Best New Restaurants 2015: #19, Montecito
The movie director Ivan Reitman owns a condo in the Festival Tower and wanted somewhere nice to eat, so he flew up his favourite chef, the venerable New York farm-to-table guy Jonathan Waxman, and pulled back the curtain on a two-storey, 280-seat restaurant named after his Californian home. The place is a lot like Reitman’s movies—flashy, goofy and shamelessly crowd-pleasing. The menu includes Waxman’s famous roast chicken with a caper salsa verde, possibly the finest cluck in town, and daily fresh pastas in simple but perfect sauces, sometimes no more than a slick of butter and a handful of parmesan. For dessert there’s even a riposte to Ghostbusters’ city-stomping terror: a baked Alaska under a drift of charred marshmallow.
I love this restaurant so much. The chicked verde is to die for i crave it. They have the best food, staff and atmosphere in Toronto. Very cultured. Great drinks. And some of the best events I’ve ever been too. The Pagani event was my favorite to date, we were blessed with the presence of Sophie Tweed Simmons and Donovan Bailey.
West: 46
East: 3