As the old saying goes, coming in second is sometimes a blessing — just ask chef Rob Rossi.
The runner-up in the Food Network’s first Top Chef Canada reality show hit the ground running after the finale, to pursue his goal of opening his own restaurant, and he hasn’t looked back. Rossi, 28, is soon to open Bestellen (German for “to order”), modelled after an old-school European tavern. “It’s going to be loud and lively,” Rossi says.
The handsome chef wowed judges on Top Chef Canada with his subtle yet masterful style of cooking and became known for his candid and confident nature on the show. He wasn’t showy, but he was the strong, steady competitor who didn’t get flustered in a challenge. Asked about his plans, during his Top Chef exit interview when he left the show, Rossi said, simply, that he wanted a place of his own.
Bestellen, Rossi says, will open soon. A private Visa dinner was held on Jan. 25 — a sure sign of an imminent opening.
Located on College Street between Ossington and Dufferin, Rossi says the 90-seat space features a large bar. The menu will include “lots of meat, lots of beer on tap and very country-style food.”
All of the bread will be baked on site, the beef will be dry-aged in-house, and Rossi will make his own salami.
“It’s like our own charcuterie,” Rossi says. “The food will be simple, but a lot of work goes into it.” One standout feature will be whole roasted suckling pigs.
Meat is such a focus to his concept that Rossi has designed the restaurant around a dry-aging room that will act as a focal point, allowing diners to look in on hanging meats through a window by the bar.
While talking to Rossi, it becomes obvious this is the kind of place he would like to frequent.
“I always wanted a fun place, a cool place to go where you can get a thick rib-eye and share it,” he says. “Or have a lot of small seasonal plates — so you can share three or four plates and it’s very non-traditional.”
Deciding on the style of his venue, Rossi says he knew first what he didn’t want his restaurant to be. “I didn’t want a restaurant where you choose an appetizer, a main and a dessert,” he says. “I want diners to be able to say, ‘I’ll try the octopus or the pasta or the charcuterie board.’ ”
Everything he serves up at his restaurant, Rossi says, will have been made there. “If I can’t make it, then I’m not putting it on the menu,” he says. “Which is why I won’t have prosciutto on the menu.”
Reading through Rossi’s Twitter feed, it becomes obvious cooking is not only a career for him: it’s his obsession. Born in Toronto, he grew up in Mississauga with his parents and two sisters. They relocated to Barrie, where Rossi went to high school, but he often came in to Toronto on weekends to visit an uncle who owned several restaurants downtown.
“I’ve been in and out of restaurants since I was two years old,” Rossi says. “We used to drive into the city to see him [my uncle], and we’d hang out and watch him cook.”
The only other interest Rossi seems to be exuberant about is fly-fishing, something he relates to food.
“A lot of chefs seem to fish,” Rossi says. “Nature and cooking go together — you fish the fish, cook the fish, serve the fish.”
Throughout high school, Rossi made the most of his summer breaks and worked in the kitchens of hotels and resorts. His first job was as a cook at Horseshoe Valley, north of Barrie, and he later worked out west at a resort in the Canadian Rockies.
Back in Toronto, Rossi quickly found work at now-defunct Belgian eatery Café Brussel and then fine dining restaurant Canoe. Stints at the now-closed Queen West lounge Habitat and as the executive sous chef at Calgary’s upscale Kensington River Side Inn followed. His job before entering the Top Chef competition was as corporate chef at the Mercatto group of restaurants in Toronto.
Mercatto owner Dominic Scarangella had seen an ad for Top Chef and encouraged Rossi to apply. For his audition, Rossi cooked sable fish garnished with fiddlehead ferns and chanterelle mushrooms — ingredients he found at Kensington Market.
“This was back to the learning process,” Rossi says. “Dishes were pulled from memory — we didn’t have recipes or Internet or phone.”
Although he undoubtedly learned from his fellow competitors, it was clear that Rossi has the cooking chops to succeed in the hyper-competitive Toronto cooking scene. Rossi says he decided to open in Toronto because he thinks the competition here will keep him on his toes.
“Toronto is jam-packed with people, so you have to push yourself because you’re not the only chef around,” he says. “You have to push yourself to be good.”
