Insider’s Tips: July 3
Newly arriving Ontario produce this week were blueberries, French beans, dandelions, broccolini, raspberries and cherries. Nearly all of the produce Chef bought was from Ontario. This is peak season for him.
Our fish and meat suppliers are the same this week. Chef noted that seafood prices, other than for Nova Scotia scallops, were down this week. Chef recommends veal, which is particularly nice at this time of year.
Summerlicious arrives on July 4 and ends on July 20. We offer a special menu at $55pp for three-course lunches on Wednesdays through Fridays. Also, we have a special three-course $75pp dinner menu. Many of GEORGE’s most popular dishes are on these menus. We particularly recommend the West Coast King salmon as well as the rhubarb sponge for dessert on both the lunch and dinner menus. Also, we suggest for dinner the Ocean Trout first course, cured by Chef on our premises.
Specially selected value wine pairings are available with the Summerlicious offerings for $30 at lunch and $50 at dinner. Our Sommelier tells us these are summer wines—fresh, crisp and light to complement the food.
Jean-Valery Lacasse has joined us as GEORGE’s new General Manager. Jean-Valery has been prominent as a senior manager of a number of well-known restaurant groups in Ontario.
His first request was to join our group this week at the Ontario Food Terminal to meet our suppliers and better understand how we choose the best seasonal local produce in Toronto. He noted immediately that the produce on the farmers’ side of the Terminal (which supplies us) was hugely better looking than the produce on the inside commercial side of the Terminal.
He was born in a small village close to Quebec City. The family home had a large garden; he and his friends grew up training horses, working the fields and harvesting multiple gardens.
After graduating from Laval University, he left Quebec for British Columbia and then an izakaya in Japan (Kyushu) for the next 10 years.
Upon returning to Canada, his first project was to rebuild Sassafraz. During the construction time, he travelled in France, staging at Guy Savoy in Paris and Les Troisgros in Roanne. At that time, he visited most of the wine-producing regions of France. It became clear to him that hospitality was going to be a very exciting career.
Jean-Valery told us, “I enjoy cooking, travelling, markets of all kinds, and sharing my life with my daughter Tenley, my partner Anna and our dog Maxwell.”
Please introduce yourselves to him.