Blogs

Chatto’s Digest

Posts with category ‘A La Mode’

Sail Away

Posted on August 8, 2006

A weekend I always look forward to is fast approaching—August 18,19 and 20— the annual tour of Niagara when David Lawrason and I squire our guests around some of the peninsula’s best restaurants and wineries, vineyards and farms. It’s very well organised and tremendous fun. We all meet at the Port Credit marina on the Friday morning, then spend an exhilarating four or five hours sailing across to Niagara-on-the-Lake in a flotilla of luxurious 46-foot Hunter yachts (an excellent opportunity for millionaire fantasies, pirate accents and semi-serious racing) courtesy of Angus Yachts. I always feel as if I’ve been on holiday for a week by the time we glide up the Niagara river to the private dock where a champagne reception helps us all get our land legs back. That night we host the winemakers’ dinner at the Prince of Wales hotel (everyone is staying there this year), where David introduces fascinating wines that are too rare and precious to make it onto LCBO shelves. The winemakers themselves are also there to discuss their offerings.

Tubers in the Moonlight

Posted on October 16, 2006

A peculiar week has yielded three very different but memorable meals. First, a dinner at Truffles, enjoyed on October 2. My wife and I had gone there intending to review the restaurant and review it I did, completing my analysis last week and awarding no less than four stars. I share this double-secret information because I have since heard that Executive Chef Lynn Crawford is leaving Toronto at the end of the month to become Executive Chef at the Four Seasons hotel in New York and so my stellar review is wasted. Whoever replaces Lynn Crawford will have to be allowed to settle in, oversee her or his own menu for Truffles and then we’ll have another look.

Chatto Bio Pic

James Chatto

James Chatto worked as a dishwasher, actor, waiter, bow tie salesman, choreen, bookseller, nanny, tennis coach, lounge singer, KFC truck driver (fired after 1 day), olive farmer and janitor before moving to Canada in 1987 and becoming a journalist. These days, he writes about food and restaurants for Toronto Life, about wine and spirits for Food & Drink and edits the menswear magazine, Harry. Two of his books are still in print: A Matter of Taste (co-written with Lucy Waverman) and The Greek For Love, a memoir of Corfu. James is married and has two delightful children.

Chatto's Digest RSS Feed