Time seems to fly by while dining at Casa Paco. It’s not that dining there is particularly action packed or their service is slow, if anything the restaurant exudes a calm vibe and their service is a well timed pace. Somehow, amongst the dim lighting and homey décor, hours just pass by without the constant pressure to vacate the table within a two-hour seating limit.

When I see jamon iberico on the menu, it gets ordered. The thin slices of prized Spanish cured ham are all at once sweet, smoky, and savoury. Casa Paco points out that they serve the “pata negra” ($38) variety of the ham, which indicates it’s produced with pure-bred Iberian pigs. Pedigree aside, it’s tasty and the plate contains plenty of slices to go around.

The duck ragû gnocchi ($26) showed promise with its sizeable portion – a lot heftier than my friend’s tendril of octopus – and intoxicating aroma. And while the sauce was hearty and delicious (the shredded duck tender and flavourful), the actual gnocchi was overcooked and bordered on mushy. Perhaps its because the pasta was boiled and then also cooked in the sauce. If so, the chef either needs to boil the gnocchi less or consider pan frying it to form a crust, prior to finishing it within the ragû.

A dessert is a must, and the coffee cardamom cheesecake ($15) is highly recommended. Prepared crustless, the outer edges of the sweet takes on a Basque cheesecake quality so it’s caramelized and dense. Yet, at the centre there’s a lovely coffee cardamom sauce that gives it a lovely hit of cool sweetness that’s almost like a cold molten lava cake. A unique dessert indeed.

I preferred the cheesecake to the brûléed lemon flan ($11) where the sugar was overly toasted and started emitting a bitter taste. The sugar slight slip aside, the dollop of cool cream against the slightly warm flan was a nice touch.  

It wasn’t until after the dinner that I came across a Toronto Life article about Casa Paco. What makes it particularly unique is their four owners - Rob Bragagnolo, Caroline Chinery, Tommy Conrad, Ailbhe McMahon – are also the restaurant’s only staff, giving the establishment a mom and pop feel as customers will continually encounter the same faces.

Maybe that’s why we found dining there so relaxing. We felt taken care of and loved hearing McMahon mention that several of the flora scattered throughout the restaurant was saved from a local resident who had too many at their home and forced by their landlord to dispose of them. If only I lived in Little Italy, I too would become a familiar face amongst Casa Paco. 

Avelo’s 8-course meal ($120) leaves you comfortably full, without sickness, given dishes aren’t overly heavy. Perhaps that’s what I found lacking, the one or two course that simply envelops you in glutinous comfort food. The closest contender was probably the fourth course - a buckwheat gnocchi with fermented porcini sauce – still, the buckwheat gave the gnocchi a nutty fibrous kick and the sauce was more umami than rich. Hardly the sinful plate I was looking for. At least it was flavourful and the chanterelles beautifully sauteed.

The sourdough everything bagel on the bottom of the first course was superb: crusty on the outside and fluffy on the inside. In lieu of cream cheese and lox, Avelo uses kojified carrot and macadamia cheese, which replicates the slight smoky creaminess on the bagel. It’s just an interesting way of starting a tasting menu, maybe Avelo’s version of a bread course?

Having dined at Avelo’s predecessor, Awai, I was praying for the mushroom soup, a heavenly concoction that had even those who detest mushrooms nodding in approval. Sadly, it didn’t make an appearance and the soup featured roasted kabocha squash instead. It’s difficult to make squash soup exciting, something that can so easily be made at home. Avelo tried to enhance its presentation with apple and salsify pieces to decorate the bowl, but they did little to augment the experience as they’re rather similar in texture. The pumpkin dust was a good start, adding a bit of grittiness to the smooth soup, but it really did need something else crispy or chewy (perhaps a puffed tapioca) to balance out all the mushiness.

Interestingly, after a rutabaga is roasted, it gives off a potato-like flavour, except it’s a severely dry spud. The kitchen tried adding mashed cauliflower to create moisture in the dish, but the small dollop was hardly enough. What it really needed was a sauce, something that would add liquid and flavour as the dish was so boring - when you’re serving vegetables flavour is your friend.

Slices of truffle garnished the rutabaga, but its dry texture meant the truffle was wasted. If anything, this prized ingredient would have been better featured with the gnocchi instead.

Their one bite amuse bouche was impressive: a potato galette that’s described as Avelo’s version of cauliflower tots. I’d say it’s more like fried mac ‘n’ cheese except without the pasta. The galette is piping hot and delicious. Still, some of my friends found the horseradish garnish overpowering, adding a sharp tang when the onion base was already good on its own.

Give me another galette in lieu of the celeriac kofta any day. The kofta is just a drier less exciting version of the potato galette. Sure, it was plated prettily with a well roasted parsnip log adorned with flowers but didn’t taste nearly as good.

What does Avelo’s kitchen have against moisture? I can imagine someone at a stove grumbling about never wanting to make a French sauce again. All their dishes are dry and screaming for sauce… like the cranberry bean tempeh with roasted radicchio. The fruity glaze on the tempeh was fine, giving the beany slab an almost Asian sweet and savoury flavour. But then the huge slice of bitter radicchio was such an inappropriate side. If anything, they could have continued with the Asian influences by having the tempeh sit on a bed of soba or slaw, switching out the pickled okra for snow peas for crunch.

After scanning the menu, the dish I most anticipated was the rye berry risotto. Overall, the execution was satisfactory, but the grain could have been cooked longer to allow the exterior to soften; as it stands, its more wild rice than risotto. I did enjoy the mole base (yay, a sauce!) that when mixed with the plain grains gave it a boost of flavours. The crispy crackers were also a nice garnish that contrast textures, and useful for scooping up the rye berry and mole to create a fancy tortilla and salsa.

Avelo presented two different desserts amongst the table and recommended people share with their neighbour. It’s a smart idea to encourage diners to try something different. Initially, I thought the pineapple upside-down cake would be a winner but found the coconut mousse base (not a cake) made the dessert taste more like pineapple pannacotta and lacked the buttery richness I was craving.

While the tonka bean amazake wasn’t my first choice, the hints of cocao nibs gave the gelatin-based dessert an earthy depth. Still, it could be creamier. If Avelo was going to feature two desserts, they should consider making each stand out – two pannacotta-like desserts with different flavours are hardly exciting - I would have much preferred if they switched it up and did a sweet and savoury option. The later being a nut cheese and cracker plate that is also more shareable.  

At least their mignardise was impressive. In lieu of the traditional truffle, Avelo presented their version of a “Ferro Roche”, a silky hazelnut ganache piped into a crispy caramel cone dipped in chocolate. Now this is inventive and fantastic, something the other desserts should aspire to grow into.

Overall, the meal wasn’t bad, it’s just not overly exciting and tastes like a vegan meal – healthy and void of rich elements, which is what you need to counteract course after course of vegetable and grains.

Still, I could probably overlook the blasé food and rate the experience a 6 out of 10 if it weren’t for the service. Maybe we just got someone who was too new that was left on her own. The gentlemen who eventually stepped in to explain the dishes was so passionate and animated that I loved hearing his descriptions of each course… somehow, he made a piece of charred radicchio sound exciting (it’s not). But our main sever just didn’t perform basic things I’d expect from a restaurant:

1) Using proper glassware for wine. When we ordered Prosecco, it wasn’t served with a flute or champagne glass, instead those small 3oz glasses you’d find at a winery tasting. It was a little strange as these hardly bring out the bubbles of the wine, but we used it without complaint.

It was when we switched to a bold red and our server brought another round of these mediocre glasses that my friend stepped in to politely ask if she could bring us the red wine glasses, we clearly saw displayed at the bar instead. Our server’s response, “Oh, I guess you’d prefer something that can let the wine breathe more?” Ding, ding, ding! Yes, and something to allow us to take in the aroma of the wine.

2) Performing basic math to split a bill. I completely understand if a restaurant can’t accommodate bill splitting for large tables, but our group was less than six. Since everyone didn’t partake in the wine equally, we asked if she could split the first bottle amongst the table and the second to the few who drank it.

After making it sound like a HUGE favour, something that could be accommodated this one time as they weren’t busy, the bill was merely split equally in five. C’mon, if it’s dividing by five, I could have done that calculation in three seconds with a phone. After explaining again what we were hoping for (uneven bills given the wine situation), on the second attempt, she simply took both bottles and split it amongst the few.

With this much modern technology and the tasting menu prices being constant, is splitting two bottles of wine differently that difficult? In retrospect, I wish she just said she couldn’t do the math as I could have easily calculated them myself.

To sum the experience up in an equation: boring dry food (6) less lack of basic serving skills (1) = experience at Avelo (5). 

Meal Choices and Pricing

With 28 recipes available each week, Hello Fresh offers the most choice and was a breeze to find three meals to order. They also have extras - dessert and sides (veggie plate, garlic bread) – you can add on to really round out the meals and even extend a two-person kit to feed a family of three.

You’ll pay more for these options, $13.15 per portion (assuming three meals for two people) or $79 a week, which was the priciest out of all the companies I tried. This is also just the base price, as like their competitors, they also charge more for quicker 20-minute options (+ $2.99 a serving), special occasion recipes (think Father’s Day), or multi-protein meals (+$9.99 a serving).

Customer Service and Ordering

You can pick meals and skip deliveries up to five weeks in advance. Their skipping option was more difficult to find as you need to go into week and click the “edit delivery” button to navigate to the skip options. Then, there’s also a question asking customers why they’re skipping the week, which I find to be an annoying and unnecessary feature.

What is useful about the “edit delivery” area is that you can change the delivery date for each week individually (i.e., some weeks you can have it come on Sunday while others on Thursday) and even the plan option (i.e., three meals versus four meals) without having to change the entire subscription. From a customization standpoint, Hello Fresh is a leader with this feature and they deliver six days of the week in Toronto (everyday but Friday) so creates flexibility.

Ease of Cooking

As we entered spring, Hello Fresh started dedicating recipes for the BBQ, which is a great idea as I really would rather not turn on the oven during the warm weather. The cheesy brie and beef burger was delicious, a honking thick beef patty and more than enough brie to create a gooey decedent bite. I was just a little miffed about the recipe’s suggestion to add an egg to the beef mixture for a firmer patty – if anything it made it waterier and didn’t bind together as well, causing the patty to break apart easier.  

Even the potatoes get finished on the grill in a foil-pouch. Just put them on 10-minutes earlier than what the recipe calls for as we found them still undercooked after the burger was ready so ended up eating them separately.

Compared to other companies, Hello Fresh also didn’t require as many tools – most recipes only call for two pots and/or pans.  A recipe like the barramundi and brown butter lemon sauce with roasted potatoes and sugar snap peas could have easily become a multi-tool recipe with competitors. With Hello Fresh, there was just a sheet pan to roast the potatoes and everything else was prepared in a frying pan (with recipe actually saying to use the same one) making clean up easier.

The Taste Test

The recipes did have fewer flavouring components compared to others as most do not come up spice mixtures, instead relying on the ingredients themselves and salt and pepper. So, something like the barramundi I found a little bland.

Nonetheless, for dishes that use flavourful ingredients, I didn’t miss the spice kits. The gnocchi Bolognese had a lovely zest tomato sauce and when combined with the consommé, vegetables, and parmesan was a tasty dish.

While I would have like the cheesy chicken enchiladas to be saucier, they were still great and easy to prepare frying everything in a pan, wrapping the ingredients into a tortilla and baking with cheese and sauce on top. For a dish like this, Hello Fresh did include the necessary spices to make the meal taste like Tex Mex.

There were a lot of good vegetarian recipes as well. The Philly style portobello hoagies smartly calls for chefs to remove the gills from the portobello, so you’re left with a less watery mushroom that once mixed with peppers, onions, cheese, and spicy mayo makes you realize you don’t need the beef. And Hello Fresh uses Beyond Meat as an ingredient for some of their vegetarian recipes if you’d rather go for a fake protein.

Environmental Factors

I did like that Hello Fresh uses little packaging compared to others, even if it can sometimes create a slight detriment to taste. It’s a simple solution: pick up a couple of multi-purpose seasonings and use those to supplement the recipes that need a flavour boost. Creating less waste and helping the environment is worth it.

Conclusion

For those who do not mind paying a bit more, Hello Fresh was a great experience. Overall, I had a lot of success with their recipes and the amount of choice and flexibility with deliveries is helpful for those who like to plan. And if you’re going to use delivery services regularly, finding one that uses less packaging is also a great touch.