David Laurence
food&drink
Skin + Bones owners Daniel and Lisa Clarke (clockwise from top left) tart up brunch with cinnamon buns, their Ploughman’s Buffet, a roasted mushroom stew with l entils and poached eggs sided with greens, and a creative take on eggs Benedict featuring a slab of porchetta.
Bones’ big brunch Skin + Bones’ Sunday meal should be drawing better crowds By Steven Davey SKIN + BONES (980 Queen East, at
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Carlaw, 416-524-5209, s kinandbonesto.com, @skinandbonesto) Complete brunches for $30 per person, including tax, tip and a mimosa. Average main $15. Open for brunch Sunday 10 am to 2 pm. Reservations accepted. Licensed. Access: one step at door, washrooms on same floor. Rating: NNNN
There’s the inevitable lineup out front of Leslieville’s Lady Marmalade this subarctic Sunday morn, but two blocks away we’ve got Skin + Bones to ourselves. Since opening in November 2012, swanky S+B has been somewhat of a hard sell, more chic west-side supper club than hippy-dippy brunch spot. If this were Dundas and Ossington, the joint would be jumping. “It takes the neighbourhood a while to warm up to something new,” says owner Daniel Clarke. “They want to see that
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you’re committed to the long haul.” To lure reluctant locals, Clarke instituted brunch service in December. The rapidly filling room around us suggests they approve. And what a room it is! Instead of thrift-shop dinette suites and loopy bric-a-brac, we find a sleek loungey bar up front and a much larger vaulted room to the rear, a former mechanic’s garage dominated by an open kitchen and a long buffet table. You
could fit a dozen SUV strollers in here – and you will, seeing as rug rats under five eat for free – and you wouldn’t even notice (much), so cavernous is the family-friendly space. Suitably fortified with a round of $6 Campari spritzers, we opt for à la carte to start. Those who dismiss eggs Benedict as merely eggs with egg sauce will have a change of heart over brunch chef Tara Lee’s clever spin, now a great honkin’ slab of tenderpink pork belly porchetta, complete with cracklin’, topped with a yolky, sous-vide slow-poached, freerange egg covered in textbook hollandaise. A cheesy polenta purée laced with wilted kale replaces the traditional English muffin ($14 with grilled housebaked sourdough). The ex-Cowbell sous sends out crisply fried chicken breasts in buttermilk batter offset by crunchy apple slaw ($14) and meaty mushroom stew thick with leeks and du Puy
lentils and finished with more of those terrific sous-vide eggs ($11 with salad). A side of triple-cooked potato wedges with ranch dressing ($6) goes with almost everything. There’s also peanut butter and jelly French toast ($5) and Callebaut hot chocolate ($3) for the small fry. She only makes a hash of the smoked brisket hash, an indifferent fry-up of spuds, ’shrooms and shredded beef topped with a fried egg ($12). But what of that all-you-can-eat spread? Although you can do Bones’s Ploughman’s Buffet on its own ($14, children 10 and under $9), it’s a bigger bargain as a $3 add-on to any of the
Critics’ Pick NNNNN Rare perfection NNNN Outstanding, almost flawless NNN Recommended, worthy of repeat visits NN Adequate N You’d do better with a TV dinner
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mains. That gets you house-made granola, high-fat yogurt and syrup poached pears. One week, the charcuterie includes house-cured bresaola and fabulously fatty lonza, the next it’s fennel-flecked salami and rubyred coppa pork shoulder. Cheeses range from chunks of pricey Beemster and vintage cheddar to creamy Chevalier brie and chèvre. Spicy togarashi and Cerignola olives are a must. And who can say no to retro house-baked cinnamon buns, sour cream coffee cake glazed with milk toffee and the most impossibly rich palmiers this side of the Left Bank? 3 stevend@nowtoronto.com | @stevendaveynow
Indicates patio
NOW march 6-12 2014
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