RUBY WATCHCO

Who knows (or remembers) Chef Lynn Crawford from Food Network's Restaurant Makeover or from her current series Pitchin' In or as New York's Four Seasons head chef, one of the most distinguished positions in the food world. Well she is back! And taking Toronto by storm with her newest venture Ruby Watchco, a restaurant on Queen. Ruby Watchco is run by chef Lynn Crawford, designer Cherie Stinson and her husband Joey Skier with Lora Kirk as the restaurants head chef. It has always been Crawford's dream to return home to Toronto and open her own place and now she has done it! And what a different type of restaurant it is! Each night the restaurant offers ONE four course meal - salad, main, cheese & dessert which showcases local farmers ingredients, whatever they happened to find that day. You won't find a menu on their website, simply a line stating "Chef Lynn and Chef Lora are working on next week’s menus.  We are looking forward to cooking for you all soon!" (rubywatchco.ca) The meal is $49 per head, so you know for a cost like this you will be served something fabulous. Another plus, Chef Crawford is open to make allowances for allergies and vegetarians which is, in my mind an important quality in restaurant's today: accommodation. 

On her different way of running a restaurant Crawford says, “When you go for dinner at a friend’s house, you don’t ask what the menu is,” she points out. “That’s what we’re doing here—saying, Trust us, it’s going to be delicious.” (torontolife.com) Her website is filled with testimonials and James Chatto's review in Toronto Life gives the restaurant a great vibe, one which I can't wait to test out myself. Crawford's idea is bold and unusual, but it is for that exact reason that she will have tables full every night! How neat to think that what you have one night will be completely different from someone's the next. And the even better part, she is doing all of this while supporting local Ontario farmers!

James Chatto's meal at Ruby Watchco on opening night:

Salad: Confited chicken leg, chopped up with croutons, red lettuce leaves, shaved radish, a quartered soft-boiled egg and some shaved pecorino, two chive buttermilk biscuits served alongside with house-churned butter (James Chatto, Toronto Life)

Main: Grilled flank steak, sliced thickly on the bias, a puck of herbed cabernet franc butter melting over the meat, with watercress beneath it. Smoked button mushrooms, sautéed with baby creminis and caramelized onion petals, nestled in one Le Creuset ramekin. Another held chopped leeks and spinach, both braised in cream. A third was filled with buttery roast parsnips, cut like plump frites. (James Chatto, Toronto Life)

Cheese: A bold 10-year-old Ottawa Valley cheddar, accompanied by unctuous balsamic onion chutney, some local honey and toasted walnut bread from nearby St. John’s Bakery (James Chatto, Toronto Life)

Dessert: A superb lemon tart finished the meal, the intensely citric curd swelling up inside pastry, its surface still trembling from the hot kiss of a blow torch enhanced by whipped cream scented with thyme and vanilla. (James Chatto, Toronto Life)

RUBY WATCHCO

730 Queen Street East

Toronto ON M4M 2H4‎

416-465-0100‎

rubywatchco.ca

photo credit: torontolife.com & rubywatchco.ca