Aidan Pascoe appears surprisingly calm. The gangly 28-year chef’s newly launched Liberty Belle Bistro (133 Jefferson, at King W, 647-352-3553) is only halfway through Sunday brunch service, and the joint is slammed.
“When you do it right in the restaurant industry, it looks like you’re doing nothing at all,” says Pascoe. “People don’t realize how much time you’ve got to put in – servers, dishwashers, cooks – to get to that level where, regardless of how much shit is hitting the fan, you keep your cool. It takes years of practice to look this effortless.”
As if he’s worried. The 30-seat Belle – not to be confused with nearby Liberty Bistro – has only been up and running since the beginning of January and it’s already taking sleepy Liberty Village by storm. Little wonder when the ex-Le Select vet’s stellar steak frites goes for all of 22 bucks. And what frites these be!
“Me and the deep fryer are old friends,” laughs Pascoe who started out as a tempura chef at chi-chi Ki on Bay Street straight out of George Brown. “I’ve been stunned by the fryer quite a few times. I had so many little scars and scabs on my arms, people used to mistake me for a meth addict.”
Just as habit-forming, his remarkably rich Crepe Quebecoise are a locavore’s wet dream. Stuffed as they are with Westphalian ham, scrambled free-range Mennonite eggs and aged Gruyere from the townships, they come swimming in maple syrup from a tree just outside of Uxbridge ($13 with salad and rosti) even though chef prefers to keep it on the down low.
“You don’t advertise you sell good wine, you sell good wine,” reckons Pascoe. “Food needs to stand on its own.”
Pascoe’s also a firm believer in checking out a restaurant’s toilets before he’ll eat in its dining room.
“If the washrooms aren’t clean, do you really think they’re keeping the kitchen clean, a thing that you can’t see and isn’t open to the public?” reason Pascoe.
La Belle’s loo is not only spotless, it’s a show-stopper. The men’s sports stall doors retrofitted from a 1950 McLary fridge while the ladies’ resembles an exotic art nouveau casbah complete with risqué Aubrey Beardsley lithographs.
“When I go to a restaurant that has beautiful or unusual washroom, I’ll come back and mention it to the table. For some weird reason, it seems to be a good conversation starter!”
