The Pine — Restaurant in Clearview

My fiancé and I spent our Friday evening at ‘The Pine’ to celebrate our 7th Anniversary, and it is safe to say that we left absolutely floored. The Atmosphere - intimate, delicate, refined. Our 7:00 dinner service sat 12 attendees nicely spaced throughout the interior. I noticed from where my fiancé and I sat that no matter where you may sit, you have a clear view of the masters at work assembling each course. The lighting above each table is perfect (especially for photos!) and provides just the right amount of light to be able to visually pin-point each component of the masterpiece set before you, without being overstimulating or a bother during consumption. The Service - Impeccable. There is nothing else to say, but I will continue to give a more so thorough breakdown as it is my opinion that The Pine deserves every morsel of praise it receives. Jeremiah worked the room - being sure to visit each table individually multiple times throughout our 17 course sitting. He is thoroughly knowledgeable in all aspects of Chinese cuisine and speaks with purpose. We cannot thank you enough for making our special night one to remember. The service provided by all at The Pine left us speechless. We did not catch our primary servers name (cherub tattoo on their hand) but cannot leave them out of this review as they were extremely knowledgeable about every ingredient within every course we were presented with. They were personable and on the ball when it comes to 5-star dining. At the end of our meal we asked them how long they had been working with The Pine and were shocked to hear they’ve only worked there for 2 months!! Keeping in mind The Pines’ dinner-service changes bi-weekly, we could not believe just how clocked in they were when it came down to each course - as far as being able to tell us all about each individual ingredient within each course and why it was chosen for said dish. “The best we’ve ever had!” is the only way we can appropriately describe it. The Food - If you’ve made it this far - don’t stop now. By far the most stunning, eloquent, and satiating meal my fiancé and I have had to date. We like to spend our Anniversaries indulging in tasting menu’s across Ontario and Quebec, and I think I can speak for both of us when I say that The Pine tops the list. Every component on our plates held purpose, was cooked to perfection, and handled delicately to create masterpiece after masterpiece. Every course left us completely speechless, and feeling as though we had reached umami heaven. With every bite my fiancé and I would look up at eachother attempting to contain our reactions to the explosions of unexpected flavour. Every course being just as delicious and magical as the last. We cannot thank Jeremiah, his team, and The Pine as a whole enough for the dinner-service experience we were provided with last night. We provide our highest regards to The Pine for making our special night one to remember, salivate over, and talk about for years to...

Impressive Michelin 1*, falsely judged by the ‘ 2024, 100 Best Canada Restaurant list ‘!

My recently immigrated ex-chowhounder friend of 2+decades aka ‘HKtraveler’ and I both regarded ourselves as discerning and passionate foodies. Occasionally in the past, we made plans together, sometimes with the inputs of other fellow foodie friends, to concoct culinary excursions outside the narrow confines of our home-cities. Whenever possible, we met up in destination restaurants that offer exceptional cuisine, worth a detour or special journey. I count myself blessed to have participated in such unforgettable gastronomic adventures.

Realizing another chowmeet is long overdue, we decided to organize our own ‘ Mini-meet ‘ by picking a previously untried venue that we hope is deserving and laudable enough for such a gathering. Our intimate chowmeet choice?!..... An adventurous drive, after dark, out into ‘ unfamiliar hinterland territory ‘ and trying out a newly crowned Michelin star establishment - “The Pine in Creemore”! Of course, we do not expect our chosen Michelin 1* to provide us with an exemplary package and savoir-faire experience typical of a 2* or 3*, that was normally our preferred past choices. But, with fingers crossed for a positive gastronomic outcome ( which we relied mostly on feedback from trusted food bloggers and the acument of Michelin inspectors ) plus an adventuresome drive into the ‘wilderness’, we hope to transform this periodic culinary gathering from a routine dining experience into an enchanting culinary expedition!

For their culinary creation, the friendly, skilled and talented chefs deployed to the fullest, their entire arsenal of experiences and knowledge they have honed and garnered during their training all over China and the Orient. The result, some amazingly clever and artful twists on certain traditional Chinese dishes. Transforming and morphing them into both visually appealing and palate pleasing bites. Some standout taste-bombs, wth intriguing sauces that bursted with exquisite and well harmonized flavor. Wonderful and sensory wowing!

With a whopping 15 courses to cover, I have decided to just high-light a few of my favorites of the night. I’ll take the short cut by posting the menu and let photos of all the dishes and your imagination do the talking instead!

Some chosen favorites of the evening include: Savory Chinese Tea Leaf deviled egg topped with Caviar Dainty and ultra-crispy Pumpkin cake ‘Char-Siu‘ diver scallops….the morsel plump and sweet Ocean trout, perfectly ‘ barely ‘ cooked Roasted and charred, Oyster sauce based marinade Ontario Lamb rib eye. …..etc Enjoy the visual culinary journey and have fun!

BTW, despite the near perfect execution of the dishes, there was one disappointing miss....The duck egg yolk component of the Hong Kong French Toast dessert was way overly salty.

Lastly, the extremely friendly, knowledgeable and professional service by our servers...

We were genuinely surprised that this restaurant was so good, it is really hard to do Asian fusion cuisine that still allows some of the dishes to maintain their authentic flavors. Most fusion is people trying to mesh culture A with B because they think the mixture would taste good, this felt more like a love letter with a real foundation of authenticity. This is one of the only fusion restaurants where we felt it came from a place of appreciation rather than appropriation.

In terms of our favorites, we really liked the sugar water, the carrot Jiaozi (honestly some of the best jiaozi ever), the lace and puff, the Hong Kong toast, the tea egg, dry pot cabbage, the jianbing, egg custard.

For us the ones that we didn’t stand out as much included the scallop, the Charsiu, and Foie gras. The foie gras ate too salty, the sauces on the scallop dish of the fried garlic, black garlic, ponzu emulsion, and vinegar overpowered the creamy natural flavour of the scallop. The charsiu had fantastic saucework, but the cut of meat itself was too lean, the best part of charsiu is the “burnt ends” of which we did not have. The shu cai had high “BTU” but it did have enough of the wok hay flavour. We wonder if this could have been blow torched to add char.

The service here is impeccable, we came during a snowstorm, and they really went out of their way to be helpful, including helping us clear the snow off our car. Often times we find that the service of a restaurant can be either too much or too little, they hit the mark just right.

It’s hard to really critique a restaurant that clearly works hard to refresh its menu frequently, and develop interesting ideas for dishes that incorporate cuisine not local to the region. We cannot expect, nor did we want, authentic Chinese food in the middle of Creemore. This hit the mark.

The one thing we have for suggesting to improve, is that when we think about the flavours in Chinese food, which can include a combination of spicy, umami, sweet, sour, bitter, many of the dishes featured the sweet and salty components together quite well, however, we are missing some of the kick of spice as well as bitter notes. This may just be because we came at a time when sweet and salty is a large component of the mains on the current menu.

We wonder if our review sounds like an exploration of potential opportunities rather than a critique, is because we felt so inspired by the...