Toronto Star Food Editor
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| TORONTO STAR PHOTO/Keith Beaty | |
| Jamie Oliver, better known as TV's The Naked Chef, munches a moose burger at the Shanghai Cowgirl restaurant. |
And what the Naked Chef wants, the Naked Chef gets.
But where am I supposed to get moose? Oliver seems to think it's on all our menus. But it's a wild animal — not farm-raised game like venison — so to score some you've got to buy a licence to shoot one.
It's also illegal to buy or sell moose meat in Canada — that's why we don't see it in butcher shops, and that's why we don't eat it instead of hamburger and steak.
But the moose situation is fully under control by the time the cocky, streetwise Oliver saunters into Shanghai Cowgirl to meet me for lunch, 15 minutes late, flanked by his personal assistant and a Food Network Canada publicist, and chatting intently on his cellphone.
"I'm missing my daughter like crazy, which is funny," he sighs after hanging up, referring to 2-month-old Poppy Honey Oliver. "My missus said: `What about me? Are you missing me, too?'"
I can't wait a second longer — I tell Oliver we're having moose for lunch. My mom has secured three frozen moose steaks from Kevin O'Grady, a North Bay dentist and hunter, who put them on an overnight bus to Toronto.
By the time I deliver two moose T-bones and a moose sirloin tip steak to the restaurant on Friday morning, there's just three hours to go until interview time.
Andy Kristoff, Shanghai Cowgirl's chef and co-partner, has promised to cook the moose (for free) if I can find it. He has polled chefs, family and friends. There's no time to properly marinate the T-bones, but they're top quality and need little embellishment. Kristoff's keen to put the sirloin tip through the meat grinder for burgers.
"Are you kidding?" Oliver asks suspiciously. By now he thinks moose is a pipe dream on this four-day trip to promote his Food Network Canada shows, The Naked Chef and Pukka Tukka. "I was talking to the cab driver and asked him where I could find it. He said, `I don't know. Have a hamburger instead.'"
I tell Oliver the whole moose story, then suggest we still order from the menu to still sample Shanghai Cowgirl's fare. He's starving.
"I want you to order me a burger. I love anything done properly — that's what it's all about. In book two (The Naked Chef Takes Off) I've got burgers. I try to demystify food rather than scare people."
The 26-year-old chef, who earned his moniker for striping food down to the bare essentials, stops to autograph a fan's notebook. Then he takes a good look around Shanghai Cowgirl, an über-designed diner in a former textile store next door to the Bovine Sex Club on Queen St. W. It's all here — orange vinyl stools, sprawling lunch counter, high-backed booths and a menu that embraces classic burgers, Jell-o and drunken mussels in beer and bacon broth.
"This is cool," declares Oliver, whose TV series The Naked Chef revolves around hip parties at his London flat and cooking for his wife and mates. "There's nothing like this in London. Without getting too deep and meaningful, for me this is like a funky retro diner. Things like diners and Mexican food we do badly in London."
The sound of the Charlatans, Blur and Inspiral Carpets relaxes him. Deejay Barbi Castelvi is a fan who's blasting old-school Britpop to please him.
Waitress Laurie Schedler lays out the four half-pints we've ordered so Oliver can try Canadian microbrew. He bends down to sip them without raising the glasses from the table, saying, "Sorry this must look disgusting," before declaring the Shanghai Stout (made by Toronto's Amsterdam Brewing Co.) his favourite.
And then the moose arrives. The T-bones have been taken off the bone, peppered and grilled rare. They're served with braised leeks and tomatoes, mashed potatoes with rosemary butter and a raspberry reduction. After careful consideration, Oliver says "it's a little bit chewier than I expected, but the flavour's fantastic."
Actually the beefy-tasting, low-fat meat isn't as gamey as I remember it being, but no matter. Our Shanghai Burger (with wasabi mayo) and Banquet Burger (with bacon and cheddar) have arrived, with regular fries and sweet potato fries.
Oliver's never had sweet potato fries before. "Do you blanch them first?" he queries Kristoff. The chefs exchange cooking techniques. Oliver always believed sweet potatoes would "fall apart or go mushy" if fried. "Ah, wicked," enthuses Oliver. "I'm going to go home and try it. I'm not being pontsy: I'm a great believer that chips are wicked."
Our table's overflowing with food when the mooseburgers arrive. Kristoff has ground them with bacon, to add much-needed fat, grilled them and served them on a bun topped with Danish blue cheese and a handful of fresh watercress.
"The boy's done good," opines Oliver. "Ya, it's great. I'm so hungry. This is perfect food — comfort food."
It's hard to talk in depth when you've got just 60 minutes and there are autographs to tend to, photographs to be taken and food to be tasted. We chat, briefly, about a million things: the Maple Leafs (Oliver's sporting a Leafs sticker on his leather jacket but didn't get to go to the game), his wife Jools' labour ("it's all a bit of a blur — it was a 36-hour labour") and his down-home cooking style ("food's not invented to be serious").
It seems odd that Oliver's here now. His third cookbook, Happy Days With The Naked Chef, has been on sale overseas for months but won't be distributed here until the fall. His third TV series, Oliver's Twist, doesn't debut on Food Network Canada until Sept. 2.
But Oliver's the Food Network's top-rated chef and the 800 fans who pack Indigo for his book signing don't seem to mind that the latest Naked Chef goods aren't available. On this whirlwind tour, there's media and sponsors to meet, and television trailers to film. Oliver squeezed in meals at Tempo and Monsoon and toured St. Lawrence Market.
"I think I'm coming back in November," says Oliver, who started cooking at age 8 at his dad's pub and trained at a catering college. He was sous chef at River Café when his appearance in a documentary sparked a bidding war from production companies and launched his meteoric career.
"I'm really lucky and I work bloody hard," says Oliver. "I don't see my wife as much as I'd like to. What can I say? I was 17, 18 years old when my first book came out. The nice ending to this story is that this was never supposed to happen."
The nice ending to our Toronto story is that Oliver seems to really get a kick out of Shanghai Cowgirl.
"Here's your second moose of the day," quips Kristoff, delivering dessert. "It's our Jägermeister Chocolate Mousse. Ever had Jägermeister? It's a liqueur from Germany."
"It's not bad, is it," agrees Oliver, sampling the mousse. He eagerly knocks back a shot of Jägermeister — with 35 per cent alcohol by volume — that Kristoff brings out. "I'm going to be pissed," he predicts. "It's like Coca-Cola meets absinthe."
I poll Oliver for his conclusions on the meal. He calls the moose steak "great," applauds Kristoff for adding fat and flavour to the mooseburger with bacon, and declares the Banquet Burger his favourite from the actual restaurant menu.
"Honestly, you made my day," he grins. "I'm chuffed about the moose. Can't wait to get home and tell everybody, because no one in England has eaten moose."
On the way out, despite running late for his next appointment, Oliver lingers at the counter chatting up the Shanghai Cowgirl staff, grilling them on where to go that night, and planting an unexpected kiss on the deejay's cheek.
Outside, just steps from the SUV and driver that are waiting for him, he stops to satisfy another autograph seeker, every inch a star from the moment he arrives until the moment he leaves.