DRAKE ONE FIFTY (150 York, at Adelaide West, 416-363-6150, drakeonefifty.ca, @thedrakehotel) Complete dinners for $75 per person (lunches $45), including tax, tip and a glass of wine. Average main $28/$22. Open Monday to Wednesday 11:30 am to midnight, Thursday 11:30 am to 1 am, Friday 11:30 am to 2 am, Saturday 5 pm to 2 am, Sunday and holidays 5 to 11 pm. Reservations accepted. Licensed.
From the Douglas Coupland op art wallpaper and the Micah Lexier installation over the circular marble bar to the weird Guy Madden videos in the washrooms, Drake One Fifty wears its art on its sleeve.
One-Fifty’s the financial district spinoff of Jeff Stober’s wildly popular Drake Hotel. Opened three weeks ago, the eclectically decorated room – think Lime Rickey’s 50s kitsch meets the Silver Rail saloon – has been wall-to-wall suits in head-to-toe Harry Rosen ever since.
“I’ve never seen a response like this,” says executive chef Ted Corrado. “We thought we’d get a trickle at first, but we’ve been doing 500 to 600 covers a day.”
Gone are the pork belly tacos and lobster nachos he serves at the Drake, replaced here by a carte aimed squarely at the Bay Street expense-account crowd. Who can afford $150 seafood platters and $89 34-ounce steaks except someone who’s just successfully unloaded her BlackBerry stock? Small wonder my vintage Nehru jacket sticks out like a sore thumb.
Being of a more frugal bent, our group starts with a small plate of blistered shishito peppers and cherry tomatoes finished with sea salt and fried garlic ($9), the same overplayed capsicum you’ll see at Bar Isabel, Woodlot and Patria. Tasty, mind. Corrado’s grandmother provides the recipe for Nonna’s meatballs, three meaty rounds of very ground pork and veal in a thick Strianese tomato sauce laced with n’duja sausage and dressed with smoked ricotta and a few basil sprouts ($14).
Chef switches to a slightly less pulpy San Marzano tomato sauce for his Margherita pizza ($16), a thin-crusted and moderately charred pie in the Neapolitan style – i.e., soupy in the middle – topped with fresh bufala mozzarella, basil leaves and a handful of tiny pickled Peruvian peppers. And regulars will recognize the substantial house cheeseburger piled with Perth County bacon, pickled onion, bibb lettuce and Russian dressing ($21 with chunky hand-cut fries) if only by the chopstick that’s been holding it together since David Chrystian first put it on the menu at the Drake 10 years ago.
Retro calf’s liver and onions ($26) comes cleverly updated with seared foie gras, roasted chanterelle mushrooms and a smattering of pickled cherries, while the pie du jour à la mode – today an apple crumble that borders on butter tart, with house-made vanilla-bean ice cream ($9) – makes a perfect last act.
By far the biggest bargain on hand is Corrado’s rotisserie chicken ($22 half at lunch/$40 whole at dinner). Crispy of skin, tender of flesh and sided with a heap o’ fries, a gravy boat of jus, textbook coleslaw and a flaky biscuit, it reminds us of a certain Swiss Chalet.
“That’s the idea!”
stevend@nowtoronto.com | @stevendaveynow
