Creme Brasserie - Toronto

To cap off Summerlicious 2016, my friend and I decided to visit Crème Brasserie, a charming French restaurant hidden in Yorkville.

I went to the restaurant for a winterlicious lunch and had a positive experience.

The hummus with bread was very good - I had the steak tartar that had a different twist with mustard & fries - think I prefer the more traditional steak tartar - the roasted duck that I ordered medium rare was served over cooked - they replaced the dish with a medium rare which was better - however, somehow the red current sauce that it came with did not add much flavour - not a stand out dining experience - but acceptable

The service was really good The lychee martini was too strong the hummus was really good the zitti was not special at all, no flavour

Was a little concerned when we walked in and saw the majority of the restaurant set for a large group having had too many experiences where a large group messed up the kitchen's flow and left us with slow service and food that had been sitting under the heat lamp too long. Fortunately that was NOT the case with our dinner! Our server did a great job of keep our meal on track and ahead of the large group. Between that and the fact that the manager stopped by at the beginning of the evening with an earnest expression of concern that our request for a table instead of a booth was accurate. He truly seemed a little panicked that we had the wrong table, which given this was our first visit was touching (imagine how well he must treat his regulars!). Our mains (a duck and a lamb dish were both absolutely delicious as were our starters (found my gazpacho a bit large and filling for a starter but it was so good, I didn't really care too much!). If someone held a gun to my head and said to come up with a complaint, my only one would be that I wished that a Brasserie like this had more French wines on its list (quite a few Italians) or at least more Canadian wines to offer. If our daughter ends up going to University of Toronto, I can see us dining here a lot when visiting her!