What’s on the menu at M’Eat, Leslieville’s new restaurant that’s also a butcher shop
Name: M’Eat Resto and Butcher
Contact: 806 Queen St. E., meatrestobutcher.com, @meatrestobutcher
Neighbourhood: Leslieville
Previously: Mazz Japanese Bistro
Owner: Cameron Nelson and Danielle Brown
Chef: Cameron Nelson (O&B, Nyood, Bymark) and chef de cuisine Rudy Boquila (Lamesa)
The food
Cameron Nelson moved to Toronto from rural Alberta 20 years ago. While he’s mostly adjusted, the farm boy felt the city was missing a place for great steak in an unpretentious atmosphere. He’s bringing in one animal at a time from a farm in Gowanstown (where each cow has two acres of land and a diet of grass and fruit rinds from the Sun-Kissed factory) and breaking them down in-house.
Lunchtime sees a simple menu of sandwiches, burgers and steak frites that come in a variety of cuts. As Nelson is only working with one cow at a time, cuts will depend on availability. The dinner menu (which is surprisingly vegetarian friendly) also features an oyster-less raw bar that includes three versions of raw beef plates from around the world: a tataki, a carpaccio and a tartare. The exact preparation of each will change regularly, dictated by what’s in season.
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The drinks
Since Nelson will be doing a lot of meal prep behind the bar, he wanted a concise menu of easy-to-pour drinks that he could make in between primping plates. This translates to beer, wine and whisky. The beers are all hyper-local (Godspeed, Muddy York) and the whiskeys partly local (Gooderham & Worts, Crown Royal and Bowmore), while the wines are international, most of them Old World options.
The space
Cameron’s built a few fences in his day, so he took on the bulk of this three-week whirlwind reno. They transformed a moody Japanese bistro into a room with a farmhouse feel by using a ton of barnboard, a few antique tables and a pastoral wallpaper scene. They’re working on a grab-and-go section that will include stocks, demi glace and oven-ready stews and lasagnas. A few Canadian products from small-scale producers (maple syrup, finishing salts, preserves) are also for sale.
Caroline Aksich, a National Magazine Award recipient, is an ex-Montrealer who writes about Toronto’s ever-evolving food scene, real estate and culture for Toronto Life, Fodor’s, Designlines, Canadian Business, Glory Media and Post City. Her work ranges from features on octopus-hunting in the Adriatic to celebrity profiles.
