All things must pass. I heard today that Yannick Bigourdan and David Lee are stepping away from Splendido after eight years as owners. They are selling the restaurant to Carlo Catallo, who was the restaurant\u2019s sommelier for many years and is now its manager, and Victor Barry, longtime sous in David Lee\u2019s kitchen and now chef de cuisine since the departure in December of Brian Semenuk.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was obviously an extremely amicable deal \u2013 a family deal almost,\u201d says Bigourdan. \u201cIt will be hard to leave Splendido, of course, but we\u2019re leaving it in very good hands. Carlo has been with us since the beginning. Victor is still young \u2013 barely 27 years old \u2013 but he\u2019s going to be one of Toronto\u2019s best chefs.\u201d<\/p>\n
One reason behind Bigourdan\u2019s and Lee\u2019s decision is the great success both of Nota Bene and of their relationship with Franco Prevedello, their partner in that venture. I wouldn\u2019t be a bit surprised to hear they are undertaking another project together soon.<\/p>\n
And it will be interesting to see what Catallo and Barry do with Splendido. Will they sustain the current levels of refinement or take it down a notch? The present dynamic of the industry in Toronto seems to be slightly towards simplification and away from formal fine dining. But that might change if one or more of the rumoured big-shot arrivals turns out to be true in the next year or two \u2013 Jean-Georges Vongerichten coming to the Shangri-La or Wolfgang Puck to the new Four Seasons or a branch somewhere of Daniel Boulud\u2019s DB Bistro. And I suppose the Ritz Carlton will need a restaurant\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
All things must pass. I heard today that Yannick Bigourdan and David Lee are stepping away from Splendido after eight years as owners. They are selling the restaurant to Carlo Catallo, who was the restaurant\u2019s sommelier for many years and is now its manager, and Victor Barry, longtime sous in David Lee\u2019s kitchen and now […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1,19,95],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jameschatto.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jameschatto.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jameschatto.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jameschatto.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jameschatto.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=95"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/jameschatto.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2149,"href":"https:\/\/jameschatto.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95\/revisions\/2149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jameschatto.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=95"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jameschatto.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=95"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jameschatto.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=95"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}