Actinolite summer patio - great locally-driven tasting menu, featuring wood-fire cooked main dishes [Toronto]

[DrJohn]

We have really enjoyed the summer patio at Actinolite since they started doing it during the pandemic. The menu is a bit simpler than the tasting menus at the indoor version of the restaurant, but the mainly local ingredients are high quality and the flavours pure and of the season. For some reason, we didn’t end up going last year so we corrected the mistake by going recently. We ordered one wine pairing that we shared.

First wine:
Lambrusco, Podere il Saliceto ‘Falistra’ NV, Italy (Chardonnay/Pinot Meunier/Pinot Noir) - light and refreshing.

First course:

• Bread, Brodflour einkorn - crunchy crust, pillowy interior, loverly flavour.
• House pesto of garden herbs, beerwort, and sweet potato gastrique, pumpkin seeds, dill.
• Young beets, with blackberries, fennel pollen, anise.
• Barese cucumber and eggplant (brined, raw or compressed) - some of the tastiest vegetables we’ve had this summer.
• House prosciutto.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

Second pairing
Chasselas/Chardonnay, Macatho ‘Chachamo’ 21, Chilé Frontenac Blanc, orange - complex, with lots of mineral.

Second course:
Salt Spring Island mussels, steamed and smoked and basted in butter, Ontario red and yellow tomatoes, yellow plum, sauce of fermented yellow plum with clarified tomato water and “Mexican herbs” over top - plump and smokey mussels in a light and tangy broth.

Third pairing:
Riesling, Nell-Breuning ‘Ruwer’ '21, Misel, Germany, feinherb - touch of gasoline, great balance with acid and sweetness.

Third course:
Boreal Ontario chanterelles, lobster, sweet corn, blackcurrants, fresh tarragon leaves, and apricot butter - a great combination of sweet, sour, herbal, umami for the fresh lobster.

Fourth pairing:
Sacramento Chenin Blanc in foudre (steamed oak), full malo - dill pickle notes.

Fourth course:
Perth County Farms pork leg, slow roasted, seared belly, pork jus with redcurrants and costata romanesco zucchini, marigold petals, with a side of blanched potatoes and green beans, on scallop roe (we couldn’t pick it out), and mayo-shiso vinaigrette - delicious pork (fat and all) with smokey grilled zucchini and a rich jus.

Fifth pairing:
Lighthall, The Fence 2023, Milford, PEC sparking rose - fun and fragrant of rhubarb.

Dessert course:
Bayberry leaf foam, lavender sable and lavender mousse, with Ontario blueberries and cosmo flowers - very floral and herbal, and not too sweet.

Digestif:
Mead Blanc 2022 from Rosewood - mainly a wine with some honey added in.

[Estufarian (Alan)]

Actinolite is the place I take visiting out-of-town chefs.
I have a reservation for next week (again, matching your footsteps).

[Estufarian (Alan)]

Our meal was very similar.
The ‘multiple’ first course no longer has the beets - replaced by chopped veg and meats served on different herb leaves. And musk melon has been added to the House Prosciutto.
The next few courses were identical (my tomato allergy had multiple cucumbers as a replacement)) with the chanterelle/lobster combination being my favourite of the meal (and potentially a favourite of the year).
Your pork dish was completely replaced by an aged lamb leg with confit of lamb shoulder. I find most Ontario lamb to be very mild and this impression was confirmed, although the confit was very good. However, overall, I found this the weakest dish.

But I still think Actinolite is the best example we have of ‘local cuisine’. With only 5 courses here, and a dozen at Pearl Morissette a week ago, I enjoyed the longer meal more (at a higher price!). With both, there is a continuing adjustment to seasonal produce compared with the (mostly) formulaic approach at other places. Both are now in my Top 10!

[DrJohn]

The chanterelle and lobster was probably our favourite dish too. Hope you liked the cucumber substitutions. The cucumbers we had were superlative.

[Estufarian (Alan)]

The cucumbers were varied in texture and flavour. But my dinner companions loved their tomatoes!

[DrJohn]

A bit of a delayed post on sampling the winter menu back in January. It continues to be wonderful all around in terms of the local ingredients, the flavours of the dishes, and the warm service. We were 30 minutes late due to a snowstorm and traffic, but they gave us no issue and didn’t rush us on a Friday night.

We started with a glass of Cava, Paco Molina, Penedès, Spain - crisp, bready notes, and a bit of apple. We then split an excellent pairing that started with a Cremant de Jura, 100% Chardonnay, Baud - nicely yeasty.

The first course featured lightly poached lobster, yellow beets, beet purée with turmeric, raw shaved kohlrabi, sour cherries preserved in the summer, gooseberry juice, homemade chili pepper dust. Cold-weather veggies with hints of the summer and some nice acid to balance the richness of the lobster.

Next pairing was a Cabernet Franc from the Loire that we missed the details on. It had some carbonic maceration and hefty enough tannins to pair with the lamb course, which featured skewer of heart, liver, and shiitake, plus a rutabaga and liver mousse, and a deep fried bit of red dulse on top. It also included a croquette with sourdough starter and braised lamb inside, wax pepper on top, and a side of lamb broth and sassafras. So much wonderful lamb variations.

The same farmer for the lamb also grows rye, which was made into a gorgeous sourdough, decadently brushed with lamb fat and served with sheep’s milk cheese and black currant jam.

The 3rd pairing was a Moravian Riesling from Martin Vajcrer, Znojmo-Jatoym. 2023. It had spent so much time on the lees to the point of the complexity of a skin contact wine, plus the usual Riesling characteristics. It went nicely with a dish of sweet pan-roasted carrots, on top of more carrots julienned in conserva, plus local peanuts, dried tomato paste, and sumac powder. A great vegetable dish.

Next up was an Australian Shiraz by Cooke Brothers, Greenock, Barossa Valley, 2022. Nice plum and espresso, not overwhelming tannins. We expected this big wine to go with a big meat dish, but instead we had a beet, cooked in red wine, dried overnight, smoked and rehydrated in beet juice, with magnolia wood and buds (a little clovey), mustard, spinach, arugula and lettuce, and shallots pickled in magnolia vinaigrette. Very earthy and went surprisingly well with a heftier wine.

Pairing #5 was a Pinot Noir from Bourgogne, La Soeur Cadette (missed the vintage). Very earthy, mushroomy, with some cherries and cranberries. It went with Linton pork loin and leg, pork reduction with prosciutto and mussel purée, smoked endive, sunchoke chips, and two mussels. The juicy, smokey endive held this dish together and counterbalanced the quite fatty pork.

The 6th course was the most remarkable. We were poured an apple cider from Normandy that we also missed the details on. We were then each given a single Sieglinde potato in foam of pork fat emulsion and calamus (sweet flag) herb. The simplicity of the dish allowed you to appreciate every remarkable flavour and texture of the components.

Our last pairing was Barbetto Madeira Rainwater Reserva, redolent of caramel and almost a dessert itself. The actual dessert was a layer cake with local quince tarte tatin on top, puff pastry of einkorn whole wheat, rose and apple butter, dacquoise, with Niagara hazelnuts, honey custard, and rose petal oil over. Nothing was too sweet and the rose-quince pairing was remarkable.

We need to go back more often outside of patio season.