Enoteca Sociale
1288 Dundas West
Toronto, ON
●●●●●●●●●☺○
9 1/2 out of 10
Italian
Yes, 9 1/2, but that's only for the bread and pasta. Would that I could never eat anything besides these two things again. That's all that's necessary for happiness in life, I'm convinced - bread and pasta. In fact, if I'd passed out in my empty pasta bowl before the main course came my life would have been complete, except I wouldn't have gotten to try another half glass of exquisite Italian red. That's the other reason to come here - the wine list and nearly everything served by the half glass or glass.
This is the sister restaurant of Pizzeria Libretto on Ossington. Instead of pizza they do pasta. Sure they do meats and appetizers, but I don't care about those.
This place is going to be constantly packed. Apparently half the restaurant is given to those with reservations and the other half is left for neighbourhood foot traffic. So any given night you can get a table. Still, expect a wait, especially once the patio closes. Sit at the bar or at a table placed pretty close to your neighbour, and enjoy the trattoria experience. This is Italy. I never ate better than this in Italy. Never. Believe me, I tried.
So the thing is, I make a ton of pasta myself. I love my fresh pasta so much that after I'd made it for the first time I knew I could never go back to dried pasta, but I also thought I knew what good pasta was supposed to taste like. No, I was wrong, because Enoteca Sociale's pasta is what pasta is supposed to taste like. Their durum semolina is the most flavourful pasta-making miracle in Toronto. Better even than the pasta place at St. Lawrence Market. It's all about the flour/egg/oil combo and here they get it right. The thin, flat noodles of the pappardelle with braised rabbit were little bites of joy. The only mistake was that it came with a little bit of cheese (an unsalty parmiggiano I'd guess?) and I'd asked if there was cheese in the dish and they'd said no. But it's pasta. Of course there's cheese, and it's better for it. It makes something so simple into something sublime. The server begged to take the half-eaten dish back to the kitchen and get me a new one, but my main thought about that was that as much as I'd love another bowl of the heavenly stuff I couldn't possibly finish it and there was no way I was letting such a beautiful dish go to waste. There was a reason I'd eaten half a bowl of the stuff even though I can't digest cheese. Even taking leftovers is not the same. The cheese was perfect, anyway, and I think the rich wine cut through it nicely. It may have even been raw milk cheese because they have a lot of that on their cheese menu, and I didn't get sick. The rabbit gave a depth to the dish and brought out of the sweet flavour of the pasta itself. It was light, smooth, and every strand stayed separate. Better than a similar dish at Loire Restaurant on Harbord, but they're French, not Italian, so it's not their fault.
The other great thing here was the bread. It tasted like sourdough with a tangy flavour. Dipped in olive oil the earthiness of the cold-pressed fruit was heavenly with the tang. God forbid you eat this with butter. You could, but I'd be sad for you. It would be delicious, I know, but good quality olive oil is easier to find than good quality butter in Toronto.
The bread was not fluff bread, but it wasn't dense. The edges were crisp and the insides moist and pillowy when you chewed. I actually stopped the server and asked, "Excuse me, do you KNOW how good this bread is?" She packed three extra pieces in my to-go container of leftover cornish hen. I remember nothing about the cornish hen except that it was okay. I think the skin was under-crisp. I didn't care. I was still luxuriating in the memory of sourdough and semolina. I didn't need or want another piece, but just sitting there appreciating what I had just had was enough. It did remind me of a busy street on a Friday night in Milan, but that's only because I didn't make it that far south in Italy. This is not Northern Italian cuisine (Milan), though they do have wines here from all regions. Actually, their wines are offerings you won't find many other places. They're all exceptional examples of regional varietals. Have you ever had a gialla? A friulano? Not what you expect. I didn't order them but just the sight of them on the menu pulled me back to an afternoon in a wine shop (In Italy 'enoteca' can mean wine bar or shop or both. Usually a shop will have a bar where they may serve samples) in Pavia (south of Milan) where the owner opened a bottle of a local bottle of watery stuff while we listened to Andrea Bocelli and Celine Dion, as well as other Italian standards. I'm sure the bottles here were of much higher quality.
I think I love this place because it's so very much Italian without any Toronto pretension. It's casual but with incredible service - so fast and efficient, but courteous and professional. It's affordable but with exquisite wines by the glass. There's a tasting menu but you could just get a simple pasta with a contorno (side dish) of squash with thyme, honey and butter (so rustic and autumnal) for a simple meal after work. It's more likely you'll end with some cheese (fresh local or specialty imported stored in the restaurant's own cheese cave at optimal temperatures, served on platters according to your own selections) from the enormous cheese menu than with one of the simple three desserts. A meal doesn't have to end sweet. At least not every day of the week. You're going to want to come here often, so at some point you'll not want chocolate. At that point you'll switch to cheese to add the final layer of the meal to your top of your stomach, like a layer of insulation against hunger. Now that's Italy. This is a reason to love Toronto.
416-534-1200
www.sociale.ca
