octopus companion, with nothing more than a drizzle of high quality olive oil alongside seasonal cherry tomatoes and leaves of fresh basil.
The next course is a sampling of three pastas: creamy lobster tortelloni, mushroom agnolotti with truffle cream sauce and ricotta ravioli with tomato sauce. If I were Cavaliere, my nerves would be especially strapped preparing this course with the mini Italian consulate holding their forks and knives at attention. But the consensus is positive. The judges all praise the texture of the pasta. As Chef informs me, it requires extra precision to make the dough for stuffed pasta, as above all, you want to avoid the pasta being the same texture as the filling. Plus, it needs to be firm enough to hold the stuffing while staying on the better side of chewy. The fillings please the table overall, though the collective of chefs do get stuck on the mushroom agnolotti with truffle cream sauce for a period — or rather, stuck on the pungent scent and potent flavour of the truffle cream sauce. Since dining with Chef and his culinary pals I’ve made two observations about chefs’ palettes: one, when they say, “seasoned for a chef,” they mean its seasoned slightly saltier than average, and two, they generally have an aversion to all things truffle in a dish — oil, salt, cream — aside from a physical truffle itself. In other words, the agnolotti never stood a chance.
The main arrives, free from prejudices. It’s a hearty showcase platter of “Salt Lake” salmon and grilled beef striploin. Chef is serving me a helping of fish when I ask him why the chef here would order salmon all the way from Utah when we have it here in Canada. The answer, informs Chef, is because he didn’t say “Salt Lake,” he said “salt bake,” referring to the cooking technique, which sees a side of salmon encased in a course salt and egg mixture that forms a hard shell around the fish when baked, helping to preserve the natural moisture of the fish and giving it its soft bite and flaky poached-like texture.
Oh.
The attention on my culinary dunce cap is lifted when conversation begins about the side of risotto being passed around. Debate immediately flurries on the correct consistency of an authentic risotto. The rapid speed and impassioned throws of the discussion, which is flipping back and forth from English to Italian, necessitates Chef’s translation. He explains the two sides of the debate to me, the two schools of thought on the matter of a perfect risotto. The first holds that risotto should be loose, with a thin consistency that runs like molten lava when tipped onto a plate. The second school challenges that risotto is best when thicker in consistency, enough so that a dishful may be formed into a mountain. The risotto under investigation here exhibits an adherence to the latter school. The table is split between those who want to protect their gastronomic modesty and those who believe risotto should never be served in a bowl. I listen to the ongoing debate and continue to nod as I help myself to my second heaping spoonful of exhibit A and another Le Fizz.
Dessert arrives just as Chef and I excuse ourselves; he has dinner service at the restaurant to prepare for and I have a screening to catch. As I nab a delicious lemon meringue tart for the road, I overhear the beginning of a conversation between chefs about the two schools of thought on custards — after hours of culinary talk flying over me, I’m not sure how I feel about going to see a French film about a chef maneuvering his way through Paris’s cutthroat restaurant world. At least there will be subtitles.
Toronto-based writer Jennifer Lee is the editorial director of FILLER magazine, an online fashion and culture journal. She is also the co-editor of Hardly magazine, an arts-centric online teen publication for Canadian girls.
