Chef's at the Hearth
Toronto Life Entertainment Guide 2006

By Margaret Swaine

Bring your favourite restaurant in home for a dinner with panache.

Didier
The elegance of Didier Leroy's classic French cooking can be recreated in your home for dinner parties of 6 to 16 people. You get Didier and a sous-chef for a chef's fee of $500. Prior to the night, Didier will meet you at your home to suss out your kitchen, budget and desires. "I go to the market myself and I do everything myself. I think it's fair," said Didier. Food costs average $90 to $125 per person for a five-course menu. Canapés, oysters with champagne granité, salad des Lords, braised loup and lamb shank with sauce nicoise were on one recent home menu. With his off-site catering licence he can buy the wines to match or pull from your cellar. Didier's cooked at home for Conrad Black, who wanted the meal served on platters English style, for YPO groups (Young Presidents Organization) who like to watch and get involved and a long time for the French Embassy. At a two-person thirtieth birthday dinner he did, the wife told had her husband it was a pizza night. "I ring the bell and I said I'm the pizza man," said Didier.

Bistro and Bakery Thuet
Marc Thuet recently leased a full catering facility within the Toy Factory Building about seven minutes from his French bistro restaurant and bakery. He's super equipped now to serve five, six or eight course menus in your home. Last Christmas he did a high-end turkey dinner for a Post Road client that knocked it up a notch with truffle-mashed potatoes topped with caviar and icewine marinated foie gras terrine ($200 pp). Recent menu items were trio of yellow fin tuna, Tasmanian ocean trout and poached lobster starter and duo of lamb (saddle and chop) for the main. Thuet's noticed people are health conscious, keen on organic and educated about their meats. Hence his pork loin is Cumbrae's as is his 60-day dry aged prime rib and pigs are "estate grown". If you want Marc along with a sous-chef, be prepared to shell out $2,000 for chef fees.

North 44
North 44 has a well-heeled clientele that's loyal to its innovative, classy yet familiar style of haute-cuisine. The restaurant's vans can be seen dashing about Forest Hill, Rosedale, Lawrence Park and beyond to cottage country as they cater to many a party. They've a dozen chefs who could go to a home but don't expect top gun, Mark McEwan, whose busying minding his growing foodie empire (North 44, Bymark and soon to be open One in The Hazelton in Yorkville). The majority of at home diners go traditional with beef tenderloin or rack of lamb as a main. In summer BBQ fare, especially the Bymark burger (ground strip loin with brie and porcini) is hugely popular. Black cod, French fries in cones, brisket in baguettes with caramelized onion are other favourites. Food costs run from $75 upper person and chefs go for $250.

Fat Cat
Customers of Mathew Sutherland's quaint, 30-seat open kitchen boîte often book him for in home dining after eating at his eight-course $250 chef's table. A group of ten Lytton Park ladies had him come once a month for a year of cooking lesson styled meals, rotating the host and home each time. In the summer the men joined in for a BBQ meal/lesson lubricated with lots of BYO wine. Other times Sutherland's gone to a home cellar, picked out wines and then devised a menu to match. Expect Sutherland to be there - chef fees are rolled into the food costs. A three-course menu for 30 might go for as low as $50 while an eight course, eight-person meal could be $250 per person. A recent wine-paired menu featured black grouper ceviche, grilled quail, foie gras, wild boar, bison bavette and grilled beef tenderloin with a host of Italian cheeses to finish. Customers include investment and business people, bankers and pharmaceutical executives. He generally goes to the home for an initial consultation and view of the kitchen. A past office tower dinner party for 14 took him by surprise with a tiny space and just a toaster oven and microwave.

Bodega
The restaurant serves French cuisine in its charming Victorian manor house complete with fireplaces and oak trim. The kitchen is also geared to cook Gallic in homes but has happily done Indian, Thai, Italian and Chinese menus. Traditional bistro fare at the restaurant can have modern twists such as Asian style salmon tartar but old favourites such as escargot with stilton cream sauce are permanent fixtures. Chef du cuisine Derek Kennedy sharpened his knives mainly at private clubs about the province before settling at Bodega for the past eight years. At home menus have included foie gras terrine, chilled asparagus soup, lobster Wellington and warm cheesecake. Kennedy will always do a face to face before the evening which he generally attends himself for a chef's fee of $30 an hour, four hour minimum. Whether its big-ticket meals for Forest Hill and Bridal Path clients or catering to a twenty buck a person budget, Bodega is there to oblige. Flexible in all ways from cooking to costs to delivery, the kitchen will even make the meal for you to finish in the oven so your guests think you're the chef.