My Private Pompette Spat
When it comes to modern rating systems, do they really mean anything beyond the backroom backscratching?
When you visit Toronto, the lifeblood of Canadian cosmopolitan culture, you are faced with a wealth of prospects when it comes to the cocktail hour. Competition for your attention for this or that beautiful, frosted and elegantly garnished liquid creation is intense—take it from me. I have been drinking cocktails as my early-evening indulgence of choice for over a quarter-century, ever since I stumbled upon that marvel among long defunct high-end restaurants, Pangaea, the erstwhile enterprise of partners Peter Geary and Martin Kouprie, who first collided in Toronto during their tenure with premier hospitality group, Oliver & Bonacini (O&B). To many Torontonians, O&B is a mainstay of the upscale dining landscape, a veritable paragon of virtue from the 1990s with the launch of brand-defining venues such as Canoe, on the 52-floor of the Toronto Dominion Tower, and the ever-delightful Auberge du Pommier, a fantasy transplantation of a French rural eatery into the positively banlieue backdrop of York Mills & Yonge.
But Pangaea was even better. Peter was the master of front-of-house hosting, at once deferential, quick to react to guests’ whims, and marvellously amusing, sporting a perennial bow tie, and quipping with the smoothly sophisticated humour and self-deprecating demeanour that only an Englishman of the Twentieth Century can bring to the proceedings. Not to be eclipsed, Martin, who it transpires is in some way connected with my family physician—and has borne the sobriquet of ‘Rooster,’ doubtless owing to his craning neck and gingery crop of hair—was a culinary version of fellow Canadian, and film director, James Cameron, sharing an interest in scuba diving and a sometimes slightly unnerving, fastidious obsession for detail. Martin would conjure robust yet mouthwatering delights in the kitchen that were routinely whisked to my table by the utterly irrepressible French waiter, J-P. I should digress at this point and declare that J-P was, at Pangaea, the absolute paragon of virtue when it came to the diffciult task of negotiating guests through the Lewis-Carroll-like minefield of Toronto fine dining. A true Parisian immigrant who moved to Canada and married a Québecois woman, he embodied the conception of perfect service. With a knowing smirk and a gleam in his eye, he would entreat you, “Don’t order the scallops tonight: they aren’t good.”
These are the memorable moments. Pangaea secured a loyal following. Adelstein ‘Steini’ Brown, now the button-nosed Dean of the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, and a Rhodes Scholar, was a regular guest. We were blessed in those days, and the bar became the place for à la minute socialising among a broad array of establishment and nouveau riche clients. What kept this particular restaurant fresh and magnetising was the underlying mantra of hospitality that Peter would rigorously observe, namely that the dining room should always feel like your own home—in the manner that you would be welcomed, in the automatic, unspoken code of deference always accorded to the paying guest, in the fashion that you would be greeted with warmth and respect and gratitude. Simple things to engender, you might think, in what is otherwise the cut-throat world of restaurateurs, clambering over one another to garner that most private, personal and precious piece of your monthly income: your entertainment dollars. But those days are, I would assert, long gone, even in this great city of cosmopolitan excellence, a city notably once described by the late Peter Ustinov as New York run by the Swiss.
Today, I regard the entire tenor of Toronto hospitality to have changed beyond all recognition. The advent of internet listings and ranking schemes are multifarious and rampantly disregard many of the attributes that make for a truly memorable destination cocktail and dining venue. For example, this past month, I was notifyed by a broadcast email from the owners—I must presume, but who knows?—that a modest little faux French venue called Bar Pompette had elevated itself to achieve the accolade of Number One cocktail bar in the city, at least according to the ratings sausage machine that is Canada’s 100 Best. That came as a pleasant surprise because I have been patronising their fine establishment for over a year now, and spreading the good word about their elegant, artisanal cocktails to anyone foolish enough to listen.
An accolade well deserved, then. On a warm Saturday afternoon, after a late brunch, I purposed therefore to walk the half-hour constitutional from another favourite venue of mine, Little Sister on Portland, and make good my weekend with a celebratory martini at Bar Pompette. Surely, with the correct level of carefully applied approbation, this would, indeed, be the perfect opportunity to shower the bartenders there with—forgive the pun—spirit-lifting praise and adoration.
But that is not what happened. I arrived at the bar 20 minutes into service, with sparse few guests present: the hour being early, the sunshine falling warm through the tall windows from College Street, and the patronage delimited to self-regarding Hemingway-styled writers such as myself. Well, I can project that. It is indulgent and misleading, but wasn’t he a journalist for the Toronto Star at one point in his multifarious career? I smile. It’s an affectation and an aspiration, nothing more. Chances are I won’t be writing a match for For Whom The Bell Tolls anytime soon.
The lone bartender is Dash, a familiar face to me over the many preceding months of my tenure here, and my order is equally unsurprising: a Cornichon, a beautiful riff on a dry martini, served up, in an ice-cold tall-stemmed glass, frost gleaming on the tulip-shaped surface, an unassuming drop of dill oil floating on its surface. Perfection in a cocktail glass, I would happily contend, and not without vigour; and I enjoy, not knowing that this will be my very last beverage at Bar Pompette. Why? Because I am blissfully unaware—but will soon learn—of the trap that has surreptitiously been laid for me. Hunger pangs assail me as I type a few sentences into my laptop, searching for ideas for my next piece. Writing is not an easy enterprise, so I call Dash over and order the Croque Monsieur. I’m absorbed by the blank screen and make it through a few hundred words, but my drink is dry, and I reach to push the empty glass across the bar, signalling that I would welcome a refresh. It’s been a while, but the cutlery is—after 20 minutes—finally placed in front of me. Another 10 minutes, and the toasted sandwich arrives. A 30-minute wait, then, for three finger-slices of ham and molten cheese wrapped in artisanal bread. But I am forgiving, because the cocktails here are first class. Yet, on that front, I notice no further progress: the empty glass still stands there, abandoned and uncared for. I look up; and I look at my watch. There is no action behind the bar. Dash has been relegated to the far end of the bar and a new and taller, bald gentleman now presides. I am uncertain. After a long age of the earth, as it seems to me, during which this newcomer to the proceedings studiously ignores my presence and engages with a young man sitting two doors down on my right, who I overhear claiming to be “in hospitality,” I am finally noticed by Dash. He hurries over and looks at my sad gadfly situation with unconcealed dismay. “Can I get you something else?”
“Well, that would be nice yes. But, I would have liked to have been asked a little sooner.”
At this point, the tall, bald bartender next to him stoops around swiftly, bending down like a real-life rendition of the hideous authoritarian maquette from Pink Floyd’s Another Brick in the Wall. “If you have something to say, you can say it to me,” he interjects.
“Alright. I will say it to you. When an empty glass sits untended on a bar such as this one for more than 15 minutes, that’s a sign of poor service.”
He grimaces at me. “Do you want another drink?”
“No, I think I will take the bill, thank you,” I say, switching to automatic pilot. I have had enough of this nonsense, and I don’t need to pay good money to be insulted.
Dash frantically presses the relevant buttons on the hand-held payment terminal and hands me the chit, and I settle, staring blankly into the middle distance.
For some bizarre reason I select the 18% tip button, knowing full well I should have passed altogether. I snatch off the receipt and make for the door, and onto College Street, mentally preparing myself for the long walk home.
“Have a nice weekend!” comes the voice from the tall, bald bartender who has decided unilaterally that I am the wrong type of clientele to be patronising this particular kind of bar: a nation-beating, first-class winner.
This is Toronto’s “Number One” cocktail venue. But for how long?
Your article reflected conversations that are happening in medical academic centers across the country. Seeing it published in a national paper is a good start in an effort to open a conversation that remains a third rail discussion. Hidden behind the intention of a more compassionate, diverse and open future physician workforce we are selecting and training physicians who align with diversity along a very select set of domains. Almost ironically we have the least diverse cohort with respect to values, attitudes, and demographics. The initial intentions were good but the overshoot has been blinded to it's shortcomings and consequences are going to be difficult to course correct moving forward. Thank you so much for shining a light. It's not surprising that so many trained physician scientists have to censor their views and identites to engage in an open conversation.