Vines
November/December, 2006
Consuming Passion
Chef David Lee Understands food is a metaphor for the important things in life
Splendido chef and co-owner David Lee draws inspiration for
his inventive cuisine from everywhere. Certainly the mood of
the season and its seasonal produce set the tone for his
tasting menus, but he admits that the colour of a women’s
sweater or a scene from a movie could just as easily fire up
his creative passion.
“I might see someone wearing an orange sweater and my mind
starts thinking about butternut squash or someone else in a
black jacket and truffles come to my mind, “says Lee, who
recently celebrated his fifth anniversary at the elegant
restaurant on Harbord Street in Toronto.
“Being a chef is a lifestyle,” he explains. “I think I’m
five to eight pounds overweight, but it’s because of what I
do. I’m not making excuses here. I try and taste all the
dishes.”
Lee, who started his culinary carrier at the Hotel
Intercontinental in London’s Hyde Park at the age of 17, has
worked in some of the best kitchens in the world. He prides
himself on keeping on top of global gastronomic trends;
however, the kitchen that he’s been thinking most about
these days is the one from Roland Joffe’s film, Vatel, about
the legendary French chef who invented whipped cream.
The modern chefs in the lavish circa 1650 feasts presented
and their inherent beauty and spectacle. “I’ve often thought
about what period in history, I would like to cook in,” Lee
comments. Perhaps that’s why he has spent the summer
perfecting old school cooking methods – braising, smoking
and slow roasting – to present new dishes to dinners in the
winter months. Splendido features a Table d’ Hôte ($88) and
an eight – to 10 course tasting menu ($110) each night.
“As fall comes, people are starting to eat just a little bit
more heavily,” explains Lee, who has been experimenting with
cooking meat over 12- to 14-hour or to 14- to 18-hour
periods. In the kitchen, Lee says he’s been doing “ a lot
of pressure cooking, slow cooking with charcoal and
applewood chips and sous vide,” a method of cooking designed
to maintain the integrity of ingredients by heating them for
an extended period of time at relatively low
temperatures.
“If you look at cooking, there are always trends and waves”
says the gifted 36-year-old chef. “There was the French
Laundry with its tasting menus, followed by El Bulli’s
innovations…But I’m a firm believer that we always go back
to the foundations. Everything’s been done before. We are
just trying to perfect it and trying to put our own little
touch in it.”
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