For my husband and I, each summer brings a week (at least) of
staycation, where we take time off work and spend it exploring Toronto and its
surrounding cities. Any locality that’s a 2 hour drive or less is fair game for
a visit and after four years there’s still plenty of places to see.
Hamilton and its surrounding neighbours have been a
favourite haunt. A typical outing consists of driving for an hour, hiking
through beautiful scenery to stretch our legs, changing as discretely as
possible in the car, strolling through a quaint town, and having a lovely meal
to cap off the day.
August 2019 brought us to Dundas, Ontario and dinner at
Quatrefoil. Their town is made for the eco-conscious with numerous stores selling
sustainable and earth-friendly products (I found some great reusable produce
bags for grocery shopping). The end of
the walk lead us to a quiet side street and a house that’s morphed into a
restaurant. While the outside is a historical home, the dining room looks
rather modern, complete with Instagram friendly white marble table tops.
On Fridays they offer a five course tasting menu ($72 a
person) with wine pairings (additional $55). Like traditional meals, it starts
off with an amuse bouche, a portion of braised veal cheek situated on a light
tapioca cracker with dollops of crème fraiche. It’s a tasty bite, but a tad
salty even with the tangy yoghurt.
Followed by a great selection of bread including brown sugar
pumpernickel (great combination), chewy French bread, oily poppy seed puff pastry,
and a decent cheese and chive puff. It’s an enticing place and I had to try a
bit of everything.
Quatrefoil presents beautiful plates. The seared sea scallop
arrived with a lovely golden crust and while it was starting to split, the
centre was cooked perfectly remaining tender and sweet. The buttery sauce was
lightened with strawberry vinaigrette and the dish kept fresh with sweet spring
peas and crunchy fennel. It paired wonderfully with the Chablis.
For a sweet and savoury course, I rather enjoyed the
compressed cantaloupe salad. The melon was squeezed until the juices are
removed so you get its sweet essence but it doesn’t overwhelm the other
elements. It went nicely with the creamy whipped ricotta and the garlicky pesto
and arugula keeps the dish savoury. It’s all topped with slices of summer
truffle – eat these with the ricotta as with the strong pesto its mild flavours
become lost.
The apex of the night was the Arctic char where the fish’s
meat was flakey and tender but the skin could be a touch crispier. Paired with
a tomato vinaigrette – a popular choice - at Quatrefoil it’s seasoned beautifully
so you get a fresh tomato jus that’s also flavourful. The warm quinoa base
acted as a great side.
Sadly, the last half of the meal is where the menu starts to
falter. Tenderloin, when left in a longer cut, can be finicky to work with
given it’s thicker in the middle and tapers off at the end. This leaves the
thickest part of the steak arriving medium rare while the rest of it was really
overdone – the heated plate probably didn’t help.
Without a proper steak knife, cutting through the thinner
portions was difficult. Yet, the passable beef aside, the rest of the dish was
tasty – the red wine and shallot jus lovely and slightly thickened so it clings
to the meat. All the accompaniments were also great: meaty maitake mushroom, crispy broccolini, and the scrumptious potato and
cheese croquette… it was the highlight of the dish.
The strawberry crémeux looks pretty but is a really sad
dessert. Our waitress takes a fairly long time explaining all the individual
sorbets (yogurt cheesecake, strawberry, and strawberry cream) and describes the
dish as having an olive oil cake. It took me a while to realize that this “cake”
was actually the crumb that propped up the decorative leaf.
I’m done with the deconstructed dessert and wish the preparation
would just go away. If this is meant to be a trio of sorbets than give a larger
scoop of each and call it that. Meanwhile, if this is meant to be a cake than
just create a cake. As it stands, the meagre portions and laying each element
out on a dish just seems like a lazy excuse to not employ a proper pastry chef.
Sweets are definitely not Quatrefoil’s forte, even the final
bites were a letdown: the cappuccino macron too sweet and while the dark
chocolate and strawberry truffle had promise (well balanced flavours and good
quality chocolate) the shell was too thick.
Nonetheless, the friendly service and easy going pace of the
dinner is what makes dining at Quatrefoil a treat. They were also accommodating,
allowing me to get half a wine pairing so that I could have a taste with every
dish without falling asleep on the hour drive home.
How To Find Them
Location: Dundas, Canada
Address: 16 Sydenham Street
Address: 16 Sydenham Street
Website: http://www.quatrefoilrestaurant.com/
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Gastro World's Grading System
- Anything under 5 - I really disliked and will never go back
- 6 - decent restaurant but I likely won't return
- 7 - decent restaurant and I will likely return
- 8 - great restaurant that I'd be happy to recommend
- 9 - fantastic restaurant that I would love to visit regularly and highly recommend
- 10 - absolute perfection!
Is That It? I Want More!
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