Photo by Ivy Knight/Swallow Food

I’ve been pretty thrilled to get involved up with Ivy Knight, Muskoka Brewery and The Grid to develop a new dinner series called “Hidden Kitchen. We’re hosting dinners once a month with various guest chefs, staff and ideas. Most recently, we did a BBQ dinner with Jason Rees of Pork Ninjas competitive BBQ team. His food is super great and it’s always a pleasure to cook with him. My team is pretty kick ass at all my events, and Esther and Kate (pictured above) were no exception, charming the crowd and delivering great service as always. In the end people had a great time and enjoyed some awesome food. More details can be found on Swallow Food.

Welcome to “Toronto : Down Under”, a celebration of Australian Cuisine.

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We’re bringing yet another new dining experience to Toronto.

This year, Australia Day falls on Thursday January 26th. On this day in 1788, the First Fleet arrived from England at Sydney Cove to establish the first European Colony in what became New South Wales.

In the lead up to Australia Day 2012, we will be preparing an amazing meal : nine courses of food to celebrate the founding of our friends on the other side of the planet. We’ll be pairing the food with wine, beer, music and fun form Australia! Think Kangaroo. Wattleseed. Lemon Myrtle. Killer Seafood. Wine. Beer. Whiskey.

Luke Hayes-Alexander will be coming down from Kingston for THREE DAYS ONLY to cook some of the great cuisine he experienced on his two week trip to Australia, where he staged in some of the best restaurants in Sydney. Australian John Placko, one of the most knowledgable and skilled modernist chefs in the Toronto will be there. Rounding out the team will be Matt Kantor, of Secret Pickle, Little Kitchen and Ghost Chef.

Our hosts for the evening will be Alison Fryer of The Cookbook Store and Tony Briganti from Rosemill Development.

About Luke:

Luke Hayes-Alexander is the 21 year old Chef of Luke’s Gastronomy in Kingston. He began training himself at the age of 11 and became Chef the day after his 15th birthday. Since then, he has received an extraordinary amount of domestic and international press, including The Toronto Star, The Ottawa Citizen, Canada AM, Toronto Life, The Financial Times and Food and Wine Magazine. He was recently called ‘The Future of Fine Dining’ by Centurion Magazine.

This past September, Luke spent just over 2 weeks in Australia. He performed Stages in, and dined in, some of the country’s finest restaurants. He travelled through the Outback with 3 of Australia’s top Food Critics to be a judge at the legendary Blinman Camp Oven Cook-Off…he was the first Canadian to be invited to this event. CTV News wrote a great feature just before Luke left for ‘down under’.

Luke’s clients hail from all over the world. All comment on the playful, complex juxtapositions on his plates. Luke is just happy to be changing the way people look at food…one plate at a time.

About John:

John first came to Canada from his native country of Australia in 1985 for the “Taste of Canada” culinary competition. He also competed successfully in numerous culinary competitions in Australia, won gold at the Culinary Olympics in Germany as team captain of a regional team and was the first chef to represent Australia at the Bocuse D’Or competition in France.

He has worked for the Hilton hotel group, the Hyatt Hotel organization in Mexico as executive chef and opened two new restaurants in Sydney, Australia during his career.

John spent almost 10 years in menu development, as product development manager/executive chef at Cara Operations Ltd. and then as director of culinary development for Prime Restaurants Inc.

With the growing popularity of avant-garde (molecular gastronomy) cuisine, John has been demonstrating the techniques to numerous chef/culinology gatherings over the past 5 years and now runs hands-on workshops on selected weekends for professional chefs. His full time position is as director of culinary excellence at Maple Leaf Foods’ innovation and culinary centre, ThinkFOOD! His best dining experiences ever: El Bulli, Spain and Noma, Denmark.

After 8 Greuling days of prepping, shopping, equipment gathering, service and teardown, I’m beyond thrilled at how well the elBulli tribute dinners went over. A number of people wrote nice articles about the experience which can be found here, here and here. But mostly I’m thrilled at the overwhelming positive feedback from the diners that came directly to me. That we could take on such a difficult task and have it turn into such a great experience is beyond my wildest imagination.

It certainly wouldn’t be possible without the incredible team around me. Most especially to Alison Fryer and Tony Brigante for the venue and support, and John Placko of Maple leaf for getting us all the equipment we needed to run this event, as well as just kicking ass in the kitchen and constantly perfecting the recipes. Michelle Rabin was not only a huge help in the dining room, but also in the kitchen, prep planning, errand running, recipe testing, ideation and general support. Michael Chartrand for showing up early every day and getting all the snacks ready, and Jacquie who, while despite her nagging me over not having liquid nitrogen, gave me ingredients and some helpful advice on pastry. My servers, Wade and Esther, you made a smooth evening possible. And James and Scott, you are the lifeblood of the kitchen. I cannot thank you all enough.

And now it’s time to move on and make some dinners that are even more outrageous and challenging. Stay tuned.

It’s looking like the elBulli imitacio dinners will come in around 23 courses. We’ll be starting in 1991 and moving to 2011. TappanNitro, Liquid Nitrogen, spherical gnocchi and ravioli, cocktails, the works.

The kitchen for the cookbook shop is coming along nicely, it will be a good test to push out all this food. Expect a similar dining experience to elBulli (aside from the drive to get there). We’ll move through snacks, tapas, plates, pre-desserts, desserts and possibly morphs. Cocktails will will be present as will a couple of different wines. Although I think the food tends to prefer whites over reds, we’ll try and have both. No pairings, we’ll just pour what we get. This dinner is really about the food anyway.


The entire evening’s events will be available online during dinner at elbulliTO.com. The site will contain menus, recipes, beverages, and information about elBulli and the team working in Toronto to create this event.

If anyone has an industrial freeze-drier they can loan me, let me know.

Since the Globe and Mail article, I’ve gotten about 1000 requests about the elBulli dinner, so I thought I would write up a little summary on the details and what I’m considering for the dinner.

First of all, the Globe and Mail said eight courses. I don’t know if I’m capable of limiting myself nor my guests to that few, so I think there will be a bunch more. Second, Marc LePine and a couple other folks are doing similar dinners. I’m going to work hard to not duplicate, so that anyone trying to get into all of them will be even more amazed.

As for the event, it will be held on October 24, 25 and 26th in the evenings. I suspect it will start around 7 and go until 11, depending on how many courses and whether everyone arrives on time. The dinner will be held in the kitchen of the Cookbook Shop on Yonge and Cumberland in Yorkville. There are only 12 seats per night, and I expect tickets will go fast. I think they are going on sale for $105.

The dinners will focus on the evolution of elBulli cuisine, starting from the early days (1991) and move quickly into the 1994-2002 era. We’ll do a couple of more recent dishes as well going all the way up to last year. My goal is not only to showcase how elBulli evolved itself over the years, but also showcase some of the breakthrough dishes they created. I’ll be breaking down the menu into the various styles of dishes and explaining what is being done and how it is important. I’m still working on it, there are so many options, I need to line up the entire thing and then scale it down.

Other than that, I’ll announce tickets sometime around September 17th. The best way to stay on top of this is to follow me on twitter at @mattkantor of subscribe to the mailing list (click on the link above that says “Newsletter”).

I’m very much looking forward to this dinner and seeing you many of you lucky ones there.

Sept 6 2011 – Toronto

Toronto’s secret pickle discovered to be a fraud.

Un-named Sources inside the Secret Pickle supper club, founded by Alexa Clark and Matt Kantor, have revealed what rumors have been saying for months: pickles have been absent from plates since the second pickle dinner.

Ms Clark, the cofounder of the successful supper club, could not be reached for comment.

“It is rumored she has left town after these allegations surfaced” , said one ex-secret pickle attendee, who wished to remain nameless. “Ever since the Toorshi pickles appeared at the first two dinners, we haven’t seen anything even slightly pickled. Its like they don’t even believe in vinegar anymore.”
Mr Kantor would only speak through his lawyer, Scott Cosenza:

“My client denies these malicious rumors one hundred percent. While it’s true that we have cut back on pickles in recent events, it’s due to the massive pickle shortage that had plagued Ontario farmers throughout the year. Furthermore, out of respect for the 100 mile diet and the belief that we should work with Ontario produce as much as possible, we have declined offers from the mass-produced pickle farms found in Poland, Israel and Alabama.”

Zane Caplansky, owner Caplansky’s Deli, didn’t appear surprised at this news. “so few people understand the pickle to begin with. I used to think that the Secret Pickle folks did too, but unfortunately, they seem only interested in delighting their customers with all the other less interesting flavour profiles, skipping the sweet and sour combination that makes the great pickle what it is. We may never how they still maintain the great dishes that they have, but I hope that they find their way someday. I have sent them both copies of Save The Deli, a book that will hopefully shed light on their obviously corrupt souls.”

A spokesman for The Crown has denied that any charges are forthcoming.

4 neighbourhoods. 12 nights. 12 guests with 1 menu every night. Eat. Drink. Be Merry. Little Kitchen On The Road.

For three nights at each of four locations, dinner begins at 8pm for 12 lucky diners who have reserved in advance. Expect at least 5 courses. We’ll be serving at a communal table, so we can all share the cuisine and conversation.

Tickets on Sale Sept 17th for Future Stops!

October 3-5 : To be Announced on Sept 17th.


October 24-26 : The Cookbook Store – an Edible Evolution of elBulli, 1983 to 2012


November 14-16 : Olliffe Butcher Shop – Meat and Beer Extravaganza

Being photographed for a major magazine is both fun and uncomfortable. The process itself isn’t strange, but being a part of it is. The shoot was for an article on Ghost Chef. In the end, it worked out great. But along the way it sure was interesting.

The shooter is Cole Garside. Most of the time, he’s in ex-soviet block countries. Lucky for me, he’s sometimes in Toronto shooting lifestyle stuff. He’s great to work with.

“POP!”
There are three really bright strobe lamps in the room. They take some getting used to, but after about 30 shots, I’m no longer blinking or squinting. And I can focus on doing what I do. Eventually, I forget the cameras are there.

The photographer is actually as much a part of the event as I am. We spend a lot of time working through setup – how to make the kitchen look, things I should be doing, which way I should face when I’m doing things.

“Wait – can you turn to the left? More? More? OK, now flip the stuff in the pan”.
Sure, but at this angle, I hope I don’t get it all over the floor.
Oops. On the floor. Need a wipe-down.

Positioning yourself in un-natural ways is not always comfortable. As a work, your focus is supposed to be mainly on making and plating your dish. You have to prep, cook and assemble a myriad of things.. Talking while doing this is usually easy. Having cameras, lamps and someone directing your posture is not. But I manage. Ron Jeremy would be proud.

“Ok go take something out of the fridge”.
“Wait, do it again.”
But I already took it out.
“Ok, put it back in and then walk over and take it out again”.
But..
In, Out, In, Out. No wonder they call it food “porn”.

We decide to try some things for the camera – stupid human tricks. It’s the talent competition of the shoot. I’m juggling lemons. Not very well – most of them are hitting the floor. Now I’m tossing almonds high in the air in a pan. A little better. I’m now juggling one lemon. That makes it into the final photo array. I’m better at juggling one lemon than two, apparently. All while contorting myself to face the camera.

Later on, Cole is shooting me working with the dinner host. I’m trying to show myself teaching the host about what I’ve made. I think I’m over -doing it, stove repairman style. Explaining to her what a lemon is and what a plate is and what potatoes are: all in the terrible dialog we use in the kitchen. It makes for some good shots.

There’s another set with me trying to do my thing, and the host is on her phone, ignoring me. We never get enough respect, even on camera.

And while we were waiting for stuff to happen, we could have a little fun. I like to “draw”. That’s Alexa Clark on the left, in her usual pose.

A great part of the shoot was that despite the direction, things were generally natural. In the end, everything was edible and representative of what it was. There wasn’t a makeup person touching stuff up with brushes to make the scene appetizing. It was one guy, a camera and some lights. I didn’t get a copy of the final photos, but I heard they were great.

It was definitely a lot of fun, despite the awkwardness I went though. You get to be goofy and try stuff out – like posing in model poses and workin’ it. That was my first time in a real photo shoot, as opposed to just doing it naturally at Secret Pickle.

And in the end, Cole took some great shots. Alexa Clark did too, who was present for the shoot and took all the above photographs. Kinda meta. The chicken tagine with ptitim came out great even with all that was happening.

And here is the Money Shot:

Photos are courtesy of Alexa Clark
Last Photo is courtesy of Cole Garside
Check out Ghost Chef here