two six {ate}
268 Preston St., 613-695-8200,
twosixate.com
,
instagram.com/twosixate
Open:
Thursday to Sunday 4 to 8:30 p.m. for takeout during the current lockdown
Prices:
four-course dinners for two $80, a la carte items $10 to $32
Access:
steps to front door, washrooms in basement
In the distant pre-pandemic past, one of my favourite late-night snacks was the foie gras burger at two six {ate} on Preston Street.
I don’t know how many times I walked over to the funky Preston Street eatery after an evening’s exertions to ask for that affordable splurge, a carnal, beefy treat with a slathering of liver-y luxury. It was just the indulgence I needed to put an exclamation mark on some quality time spent with friends.
Of course, those happy memories date back years, to nights when the Little Italy restaurant, which opened in 2012, served hip, small plates into the wee hours to a youthful throng that set its crowded space buzzing. Of course, the novel coronavirus has disrupted almost everything about that happy scenario. Two six {ate}, with its patio long closed and dining room shut due to the current pandemic-related state of emergency, serves dinners four nights a week for scheduled pickups but not deliveries (and I meet up with my pals via videoconferences).
COVID-19 pivots notwithstanding, I hoped two six {ate}’s chef Steven Harris would pack his takeout containers with fare as pleasing as my go-to foie gras burgers. These days, two six {ate} stresses very affordable but elevated four-course dinners for two, whose components can also be ordered à la carte. We tried different dinners for two ($80) on consecutive weekends this month, relying on menus posted on the restaurant’s Instagram page. One dinner yielded nothing but winners. The other dinner was more ordinary, with some dishes that were overly simple and one or two in which Harris’s creativity — he’s a former Ottawa Gold Medal Plates competitor — got the better of his food.
It should be said first though that both dinners for two were extremely generous — more like a dinner for two plus a hearty lunch for two the next day.
Each dinner began with a thick soup made with coconut milk and roasted winter vegetables, with crème fraîche and scatterings of nuts and spices on the side to enliven things. A potage of miso-roasted celeriac, squash and carrots was exceptionally good, complex and well-calibrated. The following weekend, the Caribbean sweet potato soup, amped up with Scotch bonnet peppers, was a little less interesting and a touch too salty.
Among Harris’s appetizer choices were little baked and fried goodies with meaty fillings we couldn’t resist ordering. Some very pleasing duck turnovers contained smoked duck breast and foie gras, some roasted sunchoke and cabbage. The following week, the wild boar egg rolls were a little less special, but nonetheless persuasive. Both came with a sweet and sour dipping sauce of fermented grapes, which really did the trick.
Between two salads, we had a clear preference. With Harris’s winter salad of confit carrots, pickled cauliflower, goat feta, pear mostarda, pistachios, pea shoots, radishes and tarragon vinaigrette, every element sang. But the chef’s spin on Caesar salad wandered too far from its namesake, chiefly because the bitterness of its frisée and radicchio threw the dish out of whack, outweighing the novelty of the chickpea puffs that stood in for croutons and the smoked mushrooms that subbed for bacon.
Harris’s Cornish hen course was so good we couldn’t stop raving about it in between bites. The pan-roasted sous vide breast was moist and flavourful, and the blocky sausage of dark meat was even better. Brussels sprouts roasted in fat from the hens, braised turnips, pearl onions, and smashed fingerling potatoes ensured we would feel stuffed.
But the next week, when we chose a promising looking duck course, we were underwhelmed. The pan-roasted duck breast was overcooked and the cavatelli pasta with duck-leg ragu, while homey and filling, just didn’t wow us.
Of two desserts, the coconut cream pie that topped an Oreo crust with coconut pudding was a hit, preferable to the ricotta cheesecake topped with crowberry compote we had the following week.
When I first wrote of two six {ate} more than eight years ago, I said its food was both admirable and hit and miss. As much as things have changed over time, especially in the last 10 months, the same assessment may nonetheless again apply. But even if not every dish sparkles, that amazing Cornish hen, and the memory of foie gras burgers from convivial nights gone by, still make me want to put two six {ate} up on a pedestal.