Cowbell
1564 Queen Street West
416-849-1095

Say “cowbell” to someone, and they’ll most likely think of the percussive instrument that was featured on many disco and hard rock hits of the ’70s and ’80s, and immortalised in the infamous Saturday Night Live sketch featuring Christopher Walken and Will Ferrell. Perhaps it’s a sign of the urban disconnection from our rural roots that the original and literal definition of “a bell hung around the neck of cow” has become a secondary and almost archaic meaning for the word.

This is something that chef Mark Cutrara hopes to change via the Parkdale bistro that he and his wife, Karin Culliton, have recently opened and branded with the Cowbell moniker. While the musical meaning of the word is not lost on them, the name is mainly meant to draw attention to the restaurant’s mandate of featuring local produce, meats that are butchered in-house for “nose-to-tail” usage, and a menu that changes daily based on what is available.

While Cutrara flirted with this ideology during his time in the kitchens at Silver Spoon, Globe Bistro and other spots, it was a trip that he and Culliton took to BC with two their young children last year that convinced him to go for it whole hog (no pun intended). “Mark and our son, Max, went on a fishing trip while we were on Salt Spring Island,” explains Culliton. “It turned out that Mike, their tour guide, ran Ruckle Farm on Salt Spring and had a lot of the same food and farming philosophies as Mark. They caught five salmon, and since we didn’t need them all, Mike offered to trade some of his farm’s bounty for three of the fish. Mark picked up some lamb and prawns, as well as vegetables that he pulled out of the ground himself, and he cooked up a meal for us and his uncle and family. It was the only time he’s made a meal that was produced entirely by one farm, and he decided to find like-minded people to work with and concentrate on trying to make the whole farm/animal experience possible here in Toronto.”

To this end, Cutrara spent this past winter learning butchery at the Healthy Butcher, an experience that Culliton says “inspired him on so many levels.” And when a location just a few minutes away from their home in Parkdale came available earlier this year, they jumped at the opportunity to open their own place, pairing Cutrara’s high-end restaurant pedigree with a cozy neighbourhood bistro atmosphere. “We wanted a place that felt like home - where you walk in and feel instantly comfortable. We both like entertaining and like to think of the restaurant as an extension of our home. Parkdale is full of old buildings and we wanted to build on that and create something that looked like it had been there forever even though the building itself is only 15 or so years old. The antique look also goes with the theme of Cowbell’s food concept which uses older techniques, and keeping with that theme we have antique Ontario milk bottles for serving tap water. We like to have a bit of a sense of humour about what we do too and not take ourselves too seriously as we do it.”

A sense of humour he may have, but Cutrara definitely takes his food seriously, especially his meat. While the restaurant is closed on Mondays, he spends that day each week on butcher duty, working on whole animals and using every scrap. Culliton notes that “getting a whole animal allows us offer steaks that you normally wouldn’t see on a menu such as a tri tip or flank. We also take all the ground beef and are making fantastic meatballs or gourmet hamburgers. The bones are used for stocks, or as a garnish of marrow. Mark just finished making his own bresaola that will take three months in our fridge before its ready to serve. You can also sit at the bar and enjoy a pint with our house-made beef jerky.”

Of course, the irony of our food supply system means that local produce is often more expensive than imported goods, and Cowbell’s prices must necessarily reflect that, with mains in the $20 to $30 range. While such prices are now typical of many Toronto restaurants, it’s definitely on the high end for Parkdale, an issue that Culliton is well aware of. “We don’t want to alienate our neighbourhood,” she says, “because we live here too and see the desire for something like Cowbell in it. I believe our prices are reasonable for what we offer.”

So far, there seem to be a lot of people who agree with her, as Cowbell has had a full house almost every night since they’ve opened. Many have been attracted by Cutrara’s reputation from his short stint at the Globe, and a buzz has been built via preview coverage in Toronto Life, a blurb in the Toronto Star, and a rave review in NOW. But there has also been the inevitable criticism from Chowhound and other online forums, complaining about everything from the prices and portions to the “ugly ceiling”. While they try to take such comments in stride, Culliton says that it’s hard not to take it personally. “We try to read it and look at it from the perspective of someone who isn’t involved - Would we care that much? Would we still go even after reading it? But it’s hard to separate yourself from it. We’re totally open to criticism, but like everyone else, we prefer the constructive kind over the ranty kind. We’re in the service industry and ultimately you want to make everyone happy, but when you read stuff like this you realize you can’t make everyone happy, which is a tough thing to resolve.”

That said, valid criticisms and concerns are taken to heart and acted upon. A complaint about the lack of vegetarian options has led to a meat-free special being listed on the chalkboard each night. The wine list has already been changed to feature a half-dozen bottles in the $20-$30 range, and after initially offering two wines by the glass, they will now pour single glasses of any wine on the list for 1/5 the bottle price. Preparations and dishes are tweaked and changed based on feedback from customers, and the flexibility of the daily card allows Cutrara to drop items that he’s not completely happy with at any time.

So, will Cowbell fly in a neighbourhood better known for roti huts, cheap pizza joints and bars that serve watery draught beer of questionable origin? Culliton and Cutrara are cautiously optimistic. “Is the neighbourhood ready for us? We don’t know. We can only tell you what we’ve heard from countless people that we’ve run into as we prepared to open, and what patrons have said to us since we’ve been open - they are so happy we’re here. We can only try what we believe in, pay our bills promptly and hope people show up.”

Looking to the future, the couple plans to start hosting farmer’s nights in the fall, where all of the produce and protein on the menu will be sourced from a single farm, and paired with wines from a single Ontario winery. They are also featuring the work of local artists on the walls on a rotating basis, and plan to promote the artists and producers they work with via their soon to be launched website. Combined with their dedication to supporting local and small producers as much as possible, these initiatives and goals are quite laudable, especially in business where cutting corners is often the norm. I can only imagine that Christopher Walken - who is no slouch in the kitchen himself, by the way - would approve.