The Toronto Wine Elitist Cabal ™ returned to Actinolite restaurant in Toronto for their summer season finale. Their last night was this past Saturday as they close down for 2 1/2 weeks and then prep for the busy Fall season. Myself, Jay “I"m Treated Better Than the Celebrity Chef Who Showed Up Last Night” Shampur, and two of his friends (a co-worker and the captain of his pool team) dined on a superb and healthy tasting menu that placed equal emphasis on vegetables, fruits and greens as it does proteins – a hallmark of this passionate local food to table dining destination.
To celebrate the end of their 2016-2017 season, we brought an eclectic group of wines to enjoy with our tasting menu: Tarlant Brut Rosé Champagne – Thick salmon pink in the glass. Nice strawberry nose. On the palate, fine mousse carries flavors of unripened strawberries and pink grapefruit. The acidity is extremely high, even for Champagne, and there’s a bitter white grapefruit pith on the finish. Jay’s pal Deb even noted the sourness of the wine was making it unpleasant for her. I quite liked the wine but I can see where she was coming from. A great match with food especially when it tempered the sourness and brought out more fruit.
With the champagne, our first Amouse Bouche was a whole baby corn cob topped with yeast fudge and gooseberry powder. This was eaten whole, cob and all.
The next Amouse was Newfoundland crab braised in tomato water. This was one of the ones that made the CHampagne a lot better by cutting down the acidity.
The last Amouse was a bowl of fresh and preserved blueberries and gooseberries dressed with a kelp seaweed gelée and shiso vinegar.
The next wine invoked in me a great fear of draining away my manliness with every sip. Instead, it was an eye-opening revelation:
Domaines Ott 2016 Chateau de Selle Rosé – Light and bright salmon pink color. In the mouth, Oh. My. God. Like no other Rosé I have ever had before. Made from Grenache, Cignault and Syrah. Delicious cream and honeydew melon flavors, reminscent of the best Chateaneuf du Pape Blancs. Wow. Then refined sweet tannins and cherry flavor kick in harmoniously and carry a sweet but dry finish. Let me repeat, sweet but dry finish. That’s how complex this Rosé is, yet it still does what a Rosé is supposed to, be refreshing. Fantastic wine. As Cristal is to Champagne, this is to Rosé. Every other one is a pretender.
Our bread course was a whole wheat onion brioche with onion sour cream. This was actually not the standard bread course anymore and was changed to a different bread prior to our dinner due to it being so labor intensive. However, the restaurant deigned to make it one more time for Jay “I Get Treated Better Than the Celebrity Chef Who Also Dined Tonight” because he never had it before.
Nicolas Joly 2005 Savennières Roche aux Moines Clos de la Bergerie – This fantastic wine is even better than his Coulée de Serrant. Buttery rich texture, slightly sweet honeydew flavors, mellow rancio. Reminiscent of sherry but exquisite in its finesse and delicacy. A winner.
Our first course was a Niagara peach, cherry tomato and edible flower salad.
Next was an Ontario potato with purslane, crickets and sour cream. Yes, crickets. They were crunchy and had lots of umami flavor. Very similar to sesame seeds actually. I felt this was a touch gimmicky but the dish was very good.
Next up was our protein course, a Wild BC Coho Salmon dressed with miso sauce and juniper vinegar along with some sliced eggplant and a housemade fermented soy sauce.
Our vegetable main was a whole Ontario zucchini with dill oil, fresh housemade cheese, fresh currants and marigold flowers.
Time for another wine. Out comes a Burgundy. Domaine Marc Moray 2011 Chassagne-Montrachet – Classic white Burgundy with straw gold color, huge gunpowder nose, and flavors of green apple and melon with high flintiness and acidity that gives it great crispness.
Our next veggie main and last savory course was an artisanal lettuce cup filled with edible flowers and Ontario plum slices and dressed with housemade raspberry vinegar.
Our dessert course was a corn sorbet served over Ontario blueberries and blackberries and dusted with blackberry powder.
Our sweet wine of the evening was my contribution and a fitting homage to Actinolite’s dedication to local food.
Lakeview Cellars 2011 Cabernet Franc Icewine – This stunningly complex and well-aged icewine has a large tar nose, jammy red strawberry and raspberry flavors, and slight hints of rancio with caramel and vanilla notes. All of this glides along a backbone of bracing acidity. Interestingly, this paired far, far better with the corn sorbet than the Joly did. You’d think it would’ve been the other way around. This is fantastic and made me fall in love with icewine all over again.
The final touch of the evening were a pair of mignardises. Chocolate ganache drops covered with mushroom powder and sponge toffee covered with woodruff powder.
TWEC ™ would like to thank all the kitchen and floor staff at Actinolite for their amazing food and great service. We look forward to returning in the 2017-2018 season.
How about some pictures of people? Grammer, with all the passion you bring to events, you gotta get someone to bust out a camera and shoot some photos of some people. Dude, work some magic.
Grammer was overindulging in Atlanta while this amazing tasting dinner was happening. As for the Meursault, nobody brought any. Besides, we had a Chassagne-Montrachet. The white Burgundy dance card was already filled.
I generally try to avoid taking pics of people and posting them for the world to see without their permission unless they are implicitly or explicitly okay with it.
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Fixed.