Fois gras? Caviar? Truffles?
Celebrity chef Take advantage of Feenie, the Vancouver superstar who's getting his popular restaurant chain to Toronto between 2012, might be been trained in classical French cooking, what he’s planning the neighborhood culinary scene is less picky, less fancy and it has more West Coast Zen.
“Pizza, fish tacos,” Feenie states, from the dishes that could show up on recption menus when Cactus Club Café makes its debut within the financial district in 2013.
“Foi gras, fish tacos and truffles are extremely much part of who I'm. That’s not going to change. However these foods are enjoyed in different ways.”
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For men who famously grew to become the very first Canadian to win Iron Chef America, who once threatened to consider lower Toronto celebrity chef Susur Lee and that has earned many restaurant awards, Feenie was surprisingly easy-going as he visited the Star’s test kitchen a week ago.
He was at town to announce the brand new restaurant venture and plug his latest cook book, Take advantage of Feenie’s Casual Classics, Everyday Recipes to see relatives and Buddies.
Hair gelled loosely right into a faux-hawk, Feenie breezed beyond the stove, sliding on his apron with couple of words and fewer fanfare, exuding the laid-back calm that permeates the recipes in the 4th book and, he states, the climate in the restaurants.
“I’ve mellowed,” he states, elongating his vowels. “This really is stuff I prepare in my family.”
Since joining Cactus Restaurants Limited, a 22-restaurant chain, as executive chef 5 years ago, Feenie states he’s accepted its casual method of fine dining.
Once the yet-to-be-designed restaurant lands at 100 King Street W. Bay Streeters can get classic Feenie beurre blanc sauces, slow braising, fine herbs however in more approachable dishes, for example Korean style lettuce wraps, butternut squash ravioli and BBQ duck heaped on pecan fruit bread.
To underscore this time, Feenie whips up a load of Asian Sloppy Joes (recipe). A haute undertake the drippy gray classic his mother accustomed to make along with a recipe in the new book, it might show up on Toronto’s Cactus Club menu, he states by having an anxious glance toward his publicist.
“You never know. Perhaps a tighter version.”
Spatula poised to shuffle about 2 pounds of lean hamburger laced with garlic clove, ginger root, lime and Asian hot sauce browning around the Star’s stovetop, Feenie states substituting lean poultry or chicken is effective within the dish.
With this, he flings out a phrase that appears a much better match his vocabulary compared to word “sloppy.”
“It’s a part of our Kaizen approach,” he states. “Cultural improvement.”
What Feenie believes distinguishes Cactus Club is its “food program,” an emphasis on fresh, sustainable, local food. Boasting Sea Wise and Eco-friendly Table certifications, the chain uses only line-caught fish nothing pulled in by internet and meat and convey grown and harvested inside a certain radius from the restaurant.
With three more Cactus Clubs opening in Western Canada in 2012, Toronto’s menu won’t be firmed up for some time, but Feenie offers his assurance this city has some good local fish, for example albacore tuna, guaranteeing that products like tuna tataki eco-friendly papaya slaw, pine nuts, orange and yuzu vinaigrette usually stays around the menu. He might include Niagara or Prince Edward County wine.
“I’m being modest,” Feenie states, deftly spooning the aromatic, but untidy meat mixture onto small slider buns organized before him.
“I believe, for casual fine dining we type of set the bar.”
When Feenie considers his competition, it isn’t Toronto’s growing clutch of small, bespoke eateries that follow the same eco-friendly concepts. It’s the similarly sized chain restaurants which hail from Western Canada, for example Earls there’s one on King Street near to Cactus Club’s future location Joey within the Eaton Center and Moxie’s Classic Grill.
What Feenie doesn’t mention is the fact that Earls and Joey belong to exactly the same family-run company which has a stake within the Cactus Club. A relative, brother Stan Larger, is really a silent partner, Feenie’s publicist confirms.
It will likely be fun watching to determine the way the fight of Western chains in Toronto shakes lower.
Meanwhile, 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 doesn't seem possible,” he states, quoting Trotter, “excellence isn’t. In my opinion we’re near to that at Cactus.”
