KERIWA CAFE (1690 Queen West, at Roncesvalles, 416-533-2552, keriwacafe.ca) Complete meals for $65 per person, including tax, tip and a glass of wine. Average main $25. Open Tuesday to Thursday 5:30 to 10 pm, Friday and Saturday 5:30 to 11 pm. Closed Sunday, Monday, holidays. Licensed. Access: barrier-free, washrooms in basement. Rating: NNNN
Although some have touted Parkdale’s latest “it spot” as such, Keriwa Café isn’t Toronto’s first aboriginal restaurant.
That honour goes to Eureka Continuum, a long-gone resto in a clubland pool hall remembered less for its ground-breaking grub than for one of it’s bouncers murdering a customer and disposing the body in a bathtub of Javex.
Only launched in August, the compact 44-seat café is nearly full this early Thursday eve, drawn by a carte that owner/chef Aaron Joseph Bear Robe describes as “local, seasonal and regional classic cuisine that showcases aboriginal ingredients and techniques.”
Bear Robe, who followed an apprenticeship at Michael Stadtländer’s Eigensinn Farm with a stint at chi-chi Splendido, comes out swinging with slices of rustic house-baked Red Fife bread spread with unsalted butter and insanely rich whipped pork fat laced with paprika, a few flakes of house-smoked grey sea salt to finish.
The first of several wooden platters arrives, this one groaning with a fabulously lean slab of pork belly confited in duck fat and grilled over an open orchard-wood fire. A smear of apple butter, a sautéed tangled of Savoy cabbage and a few pickled raspberries add just the right note of acidity.
Braised in bison stock and sweetened with house-made Saskatoon berry jelly, another starter of jerky-like pemmican (both $14) paired with Red Fife fry bread and a terrific summer salad of shaved pickled beets and yellow beans with pea shoots in a sparse citrus vinaigrette shows up in a wooden bowl shaped like a canoe. A dish this gorgeous deserves a plate. Or a board.
Bear Robe lands a left hook with a special of roast pheasant ($24), its tender pink breast and thigh augmented with a lemony crepe stuffed with shredded bird, a tower of turnip, a handful of roasted Concord grapes – watch the pips, Gladys – and a bed of buttery puréed parsnips.
His free-range and grass-fed braised bison short ribs over a dazzling pommes purée laced with Thunder Oak Gouda ($27) deliver the knockout punch, their garnish of celeriac salsa verde and pickled Ontario peaches the icing on the cake.
Chef’s vegetarian entrees are just as complex, especially his wild mushroom tart ($21) dressed with wilted sorrel, a toss of sliced pine mushrooms and a generous grinding of nutmeg.
Pastry whiz Nis’ku Closs, along with sous Dennis Tay, both Splendido vets, offers a classic wedge of pumpkin pie dolloped with whipped cream and crumbled brittle ($10). They even send you home with a complimentary cinnamon bun for the morning after.
So what’s not to love? The room’s an acoustic nightmare, all hard surfaces that render normal conversation and the usual random boomer soundtrack of Neil Young and Bob Marley a cacophony. We have to lean in to hear our extremely well-informed server every time she describes what we’re about to eat, and even then, we don’t catch half of what she’s saying.
And turn up the lights. Food this creatively plated is as much a feast for the eyes as the tongue. And did we mention the exhaust system or lack thereof? All that wood-grilling produces an awful lot of smoke. Fix these easily rectified flaws and Keriwa Café could be a contender.
stevend@nowtoronto.com
