Alo Restaurant - Toronto, Canada
Eaten on April 12, 2023
Alo is a ‘contemporary French restaurant’ that is ‘internationally inspired and celebrates the finest in seasonal ingredients’ opened in 2015. Since then they have rose and have become one of THE restaurants in Toronto and in extension, of Canada, ranking 1st in 2020 and 2nd in 2022 list of Canada’s 100 Best. They were also one of the first restaurants to get ranked with 1 star by Michelin Guide’s debut in Canada.
Having lived in Toronto for a period, it has been impossible to get a booking, but I was able to secure a last minute booking for 1 and took the opportunity to go before I left the city. So did it live up to the hype? To answer that question, more questions must be asked.
Are great restaurants meant to introduce a variety of new ideas, tailoring it to a local audience? Are they meant to challenge the existing status quo on food? Is it about serving great food?
These questions went through my head immediately after the first dish, resulting in a strange meal that left me asking these question on my walk home after the meal. There is zero doubt on the quality of ingredients and the capabilities of the kitchen at Alo, led by Patrick Kriss, with executive chef Nick Bentley and Chef de Cuisine Tim Yun. All dishes had a massive amount of care and thought put into, which begs to question two dishes that had me completely baffled.
Culprit one was the foie gras tart, which was served as apart of the canapés, eaten last. With any contemporary french restaurant, foie gras is always a playful dish that allows the kitchen to define in their own way, often speaking to the style and flair they will approach the rest of the menu. But the foie gras tart came with a heavy amount of tartness that stuck along the mouth, while covering up the gameness that comes with foie gras, also covered up the taste of it. The follow up palate cleanser is what shocked me the most, with using a strong almost detergent level cleanser that tasted of mint and cucumber freshness. The diner sitting next to me commented on how that was the dish she had the most problems and disliked it. I was partly grateful, partly disgusted by this dish, as it was nice to have the tartness removed from my mouth, but disgusted by how it required such a heavy palate cleanser to remedy the situation.
Culprit two was the Pekin Duck, which blew me back when it was introduced to me. While in the picture it looks like a normal duck dish, the thick jus was made by a slightly watered-down Lee Kum Kee XO sauce (no chilli version). Despite writing this a month after initially eating there, I still vividly remember the waiter saying it was an XO sauce jus, which left me baffled, causing me to ask her if I heard her correctly. Despite the rest of the dish being of the highest quality, with the duck elegantly cooked, the pairing with the XO sauce jus simply did not work. It did nothing in terms of enhancing, complementing, or contrasting the flavours of the beautifully cooked duck, and served only as a reminder of the lack of understanding between the different Chinese cuisines and the differences of northern and southern Chinese cooking styles and flavour construction.
Despite these two issues, the rest of the meal was good, giving interesting takes such as the “Koshihikari Rice” which tasted like a grapefruit risotto, the delicious take on eggs benedict with the lobster that I would love to eat at a brunch, and the Provimi Veal Tenderloin from Quebec, leaving me craving for more Quebec Veal.
While there was a wine pairings at two different price points, I decided to go for a single glass of wine. I mentioned to the waiter I wanted a versatile white that I could have to enjoy with the first half of the menu. The sommelier served me a white without letting me to try, that was extremely bland and lacked any type of body to match the pretty heavy dishes that came in the beginning. The couple sitting next to me had a wine pairing and seemed to enjoy the experience, so if you will go, it is probably best to stick to the wine pairing than ordering single glass.
So, what was this meal? Was it a meal that challenged? A meal that serves great food? Or was it a restaurant meant to using different cuisines in the structure of fine dining to the local population? I landed on it being a restaurant that used different cuisines in a friendly fine dining manner, but the two issues with this meal showed the limit of the restaurant. Maybe I went on the wrong day, as I saw diners that went before and after having a slightly different menu, but it does not excuse the highly questionable flavour combinations in both the foie gras tart and the pekin duck. Like many I’ve seen in Hong Kong, it appears that Alo is a restaurant that has grown too large, forgetting the heart of its operation has to be the fine dining business, as this is how foodies will judge the rest of their operation.
If I were to judge Alo, I would give it a C- as a fine dining establishment and a B+ as a restaurant in Toronto. Generally good food, good service for Toronto standards, but at the end of the day it is clear that Alo is date spot, a nice evening out, a business dinner, but left a lot of questions regarding its pedigree as THE fine dining establishment of Toronto and all of Canada.
