Susur Lee lite: the celebrity chef is back, but he didn’t bring his A game. Lee Lounge, his latest venture, falls flat
In the year following the announcement of Susur Lee’s new project in the storied room that once was Susur restaurant, it was tempting to believe that the chef was planning a triumphant return to Toronto. Speaking on his behalf, Brenda Bent, his wife and the designer of his Toronto restaurants, sounded keen to have her peripatetic husband back in the city more often. She even went so far as to enumerate the days Lee is contractually obliged to spend at his restaurants in New York, D.C. and Singapore (a total of 58 per year), adding that her husband wanted to “offer a more intense level of cooking” here at home.
This was great news for diners craving something more ambitious than Lee, the casual, cash-spinning and comparatively low-maintenance restaurant he has run, albeit often from a distance, since 2004, or Madeline’s, which stood for a couple years in the former Susur space but never came close to being as good as its predecessor.
Could diners dare to dream that the chef might give it his all in a Toronto kitchen again? When the new place, Lee Lounge, opened on Valentine’s Day, after eight months of delays, the first thing you saw inside the door was a black and white picture of Lee as a child with his family in Hong Kong, and the words “Re-Entry Permit” written above the photo on the wall. “Re-Entry Permit” was the theme of the Lee Lounge launch. What else were we supposed to think? Susur Lee was back.
Yet now that the room is open, all the hype feels cheap in retrospect, like an elaborately stage-managed bait and switch. Lee Lounge is not new, and it’s not a real restaurant, and it doesn’t particularly matter if he’s back or not—you hardly need a super-chef to run a place as ambitionless as this. The space, now connected to Lee next door, is more of a holding area for its bigger sibling than a restaurant in its own right. One half of the room has been made into the lounge, with low black lacquered tables and leather couches, plus a long bar (left over from Madeline’s) that’s fronted with pink vintage stools. The other half, closest to Lee, is restaurant overflow, set with full-size dining tables and chairs, so that if you’re hunching over one of the little tables in the lounge (which was deserted when I went), the overflow people (of whom there were many; Lee is always jammed) are sitting much higher than you.
It’s all quite pretty, of course: Bent has hung Mao-era propaganda prints of ruddy-cheeked peasants and marching children in the recessed light boxes along the back wall. The tables have paintings of peonies lacquered into their tops, and there’s an impressive taxidermic blowfish that turns, in full, glorious bloat, on a wire in a mirrored box; it shudders a little whenever one of the servers breezes by too fast. The lounge area’s short, pan-Asian, cocktail-friendly menu, with its Chinese doughnut fritters and whipped chickpea dip, is composed mostly of retreads from Lee’s other restaurants around the globe.
Susur Lee once helped to invent the field of cooking now known as modern Chinese. Little more than a decade ago, Food and Wine magazine named him one of its top 10 chefs of the millennium. At a time when much of Toronto, and the world, still thought of Chinese food as sweet-and-sour chicken balls and greasy chow mein, he was serving tuna with wasabi-parsnip mousse, cucumber jelly and crispy squid ink noodles. At the height of his legendary eight-year run at Susur, the room made Restaurant Magazine’s list of the world’s 50 best restaurants. Food writers, editors and high-end eaters from around the globe knew they’d not yet lived if they hadn’t had his lobster with black truffles, Qianpang Xie–style egg white and uni sauces and crispy dried scallops. When Susur Lee was a cook and an innovator instead of just another celebrity chef, the world used to troop to Toronto for a taste of his genius.
(Image: Jess Baumung)
These days, you get cheeseburger spring rolls. The rolls come five to an order: ground beef and aged cheddar snugged into flour wrappers and deep-fried, served with chipotle mayo on the side. They were bland and underwhelming both times I had them: you get all the cheeseburger fat and guilt without the reward. Like much of the menu, they’re also cheap and easy, engineered for mass production far from the master’s reach—given one day’s training and an apron, almost anybody could make them. Although Lee doesn’t seem keen to acknowledge this, they’re not even original: his former chef de cuisine in New York, Doron Wong, developed them at another restaurant before he ever came to work for Lee.
Lee Lounge has better dishes. There’s salmon sashimi (the menu calls it “ceviche,” though it’s uncured) stuffed with fresh ginger and pickled daikon for puckery crunch, served over jalapeño-spiked ponzu. There are light, crunchy onion fritters with deep-fried coriander on top and a little bowl of minted mango yogurt dip on the side. He serves wicked Peking duck rolls stuffed with scallion, gently floral julienned persimmon, earthy, rich foie gras mousse, red chili slices and geysers of house-made hoisin (ask for extra napkins; it comes shooting out) that’s poised at the intersection of sweet, salty, sour and boldly aromatic without the bottled stuff’s usual glooping tar. His Hunan chicken wings are so tender you wonder if they were braised for hours instead of fried; they’re free of skin and fat, dressed with a light chili and plum paste glaze, and sided with a narcotizing pool of Hunan dipping sauce that tastes of sesame, black vinegar and chilis—it’s as sour-sweet as unrequited lust. But then the edamame, of all things, were mushy, overcooked and undersalted, and the $5 candied peanuts just stuck to my teeth.
Perhaps I shouldn’t be so surprised. While other culinary superstars, chefs like New York’s David Chang, for instance (who will eclipse Susur Lee, I suspect, when he opens two places in Toronto in 2012), surround themselves with kitchen staff at the top of their games, Lee doesn’t always do the same. His talent pool in Toronto is remarkably shallow: every last one of his Susur cooks—staff who could be called upon to produce the sort of ultra-precise masterworks the chef was once known for—has long since departed for another restaurant. It’s hard to attract and retain the best and the brightest when you’re running a casual dining place, spinning out composed salads and satays, and then aren’t around to inspire and train them. The chef is spread thin between his other restaurants, too. It probably made good business sense for him to do a lounge here instead of a more ambitious place.
It’s true that we take Lee’s every decision more personally than we do the decisions of any other chef. We exulted when Susur restaurant became successful, and we were jealous when he closed the place to concentrate on New York. He’s got bills to pay and a business to run in a crushingly difficult industry. He doesn’t owe us anything, and he never asked to be tethered as tightly as he is to Toronto’s fragile ego. I get all that.
But I keep struggling with how disappointed I felt after eating at Lee Lounge, twice. When I spoke to Lee on the phone late this winter, he explained, “Ultimately, I still want to cook my fine little things, but not crazy where I have to produce hundreds of plates.” And so rather than cooking for the masses, he does private dinners once or twice a month in the room at the back of the restaurant for corporate clients and some of the best patrons from the height of his career. “I have so many great wines from the Susur days,” he says. “I will call up people and say, ‘Listen, I would like to do a dinner with these wines. Would you be interested?’ It’s great, because I still love to cook.”
Which is encouraging, I guess. Maybe you still can have Susur Lee’s cooking, if he invites you, or you know him, or you want it badly enough and you’re willing to pay. It’s just too bad he’s barely trying for everybody else.
Lee Lounge
601 King St. W., 416-504-7867
Mains $7–$22
couldn’t agree more. lee lounge (after waiting for months) was a huge let down.
the peanuts were one of the worst things i’ve ever tried to eat – couldn’t speak properly for hours afterward…
Lee Lounge – such a disappointment.
works his cooks over the legal max,karma sucks, cheeseburger spring rolls gross!
so much to say, so little time. thanks toronto life!
I haven’t been yet, but from what I’ve read it seems like Susur’s presence on King is going in a similar manner to King West. It’s definitely not the place it once was.
OUCH ! WHAT A SCATHING ARTICLE , BASICALLY HES DONE , SO LETS MOVE ON ………CHICKEN BALLS ANYONE?
For once, couldn’t agree more with you, Mr. Nuttall-Smith…
On the same token, can we say the same thing about Mark McEwan as well ?? ……
i nominate jamie kennedy for the win. apparently being a celebrity chef means you can take out the chef part.
FYI..David Chang is Korean!!!!!!! I know you think they all look the same and the all cook the same.. but that is just plain ignorant!.
I enjoyed my meals there (I have been three times) and the criticism seems so personal but… everyone to their own opinion. Mine is that it is still one of the better restaurants in a city with great restaurant and Mr. Lee still a great chef in a city with MANY great chefs.. Thank goodness we have so many great places and they all exist together..
Que? I don’t believe the piece calls Chang anything other than “a superchef.” I certainly didn’t call him Chinese. THanks. CN-S
That’s true, Mr. N-S is well aware of David’s Korean origin.
As a side note, when I was in NYC last month, I visited 3 of David’s establishments, the Noodle Bar, the Ssam Bar, and Ma Peche…
Got a chance to chat with Chang and his manager at Ssam Bar, Kevin.
They will be setting foot here in T-dot in July next year. And once again, food was amazing in all 3 places… The “originality” and “creativeness” are somethings that chefs here can certainly learn from.
Btw, please check out the top 100 restaurants in the world list that just came out, 2 of Chang’s places are on it !
Even trying to make a reservation at Lee’s Lounge is difficult- not because of the “wait”, but because of the incompetency of the host-stand. I made a reservation at Lee’s LOUNGE only to be seated at Lee’s. Upon inquiry to switch (really wanted to try the wings), I was informed it was full because of ‘reservations’ …this was not lost on me.. and unless I wanted to sit at the bar I was better off where I was- eating at the more expensive Lee’s. Despite this disappointment, the food was enjoyable. Yet, due to the service, and upon hearing this happened to three-other acquaintances I will not be back. And I warn anyone wishing to dine – triple check your reservations!
I guess the author’s invite for the private dinner parties is in the mail! Susur is and always will be a culinary genius – that’s why he has restaurants all over the world and his time is always in demand.
Sorry, I just couldn’t buy in the mushy edamame and candied peanut logic….hardly considered exotic palate food – unless that is why you went there!!!
If you want real Susur food – then step up to the plate and ask him to cook for your private party….then compare apples to any other chef in North America.
Cheeseburger spring rolls = trashy and ridiculous — had them at city hall when Susur’s (cute!) son was manning the booth. Sadly though, S.L.’s time is over. I wouldn’t bother with Lee Lounge…next, please!
Bang on review. I had the misfortune of being seated in the overflow after making a reservation at Lee.. the tables were too large for private conversation, particularly over the most random 80’s and 90’s pop/rap/dance (seriously) at variable and usually too-loud volume levels. Service was problematic – every dish was brought or collected by a different server so nobody was keeping an eye on our dining experience as a whole.
I started working at Lee/Lee Lounge with high hopes of great food and spectacular service. Needless to say I was horribly disappointed by the calibur of staff and food alike.
Not only was I told that I was not allowed to taste any of the food I would be serving, I was told that most of the staff had never actually eaten any of it either! I worked for two days in a frantic restaurant, full of pretentious servers and high strung chefs. I did, only when the kitchen made mistakes, get a chance to try the onion fritters and the cheeseburger spring rolls only to be severely disappointed. Chef Lee was in the kitchen during my second shift, mentoring his son and staff, but was very concerned about being out on the floor to take photos with customers and VIPs.
I have since left Lee and am a happier person for it.
The only reason I would go back is for his Singaporean style slaw (which is apparently delicious) but even that is not good reason enough to bare being inside.
I agree wholeheartedly with this review. There are many bias and arranged reviews available to Susur and I wish to thank you for an unbiased review. Susur was once indeed on his A game, but this is no longer the case. As a former employee of Lee, I can assure you that a downgrading of ingredients for a higher profit margin, exceptionally high levels of workplace harassment and bullying (from Susur’s sons, Levi and Kai) and underpaying of both overtime and tips, and a general disregard for safety in the work place is common. The guests however are wonderful, the way they are packed into the ornate venue like sardines is not. An utter disappointment that a chef once so worthy of respect has sold out for a greater profit.