Montecito T.O. – Two Vastly Different Experiences in the Same Restaurant

 In the world of fine dining, the choice to give a restaurant a second chance is often problematic. When the average price of a main exceeds $20, consistency is key.  When you are paying a particular price for food, the expectation is not only that the plates are executed with precision, but that you are delivered a certain quality of experience.  Too often have I been to restaurants where the diner is made to feel rushed.  Repeated visits by the server within the first fifteen minutes of being seated are indicative of a desire to process and complete the respective order as fast as possible.  These are restaurants that experience a high volume of customers regardless of the day of the week.  

Their modus operandi is efficiency manifest in their turnover rate, translating into greater profit.  In principle, they are concerned with delivering the diner an experience that is satisfactory to the extent that it will not serve as a cause for complaint.  In my limited experience, I would classify these types of restaurants as “tourist traps”, that is a restaurant in a busy city, on the tip of the tongue of every concierge, in which tourists frequent and overpay.  To diners with their eyes locked onto every fine detail of the experience, the food is inadequate based on the price, and the service is generally mediocre.  Indeed the restaurant has seemingly succeeded in attracting such a large number of customers based on an illusory atmosphere or ambience, and a bloated reputation based on the reviews of those who simply don’t know better.  I have both dined and cooked in restaurants deserving of my “tourist trap” classification. 

Everyone has experienced the frustration, letdown, and even regret associated with dining in restaurants that fail to deliver on promises of exceptional quality of food and experience.  That is why I, like many others I know, only choose to dine at restaurants where specific factors guarantee exceptional quality of food and experience beyond reasonable doubt.  In the case of Montecito, it was a fascination and minor obsession with the head chef and co-founder.

Jonathan Waxman, commonly referred to as a pioneer of California farm to table cuisine, is one of America’s best chefs, based on accolades and reviews from the toughest and most renowned American food critics.  His style is rustic Italian and his menus are influenced by seasonal ingredients.  Like many others before him, he honed his craft in France, but the concepts for his restaurants are largely based upon setting.  Waxman’s food is unique because it is simple.  His menus are not meant to wow and generate buzz.  He seeks to deliver balance, roundness of flavour, and visual elegance by means of limited ingredients.  As any food critic or judge from your favourite culinary television show will tell you, simple is by far and away the most difficult to execute.  Err on the side of caution and the dish will fall flat.  Heavy handed or clumsy execution will result in the loss of the very essence of the dish.  To find a balance and season to perfection with limited ingredients is to produce the perfect bite. 

When I found out that Jonathan Waxman was going to open a restaurant north of the border it was not a question of going, it was only a question of when.  Waxman opened Montecito in Toronto’s entertainment district with famed Hollywood director Ivan Reitman.  Reitman envisioned the space as a main attraction for celebrities during TIFF and consequently the walls are full of hallowed images of Reitman with the likes of Harrison Ford, Bill Murray, and Dan Aykroyd to name a few.  There are also digital displays featuring varying images of Montecito, California landscapes, a tribute to Reitman’s home and Waxman’s cooking style.  The space is divided into a more casual bar section, and a beautiful large dining room featuring well-spaced tables and very comfortable chairs.  Perhaps my favourite aspect of the dining room is an angled, rectangular mirror placed above the heat lamps, so that diners can watch as the chefs plate and apply finishing touches to dishes.

As the tone of the title and introductory sentences of this post may suggest, my first experience at Montecito was underwhelming and disenchanting.  I was taken aback by the atmosphere and general grandeur of the place, but the food and service were completely unbecoming of a Waxman restaurant.   The music was very loud which made conversation very difficult between my dad, my girlfriend and me.  Our server while friendly, appeared to be flustered and disinterested.  The gap between our apps and mains was uncomfortably long.  I am usually a proponent of offering diners an extra 20 minutes or so in-between courses, something you will never experience at a tourist trap restaurant. It allows the diners to enjoy their drinks and the experience, especially if they are at the restaurant for a special occasion.  Our wait however was long enough to infer that it was a product of a backed-up kitchen rather than the charm of the front of house staff.  Finally, when our mains came out, we were missing the signature JW or Jonathan Waxman chicken.  Our server had neglected to ring that item in after we had ordered it, leaving us hungry by the end of the course.  The mains that did come out were disjointed and poorly executed.  In particular, the bavette with caramelized onion and pepper puree was overcooked and chewy, and the onions had barely been roasted, let alone caramelized.  The only redeeming quality of the meal was a masterful kale salad with anchovy and pecorino.

The most shocking part of the evening was the response of the front of house manager.  He had been alerted of our unusually long wait and missing dish, yet exhibited an unwillingness to show initiative and resolve the situation.  Instead, he asked us what we wanted him to do about it.  This was startling for me and spoke to the inexperience of that particular staff member.  I had never seen or heard of a restaurant manager putting a diner in an awkward position in this context.  Given the stature and average price point of the restaurant, it seemed even more inappropriate.  He should have come to the table with a solution rather than blabbering on expecting us to make a proposition. 

At this point in the evening I was immediately reminded of a documentary I had watched earlier in the year called Three Stars, about ten chefs around the world and the three star Michelin restaurants that they run.  The Michelin guide is only in a few American cities, but there are so many lessons that can be gleaned from the standards by which those chefs and managers run their respective restaurants.  The documentary showcased nearly every chef and manager sitting with their teams prior to the start of service discussing every customer or group in the reservation book.  If that customer had dined at the restaurant before, the restaurant had notes or knowledge of their likes, dislikes, and even what drinks to bring them on their arrival.  Service to such an extraordinary extent is implausible at restaurants of a lower stratum than those earning the honour of being recognized by the Michelin guide.  Nevertheless, restaurants seeking to overcome the threshold existing between classic tourist traps and genuinely special restaurants must endeavour to provide service as close to this benchmark as possible, of course in addition to a food of a superior quality.  While Jonathan Waxman does not have any James Beard awards or Michelin stars to his name, his culinary prestige is such that you would never expect that kind of service at one of his establishments. 

Before returning, I questioned whether I should ever put a restaurant up on a pedestal as 

I did with Montecito.  I asked myself if any restaurants were really capable of providing a once in a lifetime type experience, and if it was ever worth it to spend so much money in attempt to find out.  Luckily my faith in transcendent restaurant experiences was restored when my dad and I returned to Montecito in late August.  Between our first and second visit to Montecito, they had hired a new front of house manager, and he got in touch with my dad hoping that we might come back and give the restaurant a second chance.  We arrived at the restaurant suspecting that they might cover a portion of the bill, but we had no idea what they had in store for us.  That night I was able to fulfill one of my culinary fantasies.

The two of us were seated in a large corner booth that could have comfortably sat eight.  The new manager, Dan, came to visit us after we had settled and saw to it that we were given drinks and offered us some choices as to how we wanted to break up the meal.  My dad, understanding my fervent and borderline excessive passion for food left it up to me.  The choice was obvious for me.  I had literally dreamed of experiencing a tasting menu, after reading and watching so much of otherworldly restaurants like Alinea, Faviken, or Attica that offer similar experiences.  The best part of our tasting menu experience at Montecito was that we left all of the decisions up to the chef, and had no knowledge as to what might come out next. 

As the dishes kept arriving I felt as giddy and excited as I had on Christmas mornings when I still believed in Santa.  The plates were visually stunning and were executed to perfection.   We had a swordfish carpaccio, mussels, heirloom tomatoes with yogurt and basil oil, lamb with a ragout of squash and zucchini, and the famous JW chicken among other plates. The JW chicken, which we were robbed of during our first visit lived up to the hype.  It was crispy, succulent, roasted chicken at its finest, doused in a caper salsa verde and served on a bed of baby spinach.  For dessert our server brought out a homemade chocolate bar with toffee popcorn and salted caramel.  I had never before enjoyed a sweet and savoury combination, but on this occasion the pastry chef had managed to put on a clinic in balance and texture.

The service that night was attentive, sincere, and consummately professional.  We had a variety of servers looking after us in addition to Dan returning to our table every so often to inquire about our experience and chat about his journey in the industry.  Everyone had knowledge of our personalized menu and there were no gaps or blunders.  It was like watching a fine and ordered symphony, with diverse elements acting in harmonious unison.  It was honestly how I expected the standard of service to be for such a restaurant, but simultaneously exceeded my expectations after a disorienting first impression.

The moment that took the experience to another level was the presentation of our bill.  As I gazed down attempting find the potentially astronomical total all I could see was line after line of $0.00.  Not only had they taken care of the many courses that we enjoyed, but had also treated us to two bottles of wine.  It completely reversed my understanding of the phrase “let us make it up to you” within the context of a less than ideal restaurant experience.  Obviously there is a motivation and an expectation that in return we may not only come back to the restaurant, but also refer others, or bring a group.  Nonetheless, that experience will be unforgettable in terms of the food memories and the manner in which my dad and I were taken care of.   It will likely be years until it is supplanted, but one can hope. 

Relatively speaking, so called make-up experiences such as these are few and far between.  The traditional, conventional response of any manager is not to offer their maligned customer a free meal, it is more likely to offer a free dessert or in place of that, remove an item from the bill.  We were incredibly lucky to be treated to such an experience, and should probably distinguish it as an anomaly to avoid future disappointment.  Thus, I must raise the question again.  Is it worth it to give these fantastically extravagant and expensive restaurants a second chance? If you are as captivated and crazed about food and the ever evolving concept of the traditional restaurant meal as I am, then the answer is yes.             

(Pictures of the plates at Montecito.  Some my own, others collected from Instagram, but indicative of my experience)

by Creston Mathews