Walking into Parkdale’s Chantecler, the new Canadiana-fusion joint that’s opened up in the old Mangez space, you’d think it had been there forever. Named after a chicken breed native to Canada, the 26-seat Parkdale bistro has a warm, comfortable feel that’s accentuated with sophisticated attention to detail.
A black and white tile mosaic that spells the restaurant’s name was painstakingly laid out by co-owner Jacob Wharton-Shukster. Placed above the stunning 1935 Moffat stove on which co-owner and chef Jonathan Poon does his work, it’s symbolic of the joint venture between the two partners: a shared commitment to detail, hard work and beauty.
Wharton-Shukster and Poon worked together previously at Jamie Kennedy at the Gardiner. Poon brings impressive international expertise to Chantecler, having worked at Australian restaurants, where he focused on seafood, and having spent time in the kitchen at Copenhagen’s Noma. Here in Toronto, he was the chef de cuisine at Delux. Wharton-Shukster, meanwhile, worked front-of-house at Buca and Origin.
The menu is organized into smaller and larger plates ($9-$21). Wharton-Shukster suggests ordering several dishes and sharing.
“A lot of what we’re doing draws inspiration from different places,” he says. “That’s the heart of what Canadiana and Toronto is about.”
At $21, the pork neck with oysters, lettuce and XO sauce is the most expensive item on the menu. While it was challenging finding a supplier (pork neck is not a typical cut for Western butchery) Wharton-Shukster says it was worth the search. The nut-fed pork is lightly seared, accompanied by lettuce and two kusshi oysters from the West Coast. Heated in the pork broth, the lettuce comes on the plate slightly wilted. The house-made XO sauce, a Chinese sauce made from dried seafood, adds the Asian-fusion component that Poon is known for.
As a vegetarian dish, polenta is made from Ontario corn. Cooked slowly, it’s topped with a veggie ragout, finely diced shitake mushrooms, caramelized shallots and five-spice powder.
“It probably takes five days to make the dish,” Wharton-Shukster says of the polenta. “It’s totally worth it.”
And as for the restaurant’s namesake, currently there is only one poultry dish on the menu: the chicken consommé with smoked hen’s egg and hen-of-the-woods mushroom confit ($14).
So why is the whole restaurant named after a chicken?
“It’s subtle Canadiana. It’s part of our culture and history, but not immediately so,” Wharton-Shukster says. “And the French identity is sexy.”
Chantecler, 1320 Queen St. W., 416-628-3586
