Pixie Dust and Wizardry

What do you do when you find out that it is the last night the chef is going to be cooking on the line? If you’re lucky enough to stop him when he’s doing his rounds in the dining room, you ask him one request, go crazy. Why? This meal will be a “last supper” of sorts and if I won’t be eating this food at this location again, I want his creative side to take over. He set up his menu to correspond to the structure of a play. An inventive medium to display his already creative dishes. If this structure develops through the rest of the meal, it will surely be one to remember. This meal will be far from just eating for sustenance, this meal will be an event, more like dinner theatre which should be analyzed aesthetically as an event of indulgence.

I started with, Disappearing Goat Cheese Spaghetti, Veyrat Style. It says it all in the name, an ode to Chef Watters’ mentor. Using the same techniques he learned under Veyrat’s wing, Chef Watters masterfully performs his wizardry and makes his goat cheese spaghetti disappear. At the table you’re presented a deep bowl with what looks to be one long strand of goat cheese spaghetti with pieces duck confit and orange rind. Then the show begins, the Chef comes by and pours a very hot white balsamic vinegar and lemon thyme vegetable broth over the goat cheese spaghetti, and before your eyes as you stick your spoon in the broth to take your first sip the spaghetti is disappearing. The goat cheese melts making the broth slightly creamy. There is an explosive orange flavour because of the rind on top of the duck confit, it brings instant memories of duck a l’orange. Delicious.

Based on what I know of what is coming, I know the chef will be playing mind games with me all night by tricking my taste buds and exploring new culinary avenues I have never crossed before.

Next we had a “Smoking Cold Soup”. Watching this soup come out of the kitchen is undeniably the definition of dinner theatre. Instead of seeing a burlesque show at Le Moulin Rouge, I have a smoking bowl being carried towards me. The menu and server insist it is cold, but the only thing I know that smokes and is cold is liquid nitrogen. The bowl is placed in front and the server says, “this is Chef Joseph’s smoking cold soup, she picked up the spoon from within the bowl and swirled it around in the bowl. She explained that it was a sweet Montmorency cherry soup with a nasturtium leaf and rose petals. Once she stopped stirring the soup it began to smoke profusely. She followed with, ” Be careful it is very cold, please wait for the smoke to disappear before you enjoy it.” The thoughts are racing through my mind, what is going on here? These are the mind games I thought the chef was going to play on me. Cold soup doesn’t smoke, hot soup does. How could a cold soup be so hot that it should smoke? He is playing with my expectations, like a flirtatious woman, you become intrigued and I want more. The soup itself was interesting, it was a sweet and sour cherry soup. It was similar to a cherry pie filling that wasn’t thickened. The nasturtium gave the soup a peppery bite. The rose petal looked to have been covered in sugar and as the liquid nitrogen “cooled down” the soup, the rose petal became a hardened sweet candy. Jaw dropping.

Sea, Earth & Above included sliced and ceviched scallops in yuzu with black italian truffles drizzled with foie gras oil. The sea was represented by the scallops the earth by the truffles, and above? That was where I looked for some sanity. The scallops were perfectly salted, the diced truffles gave the scallops the earthy edge to balance out their slippery texture. It was all accompanied by microgreens which adds a fresh crispness to the palate. There was a universal balance on this plate of epic proportions, a perfect dish for all to admire for the theory behind the dish, presentation, depth of flavour, and textures.

Muscovy Duck Foie Gras Rocher Torchon, a play on Ferrero Rocher, the tasty chocolate treat I would only get at Christmas in my stocking. The chef made a small loaf of foie gras, he hollowed out the centre and filled it with chocolate and he covered the outside with almond crumble. The foie gras was oh so buttery, the bitter chocolate inside made my Foie Gras Rocher seductively good, in that it complemented the richness of the foie. This is yet another example of the Chef’s creativity and ability to take you away from the table to another place and time, this is genius.

Now the wine, 2005 Malvoire Pinot Noir, great black cherry colour, earthy nose, cherry mid-pallate, white pepper finish, I think it is going to go quite nicely with squab.

We now have a honeydew mint sorbet topped with mint, raspberry, and a sugar tuile. It was so minty, it was better than brushing my teeth. This wasn’t that fake mint you get in chocolate mint candies, this was fresh, beautiful, this was the mint I could get used to. The mint in the sorbet was exclamated by the fresh mint strategically placed on top of the sorbet. My palate has been cleansed.

Squab Sous Vide, 59.5 C and 61.9 C. This squab was the definition of fall off the bone. Thanks to the chef’s choice of using the sous vide cooking method. It was so tender. Peaches, Hensall turtle beans, and walnuts, it was crunchy, soft, and tender, another great use of texture and presentation. There was a beautiful smokey star anise veal reduction dividing the plate between the legs and the breast of the squab allowing you to jump between the different pieces of the bird and the flavours on the plate. On the other side, accompanying the legs, there were beet tops with turtle beans and candied beets which created a healthy sweet mix to the game-y squab flavour. I was expecting the beet tops to be bitter but they were spinach like, again, unthinkable, foundation shaking, and it was delicious.

Sangria Sorbet, a clear ice cream bowl with a floating piece of meringue and peach dried jell-o. This illusion was held up with saran wrap that was perfectly wrapped around the top, no loose edges, air tight. Floating Jell-o, what? The server asked us to eat the peach and meringue together, tear off the saran wrap and eat the sangria sorbet. I first savoured the peach jell-o and meringue. You could feel there was the dried sweet with the chewy texture of the meringue. I then ripped off the saran like I would a TV dinner and shot back the sorbet. I tasted a sour raspberry, then you got that wine flavoured sorbet for the sangria, blueberries at the bottom, a hint of mint, star anise, and cinnamon. It was mystically presented with the invisible saran wrap holding the jell-o and meringue above the sorbet. The act was not sheer wizardry but a showcase of Chef’s ability to pair flavours, temperatures, and creativity together. A unique palate cleanser before dessert. God bless sangria, as if the wine wasn’t enough.

Stomach check: not grotesquely full, content, ready for more? Yes!

Dessert, Deconstructed Peach Crumble with cardamom ice cream? Really? Cardamom ice cream? This is something I ought to try. I was expecting something grainy, but it was exactly the opposite. The flavour was accurate, it was the smoothest creamiest ice cream with that strong cardamom flavour. Savoury ice cream, you’ve done it again Chef Watters. Fresh cherries and raspberry coulis, peaches, mint, flowers, pistachios and a cherry rolled in pork fat to hold the bacon bits on, but there was a surprise, the pit of the cherry was removed and in its place was a piece of 5 yr old cheddar. It had that sweet cherry taste, balanced by the sharpness of the cheddar and the bacon gave this savoury edge to the dessert. Who would have thought that bacon belonged in dessert. While eating the peaches, the smoke from the bacon is a wonderful match. There are so many distinct flavours moulding together to make this dish stand out. This just shows that bacon is truely the most versatile ingredient or Chef Watter’s is truely mad. I believe he is on to something, bacon deserves to be included in the dessert repertoire right beside chocolate. Again, the development of flavours in this dish was so well rounded , sweet, salt, savoury. Impressive, another perfect dish, bravo.

I left dumb founded. This is a meal I will never forget, the man has a way with food. I was right, this was an event. Let me explain, first, he outlines where his food is coming from. He names the farmer Mary Byler, who grows his miniature vegetables, the Coleman family who raises the beef, and Gerhard Metzger, the butcher who supplies his pork. The event is further ingrained in my head by his playful and creative ideas that he puts on the plate, things that I would have never thought of, displaying them on a beautiful canvases for his guests to enjoy. His mind games do not stop there, it is like he plays with your childhood, he throws you back into rugburns and scrapped knees as you dive into peach flavoured jell-o and foie gras rocher. The way he presents his soup as a brooding smoking bowl of soup that you must beware because its to cold to eat. His play on flavours and textures between peaches, bacon, bing cherries with aged cheddar, and cardamom flavoured ice cream. All of these combining factors lead me to believe that he is starting a revolution in his kitchen, a revolution against your preconceived notions of what you think food is about. It is not for everyone, but for those that are willing to have their taste buds challenged and their minds opened, this is not just food, it is an event that must be aesthetically critiqued, the presentation of the food, the flavours, and the combination and how they play together, as Chef Joseph puts it, “the play within the play”. I am glad I got to witness this “last supper”. I wish him luck on his next great menu because he has a tall order to meet and surpass this one.

Disappearing Goat Cheese Soup, Veyrat Style

Smoke'n Cold Soup

Sea Earth and Above

Sangria Sorbet

Deconstructed Peach Crumble

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