Sous Chef Vanessa launched the evening with a delectable dish of melted gruyere (best cheese in the world) baked in puff pastry, as part of her charcuterie board. It was resplendent with things Leah loves, including wild boar sausage, apples, roasted broccoli, caramelized onions and roasted nuts. Her original Franglais 79 cocktail was a blend of prosecco, gin and pear and passion fruit juice.
To the table to enjoy guest chef Abe’s homemade samosa’s highlighting chickpeas/garbanzo beans, in honour of Leah’s beloved pets. The savory pockets were served with fresh mint cilantro chutney and tamarind dip, and we washed them down with a sweet mango lassi shake.
Sous Chef Dallas celebrated the old bait-and-switch with her appetizing baked mac and cheese “muffins”, with extra gruyere and emmental cheese sauce and fresh chives. The rich dish was balanced with a ‘ketchup looking” strawberry harissa sauce and an original mint julip prosecco cocktail.
Onto the always creative sous chef Amy, who served a cake with a glowing candle…..which was a parmesan cheese crisp hiding a broccoli salad with dried cherries, nuts and water chestnuts. Further exploring the theme of ‘secretly health-ifying foods’, SC Amy made a surprisingly delicious pressed juice with fruity mango and passionfruit (masking an enormous amount of juiced celery and cucumbers).
For the main dish, Master Chef Leah celebrated some of her favourite food memories including broccoli-gate 2021. Chefs were served a yeasted broccoli waffle, with fried tempera chicken/tofu, pickled red onions, steamed broccoli and a brown-butter miso sauce. For the drink, she celebrated her favourite bartender Matt and his delicious brandy-lemon juice-and-orgeat cocktail topped with fresh nutmeg.
Last but never least was Sous Chef Dean’s dessert, re-creating a classic Meech Lake friend evening in pastry form. Chefs were delighted by the artistic lemon-cranberry curd tarts with vanilla crust and chocolate swimmer sculptures setting the scene. The tarts were complimented with a blended papaya-rosemary-bourbon cocktail.