Massimo Bruno Supper Club [Toronto]

Massimo Bruno runs a supper club that we first sampled in the pandemic. Those first few meals were delivered to our home and we joined a Zoom call to hear about the dishes and chat with other participants. This time he held the supper club in-person, on the back patio of the Bayview Manor. Two long tables were set up and the food was doled out family-style. Everything was delicious and the explanations and patter from Massimo himself were always warm, funny, and engaging. No alcohol is provided so we brought our own wine.

Here is the set-up:


And Massimo chatting up the participants:
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First up were generous portions of many antipasti:


Focaccia barese - tasty, with sweet tomato


Insalata Panzanella - grilled bread, cucumber, tomato, red onions, basil.


Burratina e pomodori - fresh burrata with oven-dried tomatoes. Sweet and creamy cheese with almost carmelized tomatoes.


Polpo e Patate - grilled tender octopus on a creamy olive oil potato puree.


Salsiccia Barese - grilled veal sausage on green onions. Smoky sausage and sweet onions - one of the best dishes of the evening.


Ceci neri e peperoni - black, nutty chickpeas with sweet roasted peppers - lovely texture contrast.

On to the primi:


Spaghettoni with pistachio basil pesto - gorgeous, with al dente noodles, and a garlicy pesto that needed no cheese. They noted that we plowed through the first plate and promptly gave us a second, which we also (perhaps unwisely) inhaled.

And here is Massimo bringing out the secondi (Bistecca alla fiorentina):


Huge t-bones that he then carved up and anointed with olive oil and seasoning:


It had a nice char on the edges and was juicy and tender.

To complement the meat was some contorni:


Verdure alla griglia (zucchini and peppers with mint oil and balsamic) - very attractive long zucchini slice curled around a red pepper, and delicious
Insalata mista - a simple and light salad.

For dolci:


Cannolo rotto - cannoli shells, with orange ricotta cream, pistacchio, Marsala wine reduction, cannoli shells.

Somewhere in the midst of dessert, people began singing along to the soundtrack and this carried on until everyone had drained their wine.

If this would be your kind of thing, you should give him a try. He also does food travel tours of regions of Italy.

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