This is a love letter
For the last few years, there has been a dumbing-down of Toronto’s food scene- blaming the recession, chefs have been turning to comfort food as a safe harbor in which they can practice. The resulting pastiche of tradition that ends up a degree or two of separation from the hamburger is, I’m convinced, the basis of Rob Ford’s election and other social ills. Fish tacos, pork sandwiches and any of the Terroni knock-offs fall into this category; certainly they can be delicious, but it’s not exactly grown-up food is it? The exceptions to this, those braver restaurants that eschew convention have pilfered from the work of Adria, Bras or, more recently, Redzepi- churning out swooshes, spheres and malt soils ad nauseum without taking the chances those chefs did. The result of this is a fairly tedious dining experience either way. Add to this a tsunami of charcuterie, pork belly and lardo etc. and I become genuinely nauseated.
On the other hand, there’s Ursa. My dinner there last night was the best meal I’ve had in memory- certainly the best in North America. Hashimoto, Kaji, Splendido, Nota Bene etc. were all very, very good, but Ursa is inspired in a way that sets it apart. All the techniques of Noma, el Bulli and the like are referenced, the sensibilities of Bras are invoked and the technique of Centro or the former Avalon is there, but the underlying soul of the food is genuinely unique. There’s a book by Hal Foster- Return of the Real- that discusses the movement of avant-garde art from deconstruction to simulacrum and finally to ‘Real’- that which has artistic conviction based in research, a desire to transcend and sense of place; I feel like this is the first restaurant I’ve seen in Toronto to make this leap-the last place I experienced it was El Poblet in Spain.
From ingredients provided by the esoteric Abe Enterprises (shiso leaf and fresh yuzu) to the house-made ‘freshwater bonito’ (whitefish standing in for the usual tuna relative), the delicate yuba, fresh truffles, tiny little chanterelles, the cheese made al a minuet and the honey that graced it, the materials are on par with any other restaurant I’ve seen. To go any more luxe would require breaking some ethical conventions. And this is perhaps the thing that I am most interested in: Ursa has integrity. As a small example, they’ve eschewed the fashionable, fuel hogging filament bulbs and gone with LED lights. Closer to my own heart, they’ve kept things low on the food chain (with a pork dish as the only ruminant), the ingredients seem to be local, and they make the most of them.
Chi (qi) is an ambiguous Chinese concept referring to the energy which nature has- the thing that pushes blood along and otherwise gives life vitality. In Buddhist cooking, there is a focus on preserving this, but in the commercial kitchen, this is generally a lost cause. At Ursa however, the ingredients are handled lightly and they stay lively. They employ raw cooking techniques (dehydrators especially) and they employ probiotic yogurts, they have an awareness and respect for natural micronutrients and enzymes that I haven’t seen outside my nutrition courses at UofT. The sum total of this is food with finesse, elegance and life, and the experience of this is not in any way ambiguous; you feel better after eating here. Add to this the gracious, informed service, beautiful presentation, great music and Ursa is, in my mind, the finest example of what a restaurant can be and do that I have experienced.
To keep the standards up will be hard and off the bat I can see a lot of potential small challenges that could add up: the Frette-esque linens they use are the most expensive ones I know of, the china and glasses are nay cheap either, the 5-soon-to-be-6 cooks need a living wage (most places this size would likely settle for 2-3), the sheer complexity of the plates (12+ elements), the time involved in aforementioned raw ‘cooking’ combined with limited space, the perishability of the finer ingredients, the thousand other details in opening a restaurant and the difficulties in dealing with the inevitable flood of interest they will garner means changes will likely come. That being said, the underlying care and heart that created Ursa will undoubtedly ensure that it continues to raise the culinary bar in Toronto, and frankly I haven’t seen any restaurant on the continent that couldn’t learn something from them. We are lucky to have them.
