TORONTO: Colborne Lane

Chef Claudio Aprile, who has been praised by critics around the world, opened Colborne Lane in 2007 to rave reviews.

He is an artist, if you will, pushing molecular gastronomy and elevating familiar tastes to make you ooh and ahh.

So of course, I was excited to be able to sample his talent — on someone else’s dime no less.

Because we were a large group, we sat in an airy private dining room downstairs with punchy — and very comfortable — orange chairs. A three-course menu had been chosen for us ahead of time. (The restaurant specializes in tasting menus of 10 to 15 small plates to showcase the chef’s work, but you can also order à la carte.)

For starters, we had a choice of yellowfin tuna sashimi or asparagus wrapped in bread. Both were beautiful and danced on our tongues.

The sashimi was dressed with little bursts of the chef’s handiwork: dabs of yuzu dressing, avocado pudding, balls of Valentine radish and frozen mayonnaise pearls.

Wrapped in a thin crêpe blanket, the in-season asparagus was served with some manchego cheese, fingerling potato, and fennel. It was painted with saffron mayonnaise and sprinkled with dehydrated black kalamata olive.

Both were paired with a delicious 2007 Cave Spring Riesling. (2007 was a very good year for the Niagara region.)

For my main, I chose the triple-seared Alberta beef tenderloin. It was seared, dunked into a room-temperature bath of sake, seared again, then dipped into soy sauce, seared a third time, and then bathed in salt water. The result? A lip-smacking piece of meat.

But that’s not all, folks. It was topped with hot horseradish and circled by a smoked tomato sauce. A kind of ragu of Brussels sprouts and sultana raisins on the side sounded strange, but tasted good.

A Trius cabernet franc from Ontario was paired with the tenderloin, while the other main had a pick of a Taz chardonnay or pinot noir from California.

The other main choice was a plate of caramelized seasonal vegetables, pickled ramps, wild mushrooms, black garlic infused mayonnaise, and dehydrated brown butter.

Was it cool? Very. Tasty? Yes. Way too small for dinner? Yup. I was kind of astonished there was no protein or carbs to sort of give the vegetable main dish a bit more heft.

Dessert was a cup of dulce de leche, frozen blackberry snow, dehydrated mayonnaise, Murray River apricot salt and lemon cake. Most of it was nice, but I didn’t care for the salt or the toffee texture that stuck to my molars from the salt and blackberry snow.

Overall, there’s no question the food was beautiful and innovative and tasty — but I was still hungry when I left. Take this with the recognition that I know we didn’t have a full tasting menu, which most people go to Colborne Lane to try, but at the same time you should be able to walk away from a table like this fairly satisfied.

As well, while our server was extremely friendly, knowledgeable, and smelled really good — I’m sorry, but I notice these things! — our three-course dinner took more than three hours to complete.

Colborne Lane, 45 Colborne St., Toronto, (416) 368-9009. Open daily for dinner, 5-11 p.m.

Disclosure: This dinner was part of the Eat Local, Eat Real food blogger sessions, organized by a marketing company representing Hellmann’s. There was no obligation or contract that required me to write about any part of it.