Food, food, food.
Anthony Rose, right, the executive chef at the Drake Hotel, always knew what he wanted, even at the tender age of 13.
With his sights set on the hospitality industry, Rose, now 34, used his bar mitzvah money to finance his studies at the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco.
Having suitably honed his skills, he returned to his native Toronto two years ago to take up his present position at the Drake, located on trendy Queen Street West.
Rose, an amiable fellow who talks, thinks and dreams about food, specializes in California cuisine, which celebrates fresh seasonal fare, and in farmhouse cooking, which emphasizes simplicity.
But being inventive, Rose has no problem venturing into new territory.
Last week, in honour of the Taste of Iceland festival – which runs until March 16 and publicizes Icelandair’s first non-stop flight between Toronto and Reykjavik, set for May 2 – Rose collaborated with Icelandic chef Hakon Orvarsson to cook up a storm.
At a media luncheon at the Drake, the pair laid on a memorable meal of Nordic proportions.
An appetizer of pickled herring on Icelandic rye bread was followed by a first course of shredded salt cod soup and root vegetables garnished with horseradish.
The second course, consisting of grilled Ontario lamb, smoked lamb sausage, mashed rutabagas, potatoes and pickled red cabbage with caraway, was topped off by an unusual dessert, rhubarb tart.
“My Russian ancestors would have been familiar with that,” he said.
Rose is no stranger to the kitchen. By the time he was 14, he was flipping pizzas in a pizzeria.
And when he studied geography and geology at Montreal’s Concordia University, thinking he might be a forest ranger, he hung out at Schwartz’s, the legendary Jewish-style delicatessen.
In a sense, food was in his blood.
His mother Linda, a real estate agent, is a great baker whose brisket dish and matzah ball soup elicit rave reviews. His father, Joel, a lawyer, is a wine connoisseur.
Rose’s wife, Kymberly, the mother of their son, Simon, has managed two restaurants and is “an amazing baker” and a “fantastic cook.” Recently, she launched Green Eggs Toronto, a food website.
“I always loved, loved food,” said Rose, who cooked for his siblings, Randi, a cardiologist, and Lorne, a lawyer when they all lived at home.
And he fondly remembers his grandfather bringing steaming hot bagels for family breakfasts.
As a young man, Rose’s tastes were rudimentary, to say the least. “My favourite meal was a hamburger slathered in ketchup,” he admitted.
Rose, having abandoned the misbegotten idea of becoming a forest ranger, refined his taste buds as an apprentice chef at Toronto’s Centro restaurant.
His mentors, David Lee and Marc Thuet, encouraged him to study at the California Culinary Academy, where he spent two years.
There he came under the influence of California cuisine.
“You support your local farmers and you cook with the seasons,” Rose explained. “This is pretty much the way people have always cooked. It’s fresher, it’s supportive of the local economy, it’s tastier and it’s sustainable environmentally.”
After graduating from the California Culinary Academy, he worked in a tavern in upstate New York and then, at among other places, at the Alias, a neighbourhood bistro in New York City’s Lower East Side.
One of his mentors, Jonathan Waxman, taught him the meaning of simplicity and the importance of flavour.
Above all, he learned that you can’t satisfy a customer unless you please yourself.
“You have to love what you’re doing. Cooking is my passion. It’s inside me. I’ve never really done anything else.”
One of Toronto’s few professional Jewish chefs, he serves up a medley of mouth-watering dishes at the Drake.
His appetizers range from mixed greens, tossed with candied hot walnuts, Macintosh apples and Benedictine blue cheese, to hot smoked trout, accompanied by Polenta fries, mustard and garlic.
His “classics,” or entrees, run the gamut from aged striploin with wild mushroom ragout and black truffle aioli to sauteed potatoes and parmesan dumplings with wild mushrooms, roast squash, sage, chili and chestnuts.
At home, he and his wife share the cooking. When they eat out, they tend to frequent Italian, Chinese and Mediterranean restaurants.
He hasn’t plotted out his future, but he’s certain that he’ll be collaborating with Jeff Stober, the proprietor of the Drake. As Rose put it, “We work together very well.”
1 lb. soft unripened goat cheese
6 heads radicchio, cut in quarters-
11/2 cups deeply toasted walnuts
1 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup white wine vinegar
1 bunch oregano leaves picked
juice from 2 lemons
salt and pepper
2 tbsp. chili flakes
extra virgin olive oil for drizzle
Heat gas or charcoal grill to medium. Season radicchio quarters with salt and pepper, extra virgin olive oil and chili flakes. Grill radicchio on all sides until there is a little char, but they’re still a little firm to the touch. Set aside, cool and rough cut.
In a blender, put 1/2 the walnuts, 1 cup extra virgin olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper. Blend until smooth. Season with lemon juice, salt and pepper. Arrange radicchio on plate, crumble cheese on top, drizzle vinaigrette, scatter walnuts and finish with oregano leaves and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. Makes at least 10 servings.
4 pears (Bosc or Bartlett, they should be firm to touch)
2 cups white wine (Riesling or another “sweeter” wine)
2 cups water
1/2 cup honey (or to taste, depending on how sweet the pears are)
pinch of salt
1 cinnamon stick
1 zest, lemon
1 vanilla bean (optional), split in half and seeds scraped
1 thick slice of ginger
Bring all ingredients except pears to a boil. Peel pears, leaving the stem intact on top. Core pears from the bottom using a melon baller. Place pears in poaching liquid, cover, and simmer gently for about 30 minutes, until pears are just tender. Stick a knife into one of the pears to test – there should be slight resistance to the knife (pears shouldn’t be mushy).
Remove pears from the liquid and let cool on the side. Reduce the poaching liquid over high heat until it’s thicker and slightly syrupy. Cool syrup and pour over cooled pears. (This is important, since if the reduced hot syrup is poured over the pears, the syrup would continue cooking the pears.) Refrigerate until ready to serve.
Tip: it’s best to leave the cinnamon, lemon, vanilla, and ginger in the syrup, as their flavours will continue to seep into the syrup as it sits.