Chef David Schwartz, of Toronto’s celebrated Mimi Chinese and its casual, younger sibling Sunnys Chinese, was bashing cucumbers with the flat side of a cleaver, getting them prepped for a smashed cucumber salad, and sharing some insight into what makes him tick.
“Dining is my predominant way to socialise with people,” he said. “Sharing a meal with someone is my favourite thing to do. I centre my calendar around meals with people.”
In this case he was cooking lunch with his Mimi head chef Bradon Chong at Luxe, the freshly renovated Gaggenau showroom in downtown Toronto, for a group of local media and influencers. Several of them had one eye on the details of the unfolding feast, and another, aspirational one on the equipment in the showroom. The latest, dual zone undercounter wine fridge, for example. And above all else, a display of discreet built-in wall units that included espresso machine, sous-vide friendly steam oven, and vacuum-sealer in a single, flush stack.
Schwartz was no different, for he was operating with the ulterior motive of investigating how the German manufacturer’s latest equipment measured up against what he was used to on the professional line – and whether it might be the right solution for his own home. Each dish on his required different methods of cooking. And delivering something very different from the usual indulgences of the home cooks at the table.
“My go to is mac and cheese,” admitted photographer Felicia Byron. “With a good roux-based cheese sauce.”
“It’s 100% French onion soup for me – with beef stock, a s---load of gruyère, fino sherry, and a little brandy,” countered influencer Rebecca Felgate. “With a glass of Chablis.”
“I like a grilled steak with copious amounts of truffle butter melted on it,” food writer Tiffany Leigh added of her favourite indulgence. “Finishing with gnawing on the bone.”
Others at the table affirmed unwavering enthusiasm for spaghetti Bolognese, osso bucco, and rabbit pie. Meanwhile, the chefs had cleared away our freshly emptied plates of scallop crudo drizzled with XO oil, and were now delivering to the table our cucumber salad, a stunning char siu, and the pièce de resistance, a whole boned seabass cooked in Shaoxing wine fresh from the steam oven.
“Steaming is a cooking technique that’s used a lot in Chinese cuisine,” Chong said, as he put down the fish. “It always brings me back to when I was a kid. My grandma would be steaking up dinner and the aroma would fill the air.”
The food was stunning, and to those diners present who had been to Sunnys or Mimi, seemed at least equally delicious to what they had experience there. The chefs apparently concurred. “It was really nice how seamless it felt for us to cook the food we usually cook in the restaurant outside of the restaurant,” Schwartz said when we arrived at our duck egg custard for dessert. “We usually require a lot of specialty equipment, but it was quite simple for us to do it here.”