A couple of nights ago Wildebeest chef Wesley Young welcomed chef Jesse Grasso of Toronto’s Black Hoof into his kitchen for a special collaborative supper. Many things of an uncommon but well executed nature were had (seal and fennel salami, rabbit rillette, horse-heart tartare, pork blood cavatelli, and so on), but the thing that had me swooning for the rest of the night was a spring pea risotto studded with roasted lamb sweetbreads and pink pucks of concentrated bone marrow. The main component of the dish was actually a big braised lamb shank (very well met by Le Vieux Pin’s “Cuvee Violette” Syrah 2013), but the risotto stole the show. Already extra indulgent – all buttery and super sexed up with parmesan – its heat dissolved and absorbed the bone marrow so that by the time it was in your face it was so creamily delicious as to border on the wickedly obscene.
Wildebeest | 120 West Hastings Street | 604-687-6880 | www.wildebeest.ca