Ten Restaurant — Restaurant in Toronto

Came to Ten at the recommendation of a friend who enjoys tasting menus. I've been to several tasting menus before. Going into this I understood that this would be vegetable forward so I kept my expectations in check as I am an avid meat lover, bbqer and enjoy rich flavours but am also a gardener.

Service was excellent and the chef was very friendly and answered my questions. You could tell that he is very involved in the selection of ingredients and is really pushing for local vegetables to shine in the dishes. I don't think much seasoning/spices was used because most of the flavours would come from the vegetables. There's a fine line between having as much "natural" taste and one modified with just the right amount of seasoning that we are all so used to having. These limitations caused some dishes to be challenging for me but may be appreciated by others.

Here are my main comments for each dish based on my experience. My final comments for each dish will simply be taste testing worthy, take it off, modify it .

Tomato/Hyssop/Melon -good acidity to whet the appetite. Hyssop sauce provides a unique mint profile to the dish. Taste testing worthy Cabbage/tuna sashimi/coriander flowers - can't go wrong with charred cabbage and some protein to balance it off. Cold pressed sunflower oil offers a nutty flavor to meld it together. Taste testing worthy Corn- cream of corn without the cream topped with corn pulp cracker, some chicken skin. Taste testing worthy Acorn Squash varietal/sunchoke/garlic oil- Naturally sweet squash does most of the work while the sunchoke (taste like artichoke) and garlic oil add another element to the dish. Taste testing worthy Gnocchi cheese/onion/wheat chips? - chef said it would taste like french onion soup and it did. The cheese gnocchi had a neutral flavor and to me it was just caramelized onions that did all the work. Honestly, I would have preferred just a regular bowl of old fashion french onion soup. Probably didn't help that I ate Gnocchi just recently...Take it off Sourdough bread-Keep it on the menu ,give 2 slices?. Zucchini yellow and green-combination of rolling up sliced yellow and green zucchini smoked with apple wood and I think tomato/tuna fat emulsion? The dish smelled great from the apple wood but the taste/seasoning was lacking. I've slow charcoal grilled olive oiled zucchinis several times and don't think this dish really elevates the taste that much more. I would say it's a limitation of Zucchini in general. Taste fine but don't think it should be on a tasting menu. While it is a seasonable vegetable, it's just too common. I think this slot can be used for a more unique ingredient that can be grown. Take it off Mushroom/ Red Kale/Buckwheat crunch-I think the chef said that they had a repeated process of deg-lazing the mushroom until they could get as much natural flavor from it as possible. I think it was still lacking in umami/a limitation of the mushroom itself. It's a nice attempt but I think mushroom needs some more assistance from another ingredient(maybe a pepper paste with a slight kick to it). Take it off/modify it Panna cotta concord grapes peanut- smoothness from the panna cotta, crunch from the peanuts. Classic P&J flavor profile. Taste testing worthy Beet lime tart with almond base - I was hoping to see the "Beet" shine since but the lime/lemon completely took over. It tastes like a lemon square which I do enjoy eating. Apples should shine during the month of September. Take it off/modify it with focus on the Beet flavor. I think a corn shaped corn flavoured ice cream topped with spices could...

Ever since I realized that the Grammy’s was a popularity contest with little correlation to true talent, I have had a distrust of those awarding accolades. As a certain guide swept through Toronto awarding stars, there were some questionable choices made, and more importantly some damn fine restaurants that were snubbed—like Actinolite. As Otaku, we revel in glories of the unsung hero. Ten is one such unsung hero.

Ten is the brainchild of a creative, 29 year old chef, Julian Bentivegna, opened just months before the COVID shutdown, in the Brockton Village neighborhood of Toronto.

Chef Bentivegna introduced himself almost immediately upon sitting at the counter, eager to share his restaurant’s ethos: veg centric, seasonal cuisine presented in ten courses. This, of course is exactly why we chose to dine at Ten, so he was covering well-trodden ground.

What was not so well-trod was his treatment of the vegetal divas. In our experience, most fine dining restaurants that are (or have turned) veg-centric treat their ingredients in either the traditional Japanese manner—minimalism highlighting natural flavors, or in the other extreme the traditional Indian manner—an exciting masala of flavors creating a synergistic whole, losing the individual parts. I do not mean actual Japanese/Indian flavors, just styles of preparation.

If I had to catergorize Chef Bentivegna’s style it would be right in the middle of these two styles— the traditional French manner. Here, the flavor of the vegetable was paramount, but paired with some strong flavors which highlighted as opposed to upstaging the star. A perfect example would be his first course of winter radishes sliced into a fine julienne served over a pine nut sauce, and spiked with bay leaf oil. The pairing of flavors was sublime, and required in the chef a deft palate to balance.

For Sadako, it was the little details. As a preliminary desert course, porcini ice cream was served textured with toasted rice, and salted with caviar (another sublime pairing of flavors) served in a chilled, wooden, sakura-shaped bowl, and crafted to resemble a buckeye. It is the details like chilling the plates for cold dishes, and warming the plates for hot dishes that is so often overlooked.

While portions were small the flavors were large, and we left sated. Maitake were treated in the Cajun manner where a mushroom stock was reduced and deglazed several times over to create a sweet, intensely flavored mushroom paired with simply flavored cashews and red kale. One of the rare fish dishes, featuring a hamachi crudo with red cabbage was flavored with chewy, umami salty bits which I later found out to be chef’s own delicious hamachi XO sauce. There was intention and effort clearly present in every dish.

Over the course of ten courses, chef Bentivegna presented us ten diners with an inspired cuisine on par with the finest dishes the City of Toronto has to offer; an experience highly recommended by the Otaku, of course.

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I’ll start by saying that when I dine anywhere I love to check the lowest rated reviews first. I’ll address those reviews by saying this, most of the reviews said the price was too much or that they left hungry. That’s absolutely hilarious to me because if you took the time to see where you were going to eat you’d know it was a tasting menu AND that it’s an elevated experience. We live in a world where we want abundance and at the cheapest price available. But that’s not what should be expected. We should be open to new experiences if we’re lucky enough to be able to comfortably afford them.

I can confidently say that the portions were perfect, I was FULL by the end of the meal. As well, the price, which was about $210 per person is a lot of money of course BUT the value for what you receive is totally worth it. You come to a place like this for the experience and I’ll say the experience I got was incredible. It was a ten course tasting menu but I actually got 11 courses. The very first item, they don’t consider a course. So what a happy surprise!

The staff were incredibly nice and attentive. Each dish was carefully explained. And providing the menu at the end was a great touch. I am thoroughly happy with what I got here. It was truly an incredible experience.

Who would I recommend this restaurant to? I would say anyone that isn’t a picky eater, who wants to expand their palette and wants to have a totally unique and elevated dining experience. This restaurant is vegetable forward, meaning the focus isn’t on meat. My dishes were mostly vegetables with the occasional seafood. It really opens your mind up to what’s possible with cooking and the amount of new vegetables I’ve never tried.

I can genuinely say that every bad review left for this restaurant is completely wrong. Nothing short of 5 stars for this establishment. Totally in love with the experience I had and will definitely return someday.

I wish I had better photos to share but that’s all I could capture. The atmosphere is very chill and dimmed lighting. The entire dining experience was an incredible 2 hours and 20 minutes. I had a great experience. Come here if you want to take your time trying flavours you’ve never experienced. Put your phone down and really...