Where do Portuguese soccer fans go to drink these days? So many of their old haunts are being turned into restaurants. Brockton General is the latest transformation, from a grungy Benfica clubhouse to a demure little bar and restaurant with charmingly enthusiastic service and seriously impressive food. First-time restaurateurs Brie Read and Pam Thomson found the property on Craig’s List, painted over the black and crimson walls with pale blue and white, fixed antique boxes behind the bar to serve as shelves, gathered enough tables and chairs to seat 30 and opened for business a month ago. “The name comes from the fact that we’re on the edge of the old Brockton village,” explains Read, “and both of us have always liked the idea of general stores. In fact we’d like to sell things from the kitchen here some day.”
That kitchen is currently the solo domain of Guy Rawlings, formerly chef de cuisine of Cowbell. He has an interesting cv that includes two years as sous chef at Il Mulino (which explains the high quality of his pasta dishes) and a stint as pastry chef at Célestin. Offering dinner on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, he writes his small menu on a roll of butcher’s paper that hangs on the wall, changing many of the dishes nightly. We found that four people could order and share the entire thing and still have room to work through the bar menu that is available every evening. Lots of simple treats can be found there. Toasted St. John’s bread is great with a nicely balanced, surprisingly subtle mash of white bean, anchovy and garlic and with a little jar of potted duck – like moist, rather salty and generously flavourful rillettes. Rawlings is a whizz at pickling, using preserved items to add an extra dimension to several dishes. Pickled green beans and cucumbers are properly crunchy; firm butter beans dressed with smoked paprika and peanut oil are equally irresistible.
As one would expect from a Cowbell alumnus, Rawlings butchers his own meat, buying a whole lamb from Dingo Farms in Bradford, for example, and wasting nothing. He served the shoulder on the night we visited, the tender meat confited in spiced oil, pulled and heaped onto a slab of grilled eggplant that had been brushed with Greek olive oil, mint and dill. Slices of crunchy pickled cucumber added tang and texture while small mounds of strained goat’s milk yoghurt were almost as thick and rich as bocconcini.
Maltagliati pasta, soft as snippets of silk ribbon, came tossed with braised escarole and braised celery tops – forthright, pleasingly bitter greens that made the nubbins of meat from a boar’s head seem all the sweeter. Deep-fried gnocchi made with Monforte ricotta were admirably lightweight, their creaminess offset by quartered pickled radishes (very tart and crunchy), parsley leaves, flower petals for edible decoration and some tiny slices of fiery red chili that brought the whole dish to life.
The one disappointment was an appetizer of two little artichokes with a yummy verjus butter sitting in for a hollandaise. The artichokes were too small to have any flesh on their leaves and needed longer cooking to sweeten the chlorophyllous flavour of their hard little hearts. Much more enticing was the daily crostino, a thick slice of grilled bread spread with a smoked walnut-anchovy paste and topped with a broken poached egg, raisins that had been swollen in white wine and some wild spinach from the chef’s backyard.
The one dessert offered proved to be an interesting little assembly. Rawlings had fried pieces of brioche and tossed them in sugar to create a sort of beignet then smothered them in fresh groundcherries, tiny heart-shaped wood sorrel leaves and a sour purée of shiro plums picked on his girlfriend’s grandparents’ farm – a lively combination of tart fruit flavours.
Four of the eight wines on the current list are Canadian (all of them available by the glass) but Read and Thomson have had a surprise hit with their bourbonade, a lovely summer cocktail of bourbon, thyme-flavoured simple syrup, fresh lemonade and soda. They are thinking of taking it off the menu now the season is changing but its many fans will surely protest. Beer remains the preferred solace of those old Benfica fans, some of whom still drop by from time to time, taking an avuncular interest in Brockton General’s progress.
Closed Tuesday. Dinner menu offered Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
1321 Dundas St. W. (at Lisgar St.), 647 342-6104.