Brassaii’s Bruce is a winner

Men! So hard to buy for. I’m all out of ideas. Except I do know the way to a man’s heart is, you know … food. This isn’t a restaurant review per se: it’s just that we’ve found something exceptional that you should know about.

This year I got the dearly beloved a gift that we could both enjoy – dinner out. When you have eaten in some of the best restaurants around the world, and you get to my age, you tend to want the best quality. Or am I just a food snob? What I’m trying to say is, that when baby boomers go out for dinner, we have low tolerance for middle-of-the-road cooking and presentation only to be faced with a Michelin Star level bill.

If you want to charge gourmet prices, you’d better be providing quality ingredients, cooking and service. We’d recently reviewed Brassaii on King West upon its reopening by new owners, and it sounded so amazing I wanted to experience the menu.  We had the good fortune to enjoy a miraculous meal presented by wonder chef Bruce Woods, who apart from being a super nice guy, had the benefit of apprenticeship under Mark Thuet, and has since developed his own style. He’s a master with food, what more can I say? We loved every morsel.

I had crab cakes and lamb loin (lean and perfect at medium), Chris had oysters and beef tenderloin (butter tender and perfect at medium-rare). We only found out after we’d ordered that Bruce’s specialty is ostrich. I’ve enjoyed ostrich before, and now I know he loves to work with it, I’ll order it next time.

I’m not going to ramble on. In summary, Brassaii is a wonderful spot, Bruce Woods is an excellent chef, it was a full house of mixed ages yet the service was prompt and excellent, the kitchen was fast-paced and calm, the menu is simple yet comprehensive in that it has something for every palate. We had a great time.

Vincenzo Antonacci, Brassaii’s General Manager, is passionate about his business and about the building that hosts it. He told me that the building used to be a Tea Factory, and the redesign has taken advantage of the expansive and lofty factory space. Owners and management apparently know how to run a restaurant/cafe/lounge, which makes it a pretty sure bet they have a success on their hands at Brassaii, and we wish them well.

[Tempo Toronto writers only review restaurants that are good, in their categories. Life is too short and Toronto has too many great restaurants to spend time writing about bad ones, and at Tempo Toronto we want to share only good and positive experiences with you. So we show up as normal patrons, and we prefer to pay our own way, to keep us honest!  This birthday celebration at Brassai was no exception, and was worth every penny.]

(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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