The Roosevelt Room
2 Drummond Place
416-599-9000
In the last few years, the vast majority of opening restaurants, such as the Black Hoof and Pizzeria Libretto, have been focused on offering consumers comforting food at reasonable prices. Established favourites have been making necessary adjustments too, scaling down menus and offering previously unthinkable specials. And while that is more than understandable, there is still a market for high-end spots that has been seemingly unmet. Perhaps as a sign of the hopefully changing tide, Toronto is getting a new supper club, The Roosevelt Room, from a familiar face on the restaurant scene.
Trevor Wilkinson isn’t new to the supper club concept. After cutting his teeth at Canoe and Jump, he became the executive chef at Lobby in 2003, a spot that became the prototypical restaurant/club of this generation. Billed as “Toronto’s first true supper club experience,” the Roosevelt Room will feature a concierge, art deco décor, an extensive bar menu, and perhaps most importantly, Wilkinson’s food.
The menu represents not only the food of the 1930s (it's specifically based on the menu served at the 1929 Academy Awards), but also the flavours and style Wilkinson has come to be known for, most recently at his eponymous Wellington Street restaurant, Trevor Kitchen and Bar. Classic bistro items such as steak frites, coq au vin and steak tartar are updated with modern flavours, and the menu is accented with contemporary tastes, such as the yuzu cured sea scallops. “The menu is pretty classic, but everything has my touches on it that will differentiate the food here from even the food at my own restaurant.” This is a point perhaps best accentuated by the Roosevelt Royale, a stunning cheeseburger made with braised beef cheeks, surrounded by ground sirloin, and topped with Roaring Forties blue cheese. Different in size, flavour and texture to the Kobe mini-burgers he became famous for at Lobby and Trevor, this cheeseburger will without doubt be a standout on the already impressive menu Wilkinson has put together.
Toronto’s relationship with the supper club has been a tenuous one: many have opened, yet few have succeeded. “Most of these places put the club first; food is just an afterthought,” as Wilkinson’s theory goes. “When you rush your diners out to start filling up the club, no one’s going to be happy about it.” And so this newest venture at the Roosevelt Room is going to take note of where others have failed in the past. They’ll keep the music low in the Art Deco style space until the dining room is cleared out, and make sure there is a clear separation between the two sides of the business. “There’s nothing worse than trying to enjoy the end of your meal while music is blaring and people are leaning on you and spilling drinks on your table. That won’t happen here.”
Menu and atmosphere notwithstanding, the Roosevelt Room faces a big challenge once it officially opens this Friday. The idea of opening a high-end restaurant in the current economy is enough to scare off even the most confident and seasoned restaurateur, and Wilkinson is no different. “Sure, you’d be foolish not to worry about opening any kind business right now. But the concept of the whole place came together long before the economy tanked, so we chose not to deviate.” In his own restaurant and many others alike, the beginning of this autumn has marked a turnaround in bookings and an increase in spending. “We didn’t really ever consider changing the menu here. My philosophy is to always give people good value, both on the plate and with the wine list. I don’t ever want anyone to leave my restaurant feeling ripped off.”
At Trevor, the kitchen is steered by Wilkinson, but the menu is executed by Jesse Vallins, a chef he has worked with for years now and has the utmost confidence in. The same concept will apply at The Roosevelt, where Anthony Davis (Perigee) will be putting the food out on a daily basis. While Wilkinson is the executive chef, he will rarely, if ever, be found in chef’s whites in the kitchen. “My job is really to guide the direction of the food. Jesse and Anthony are guys I know I can trust to execute.”
Since opening the doors at Trevor almost three years ago, the subterranean space has been lauded for its unique take on bistro favourites. The finicky after-work Bay Street crowd and food-lovers alike have taken to the restaurant’s laid back and approachable fare. The Roosevelt Room is a completely different animal though. Only time will tell if it will be able to escape the fate of its supper club counterparts. As for Wilkinson, is he concerned that he may be stretched too thin? “I’ve got good teams, good food and good concepts in place. I’m not worried.”
Images courtesy of Trevor Wilkinson, used with permission.
I'm surprised to read this here. It reads like an ad straight out of Roosevelt Room's PR dept. The title is also pretty misleading. The writer never talks about even tasting any of the food, so how can he possibly know if it's good enough to "save the supper club"? Weird piece of journalism on here. I've come to expect much better on your blog. This is basically a puff piece with no substance. Did the writer taste the burger? If so, I'd like to know more than it was "stunning". Flavour profile? Etc.
Hi Mike,
First - apologies, because I mistakenly tagged this piece as a review when it's actually a profile. Our profiles tend to be more positive pieces - the philosophy being that we want to tell our readers about cool places we think they should know about. It's most definitely not a review.
Adam had the opportunity to attend a tasting with Trevor Wilkinson last week, and I think his piece does deal with the issues facing Wilkinson and his brigade in terms of getting RR management and customers to take the food seriously. Personally, I don't know whether that will happen or not - I attend a media event there last night, and while the food samples were plentiful and very well-executed (a lovely savoury French onion soup, shrimp in wasabi marmalade, cool little steak tartar tacos), I saw no sign of anything even resembling a dining room; I'm presuming it will be set up in the area that was used as a dance floor.
A lot of work has gone into the decor and the schtick (they had fake paparazzi there last night to take photos of people attending the media/VIP event), but to me, the room feels like a nightclub first and foremost. The fridge entirely stocked with Red Bull and no visible wine bottles other than house red and house white also don't reassure me that RR is going to be all about the food. I hope for Wilkinson's sake that I'm wrong - I adore the food at Trevor, and what I sampled last night at RR was wonderful - but as Adam points out, only time will tell. Personally I'm too cranky and cynical to share his optimism, but I also don't think it's fair to call this a puff piece. It was an interview with Wilkinson, a noted Toronto chef, about his new endeavour, and his hopes and goals for the project.
Everyone I know who's tasted the food has been impressed, Anthony Davis is wicked talent in this city. I'm excited to see what he will do with this opportunity.
Sheryl,
Thanks for your un-cranky reply. It's appreciated.
I think I share your sentiments about this perhaps being more flash than substance, and a short trip over to their website confirms that for me--weird video.
Glad you enjoyed the food, but I'd be lying if I said I'm a fan of Trevor's food. It's always so hit and miss when I go there and I find that the menu always sounds so much better than what I get on the plate, but oh well, that's just my opinion.
Puff piece a bit strong? Yeah, maybe, but I just was expecting more food review than positive piece. I just think if Adam actually tasted the food he should have injected that more into the piece, that's all. But again, thanks for replying.
Mike, that's fair enough - and again, I take full responsibility for incorrectly tagging the piece and making people think it was a review.
Nice profile and the idea sounds interesting, I guess.
I'm not sure that '29 is the right end of that decade to be emulating these days but what do I know? I thought Petit Castor would be down the pipes by now with their ambiance
Also, I wouldn't describe the Black Hoof as comfort food. For instance the word "horse" written in mayo on half of a raw horse sandwich? It's hearty and priced reasonably but definitely not comfortable by Toronto standards.
Having read another review of the media event elsewhere, it seems somewhat ludicrous to spend $20-30 on a cocktail just to perpetuate the supper club experience. I do believe it's possible to be posh without gouging your customers' pocketbooks.
The $20+ cocktails are actually just a special section on the menu. They are so exorbitantly expensive because those are the molecular mixology cocktails (visit http://cocktails.about.com/b/2008/03/01/understanding-molecular-mixology.htm for details).
The Roosevelt Room actually charges about $7 for your standard gin & tonic, vodka soda, etc... and for premium cocktails that are 2.5 ounces of alcohol they charge $12 and up.
Anyways, about the dining room, for events and after 11:00pm they do take all the tables and chairs downstairs so that people aren't mingling in a sea of furniture. They even put the tables in the booths on hydrolics so they can be raised to meet dining standards and dropped down for bottle service. A lot of thought has gone into making this place transform properly, you should see it during dining hours! It looks great.
Thanks for the clarification Katie. I did happen to see a photo a few days ago of a table arranged for dinner with the hydraulic lift set up - which is a really great idea. Unfortunately - that image didn't appear in any of the printed information we received and there wasn't a table set up at the media event to demonstrate dinner service.
I don't know if the FAIL came because of RR management or due to the PR company, but it would have been a really great idea to ensure that food media saw and experienced the space as it would be for dining. What we got from attending the media event was a really bad impression of just another nightclub with a schtick. There was food, sure, but nowhere did we see that it was going to be a priority as Wilkinson had told our writer during the interview.
RR is really attempting to attract two different crowds - the dinner crowd who are willing to pay $30 for a rich, old-skool entrée, and then the Red Bull crowd who are there for the lounge/nightclub atmosphere. While I don't blame them for that (it's good business sense, in fact), there should have been more of an effort to differentiate between the two to the media.
As it stands, despite the great food that Wilkinson/Davis put out at the media event, there are still a number of things that worry me about this venue - the fridge full of Red Bull does not instill me with confidence in any way; the bulk mailout to downtown residents offering a free appetizer with meal purchase (seriously? that puts RR on par with Olive Garden), and last, but most definitely not least - the really scary CK thong underwear in the media event swag bags. Any semblance of class was lost when we pulled those out. At a nightclub event they would have been dubious, but free underwear from a high end restaurant? Ick.