This column was devised as a thinly disguised appeal to my editors to furnish me with a large expense account. I thought I could take prominent interview subjects out for boozy lunches, in the way that the British financial papers do. I would pick my subjects based solely on their epicurean and oenophile qualifications and write profiles long enough for at least three courses and two bottles worth of deep inquiry.
Then, I had second thoughts. That arrangement would, I came to realize, neither be good for my girlish figure nor my liver. The quality of notes taken might also be reflected in whatever mangled copy I handed in. In any event, the failed plot did remind me how much I like a good lunch in good company and inspired what follows.
For me, 2022 was a crazy year of travel and gastronomic excess. I made up for two years of rarely straying far from home by getting on as many planes as I could. When I think back on the whirlwind of the year, the moments of calm, when they came, were often at lunch; a pause in the middle of the day to reflect on the adventure. Here are three that made my year.
Month: February
Place: Quebec City
Food: French onion soup
Wine: Niagara Resiling
On our first venture out of Southern Ontario since the pandemic hit in March of 2020, my wife and I flew to Quebec City. There we would meet our eldest son and his girlfriend and drive up the St. Lawrence to the Charlevoix to ski for a couple of days. Their train arrived a few hours after our flight, so we had a layover lunch. It was brutally cold, though the sun shone brightly. There will still COVID restrictions and we couldn’t find an open restaurant when we walked from the parking lot of the train station through the lower town.
We decided to head up the stairs of the cliff towards the Chateau Frontenac, which we reasoned would have a restaurant that was open. Once we were there, we were surprised to find a crowd of people coming and going from the hotel and a lobby full of more. It was, we figured, a school holiday in Quebec, and half of Montreal and their kids had come to Quebec City for a getaway. Life had returned after the lockdowns, and people were eager to travel and stay in a bed different from their own.
We lined up for a table at the restaurant off the lobby and got one after a few minutes. Hot soup to warm up and a glass of wine. It was good to see a familiar label: the CSV Riesling from Niagara’s Cave Spring. A reminder that at least goods were still traveling around the country, even if people hadn’t been.
Month: April
Place: A vineyard on the Loire
Food: Oysters from the Brittany coast
Wine: Muscadet Champtoceaux
It’s less than 100 kilometres from the Atlantic Ocean to the castle town of Ancenis, where a bridge crosses the Loire River, about halfway between Nantes and Angers. The Domaine des Galloires sits downriver from the bridge on the rise of a hill whose vines of Melon de Bourgogne slope gently into the valley. Galloires is about as east as Melon gets, as the grape is particularly fond of the cooler weather that rolls in from the sea.
I am at the winery with a group of international wine journalists, and we’re here for lunch, which is a spread of innumerable local French delicacies on several tables under a big tent on the lawn next to the winery buildings. It’s a warm spring day, the sun is shining, and, having spent the morning at the Angers convention centre tasting and spitting wines, were glad for the fresh air, for the view of the river, and the occasional medieval church spire in the distance. We’re also grateful for the Muscadet; there are dozens to try with a few sips and maybe a spit onto the grass, or maybe a swallow since it is lunch.
I don’t remember everything there was to eat; mostly the local cheese and honey from the vineyard’s bees we finished with and the “dish” almost everyone started with: Belon oysters fresh from the Atlantic. Never mind Chablis, Muscadet is the wine for oysters, grown almost next to the beds on the Brittany coast they came from. No sauce, not even lemon, just the crisp citrussy white wine, deepened from months on the lees. Life is good with each swallow.
Month: November
Place: Los Angeles
Food: Spaghetti alle vongole
Wine: Gavi
The Mauro Café used to be the restaurant in a fancy boutique department store on Melrose Avenue in West Hollywood. The store has changed hands and names, and the restaurant seems to be its own thing. It’s still physically part of the building complex that houses the store (or stores, I’m not sure), but now you have to exit one to get into another. The way to do that is to go outside by the parking lot behind the buildings.
This is LA, and anything bigger than a single storefront will have a parking lot. What’s fun about Mauro is that the parking lot also doubles as a patio. It’s a perfect Hollywood juxtaposition of fancy fine dining and casual, slightly jerry-rigged surroundings. And besides, the best views are of the people, like the group of Boomer friends, with not one but two gentlemen sporting Karl Lagerfeld-style ponytails.
I am at a table with my wife and my youngest son, whose Godfather lives in LA, and who we have come to see. We are happy to escape the gloomy grey skies of Toronto in November for some California sunshine and one last lunch outdoors. I have a salad, because it’s LA and they know how to make salad. It does not disappoint: butter lettuce with a shallot vinaigrette.
Then, the main event: spaghetti alle vongole with Manila clams from the Pacific. It’s a perfect West Coast version of the Italian classic, and I wash it down with a Gavi from the North of Italy, whose lean acidity is said to be encouraged by its winemakers to pair with Ligurian seafood. It works, cleansing the palate after each meaty and garlicky bite and fortifying the body and mind for the adventures to come in the afternoon.
