Saturday night we ventured to a great dinner locally in Toronto at Monk Kitchen. The restaurant is hidden in the basement of the also hidden Templar Hotel on Adelaide St. I had never even heard of the hotel or the restaurant, but some friends we were dining with set it up and did the research.
Upon arrival we were casually guided through restaurant to a table in the kitchen that was at the end of the prep counter. A very fun and casual experience. We were able to watch and interact with cooks to see our food being prepared and between each of the courses the chef would come over and let us know what we were eating. Apparently if you are in the dining room you get the same experience, but of course, you aren't having the views in the kitchen.
There is no menu at Monk Kitchen. You simply show up and the get what the chef wants to serve you every night and every meal is a multi course experience. Because the kitchen also services the hotel above, they will also take special requests for the hotel patrons. Basically the restaurant acts as a personal chef to the hotel also.
The adventure of not knowing what you will be eating is great fun. He did ask us what we didn't like or wouldn't eat. Normally I mention octopus and eel, but I just went with the flow tonight... I'm so adventurous.
We ordered the wine flight to go with each course and that was probably the only disappointment of the evening. Although the wine was good (most of the pairings are lost on me, I just drink to drink) we felt the staff wasn't informative enough. We wanted to know why the wine was paired with the course and some reasoning behind it. At times the staff wouldn't even tell us what we were drinking and just pour and go. We did let the chef know on the way out, so hopefully that improves. One thing that was great was that they let us split a wine flight. So Brad and I got half glasses each which worked out perfectly.
Overall, the food was delicious. It was a great experience sitting in the kitchen. The staff was all very friendly and it was fun talking with the chef. Our one criticism that Brad and I both shared was that it could have used one more course. Not because we left hungry, but we felt the meal would have felt more complete if there was maybe a beef course after the duck course. Is that too much to ask? Sometimes 7 courses is just not enough.
