Gourmet Magazine - Top Places in Toronto

2011’S DINING HOT SPOT: TORONTO

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN GOURMET LIVE 09.14.11

Restaurant critic Chris Nuttall-Smith’s exuberant guide to his deliciously diverse hometown

"And you probably shouldn’t miss Acadia (416-792-6002), the casual, buzzy room that opened in July with a 28-year-old rising star named Matt Blondin at its stove. Blondin, who trained as a fine dining chef, has taken on the tastes and ingredients of the Acadian migration, which spans the Atlantic coast from Canada’s Maritime Provinces right down to Louisiana. He’s melded contemporary Cajun—the étoufées and boudin balls and chow-chow relishes—with a bit of his French-Canadian heritage, and brilliantly, too, and then married all that somehow with the shrimp-and-grits soul of South Carolina and Georgia’s Low Country cuisine. What’s that taste like? Like the green tomato tart that’s built up from buttery puff pastry slicked with fire-roasted, fermented black garlic-goosed cornmeal, and then stacked with whole, oven-warmed tomatoes that have been peeled so that they’re sweet and sour and nearly translucent. They all but quiver when you touch them with a fork. Blondin puts a bit of licorice-y chervil over top, dusts it all with almond-praline powder, and then pipes a bolt of celeriac puree on the plate. It’s one of the greatest dishes in the city right now. But the city’s swelling and changing, always. Toronto gets a new best dish nearly every other week."