Despite their undeniably excellent pasta, Cafe Bar Pasta is about quite a bit more than that. Here we have Octopus and Bone Marrow: chilled and marinated with Balsamic, Mint, Basil, Garlic, Chili, Toasted Rice Cracker, served with Chicken Liver-Marrow stuffed bone. A complex layering of flavours on textures won me over here.
A little further along Dundas West, a block and a half west of Dufferin, lies a small, unassuming boîte named Cafe Bar Pasta. Going on name alone, it would be easy to overlook this spot as just another Italian joint, but on closer inspection this would be a huge mistake.
The devil is very much in the details; my first tip-off that Cafe Bar Pasta was more than I had originally imagined was noticing that the wine list had been curated by none other than Master Sommelier John Szabo. Being a real sucker for such things, I took the bait…
Vinous interest piqued, I decided to explore a little further, and was delighted to discover a confident menu, executed with considerable brio by Chef Jay Scaife, an ambitious young man with some fifteen years of kitchen experience under his belt… and he certainly loves his pasta.
We caught up with him in the basement of Cafe Bar Pasta where he was assembling the evening’s agnolotti… and we enjoyed talking with him so much we broke our usual rule of a maximum of 10 minutes…
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Edinburgh-born/Toronto-based Sommelier, consultant, writer, judge, and educator Jamie Drummond is the Director of Programs/Editor of Good Food Revolution… And he has to say that he was pretty damn impressed with Chef Scaife’s camera manner. A natural.
