Review: Colette Grand Café is expensive, conservative and mostly good
Colette Grand Café ★½
550 Wellington St. W., 647-348-7000
The new restaurant in the Thompson Hotel is ultra-polished and styled after an airy Riviera brasserie. It’s run by the Chase Hospitality Group and radiates—for better or worse, depending on your dining tastes—a corporate vibe. Chef Michael Steh’s food is expensive (inflated hotel prices are in full effect), conservative and mostly good. Lobster spaghetti brings two fat hunks of buttery shellfish, afroth with lobster-stock foam and sitting on chewy fresh pasta, but the sauce lacks depth and pepper heat. Better is duck magret, cooked to lush red in the centre and served with a vinegary rhubarb compote and a brown-buttery Jerusalem artichoke purée—three elements that burst with umami when forked together.
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Colette Grand Café ★½
550 Wellington St. W., 647-348-7000
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The new restaurant in the Thompson Hotel is ultra-polished and styled after an airy Riviera brasserie. It’s run by the Chase Hospitality Group and radiates—for better or worse, depending on your dining tastes—a corporate vibe. Chef Michael Steh’s food is expensive (inflated hotel prices are in full effect), conservative and mostly good. Lobster spaghetti brings two fat hunks of buttery shellfish, afroth with lobster-stock foam and sitting on chewy fresh pasta, but the sauce lacks depth and pepper heat. Better is duck magret, cooked to lush red in the centre and served with a vinegary rhubarb compote and a brown-buttery Jerusalem artichoke purée—three elements that burst with umami when forked together.
Have an opinion on Colette Grand Café? Add your review here »){kind=link}
Curious headline of “mostly good” then accompanied by 1.5 stars.. then i noticed 1 star means good on a scale of good to perfect. It kind of feels like “everybody gets a medal day” in grade school, even the really slow kids.
Toronto Life restaurant listings will routinely give no stars if it’s less than good, i.e. just average.
I just ate here with a bunch of girlfriends and it was impeccable. loved everything. expensive yes but the service and food made up for that.
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