Amuse-Bouche
96 Tecumseth Street 
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Phone: 416-913-5830
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Just past the hubbub of King West, on the quiet and dark street of Tecumseth, chefs Jason Inniss and Bertrand Alepee are cooking up delight after delight in their restaurant, Amuse-Bouche.
Outside of this house-turned-restaurant is a small patio lit by simple candles and one dominant light on the resto name. Take a few steps inside, and past a dark velvet curtain lies their charming red dining room, housing fifteen tables -- all very close to one another.
On this night, my family and I are parked at a nice round table at the front of the room.
We decide to go for the four-course menu ($65 per person). Although the chef is supposed to decide what those four dishes are, we request that the main course is beef tenderloin. Everyone at the table had seen the menu previously and was craving the Alberta meat.
But the night starts off with their amuse-bouche, a hefty spoonful of rare tuna on top of a creme mixture. It was certainly a nice greeting and set the stage for what would be a memorable experience for all at the table.
Next up we had the scallop carpaccio with crispy salad and a truffled passion fruit vinaigrette. The thin slices of scallops also accompanied with caviar and pomegranate seeds offering a smooth salty and sweetness to the delicious dish.
Following the seafood dish came the second appetizer, a mouth-watering pan-seared Quebec fois gras done two ways. The first was made with a simple spiced reduction, the other with a citrus tone on top of a ultra thin crostini.
Just before our beef dish, a small scoop of mandarin and pink peppercorn palate cleaner arrived to take away the seafood and rich flavours of the duck livers. We were ready for the third dish.
The non-bloody rare grilled tenderloin was topped with a pocket of creamy blue cheese and flavoured with their szechwan pepper jus. Yum-my! Served with fingerling potatoes and a few other veggies, the dish was also accompanied with an autumn purse, a pleasantly surprising package filled with root vegetables.
To finish off the meal, we were all served different desserts. At the table (at which I had a bite or two from) were a pumpkin creme brulee, panna cotta with raspberries, lemon and chocolate tart and an apple tart with mini caramel apples - one of the best dessert plates I have had in my life.
P.S. Look for the little figurines of the cochons...oh yes, in this resto, pigs certainly can fly.
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Amuse-Bouche Restaurant
96 Tecumseth Street
Toronto, ON
(416) 913 5830
Comments (6)
oh man...we went to amuse-bouche for our anniversary this year. i still have dreams about the smoked duck breast we had as our main course. the whole meal was just fabulous. and the service was top notch. the pace was perfect. and the setting is wonderfully intimate. my only gripe: maybe a few less tables because it was a little cramped inside the house.
I love this place! I was there for the second time in September to celebrate my birthday, and blogged about our experience here: http://www.sandyofftopic.com/2006/09/amusing-ma-bouche
My husband and I have eaten at restaurants all over the world--Italy, Australia, Spain, Portugal--among others. I consider myself something of a foodie and in the city really enjoy Le Paradis for good, bistro French cuisine and Auberge de Pommier for more high-end French fare. I expected that Amuse Bouche would land somewhere in between these two rather good French restaurants. Not so.
We ordered the 5-plate tasting menu, not realizing that all we'd received for our $220 bill was a literal taste of food. I could have fit every course all together, and very comfortably, on a single plate. We have very average appetites, but tonight, we left this over-priced, pretentiously presented meal...hungry. Absolutely appalling.
I have been there for dinner twice.
Wine list has virtually no reasonably priced wines, especially reds, under $55 per bottle. The first time I went there, I complained to the server about the lack of reasonably priced wines but, since the first dinner I had was very good, I went again, although I knew the wine was overpriced. The second dinner was a disaster. My beef tenderloin (which I had also had for my previous dinner) came cinderized with the grill's cross-hatch pattern on both sides which made it inedible until I cut it off which substantially reduced the size of my meal. Unless the meal is inedible, I don't send it back because of the potential for the chef or other staff to do nasty things to the replacement. When I discussed the cinderized meat problem with the server, he discounted and trivialized my concern. When I discussed this with the restaurant owner, she whined about her own problems. I raised the unreasonable wine list prices again and she argued that it wasn't possible for her to put any cheaper priced wines on the list. I told her about another restaurant in Yorkville (Spice Room Manyata Court Cafe), owned by a renowned Toronto chef (Greg Couillard), where there are more reasonably priced wines which she scoffed at, stating that, at that restaurant, there probably weren't any table cloths (there are). There's a lot more to this experience, and I could continue, but I think you get the message, don't go there!
I do not recommend this place.
Hmm... 4 good raving reviews and 1 bad rant review. That is 4:1
Do the math. Granted it's always possible to have a bad experience. Maybe these things did happen to him. But I can help but to wonder 1:4 (extremely different experiences) Then mentioning the other restaurant, general location, pricing, chef, does he have an interest in the other restaurant? Oh, I'd like to know the problem with grill marks. I understand it was "charred" but he seems to have a problem with grill marks in general. Long ago when I was in culinary school I was taught to get the grill marks astatically right and that the grill marks added flavor because it's actually caramelized sugars in the meat.
ChubbyWubbyChef.
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