@movernie
Chantecler, the French restaurant that got burned down back in 2019 and has now re-established in 2023. They just opened last week and we are here to dine and experience this place.
Located at 798 Bloor Street West, at the corner of the street, it has nice bay windows that overlooking the Bloor Street. This place isn’t big but it’s cozy and intimate. There are high stools to sit at the bar and along with small tables along the windows for a sit-down regular dining setting.
Little candle light sets the mood with the ambience, a nice vibe especially if you are on a date or a romantic dining experience.
It was nice seeing Owner Jacob at the restaurant, the rest of the staff were courteous and come often to ensure our food and drinks are satisfactory and ensuring we are ok.
Chantecler serves French food items. We started off with drinks. I ordered my craft beer and she ordered her red wine.
The food menu is basically breaks down in small plates to share and big plates to share. Both of us luv our appetizers and small plates to share so we can try more stuff.
MoVernie TIP: We also appreciate the fact that our server knew we wanted to order 4 small plates to share but preferred the dishes to come out in a reasonable pace and not everything comes out at once, especially with its small table. The server suggested that she can paced out the small dishes, bringing out 2 items for the 1st round, then she will paced the timing of the order to bring out 2 more small plates in the 2nd round, so we appreciate the gesture & flexibility.
We ordered the following small plates to share:
Potato and Caviar
Steak Tartare
Seared Foie Gras
Gigge’s Trout Crudo
All 4 our these appetizers were top notch and nicely made. In particular, we both luv the potato and caviar. What surprisingly was…we didn’t plan to order this but when we saw the table beside us ordered it, we decided to give it a try. This is our 1s time having caviar with potato, quite an interesting combo but it works! We enjoyed the multiple flavours of cream, sauce, the duck egg yolk flowing into the potato works amazingly. And the caviar, oh mine! C’est la vie! Also luv the crispy outer layer of the potato. This dish was unforgettable!
Steak Tartare is one of the best that I had in Toronto. The seasoning and the flavours in the beef tartare was fresh and nicely chewy texture. I did wish the toasty bread could be a little bit more toasty with a little bit harder surfaces, but that’s just my preference.
Another surprisingly great dish was the seared foie gras, I normally indifferent on foie gras, especially the cold paste texture foie gras, I am ok. This seared technique elevate the flavour out of the foie gras and I luv the some of the fattiness of the texture. It was an interesting combo that they complement with glazed apple and streusel. For some reason, it works out well. The sweetness and crunchy texture with the filling foie gras.
And the Trout Crudo, nice presentation when the server pour the trout roe, dill and cucumber. I luv dill and the aroma was amazing! This dish was super fresh. And the presentation was too good to eat!
After our small plates, we somewhat still a bit hungry, so we decided to order half of roaster duck confit with a side dish of the Sautéed Chard & Butter Beans.
The duck confit has 2 different sections, they left the duck leg on one side, in case someone like to carve out meat from the duck leg. They also carved out like 10 pieces of duck breast meat to enjoy! I do like the leg and breast components. We both, however, thought the duck was a bit dry and the meat could be a little bit less cooked and more on the juicy side. Again, that’s our preference as we don’t mind medium rare or rare meat.
Unfortunately, we didn’t like the sautéed chard & butter beans, we were hoping that it’s a plate with long beans or the bean peas itself, but we didn’t expect the side dish to be presented as mushy and soggy plate of beans. And it didn’t have much flavour in the dish either.
Overall, we enjoyed the wonderful service and hospitality here. In particular, we think they have a nice list of small plates to share and every item were fantastic and nicely executed. Next time, we would like to try the mini onion soup. So, there is a good list of cocktails offerings, it’s just that tonight we prefer our wine and craft beer. We will definitely come back again and we miss the caviar and foie gras dishes already!
Check out the Chantecler food menu here.
Chantecler – Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Website
Address: 798 Bloor St W, Toronto, ON M6G 1L9
Phone: (416) 628-3586
Google Maps: https://goo.gl/maps/SmEdJqcwxQpXN5BFA
PS – I really luv the logo of Chantecler.
