Restaurant review: Butcher Chef sets stage for life's most important moments

Toronto doesn’t need another steakhouse. They sprout up with investor money, promising marble counters and imported beef, only to sag once the gloss wears off. What Toronto does need — and what most restaurants fatally lack — is soul.

That’s where The Butcher Chef stands apart. And the reason is a restaurant visionary, Michael Dabic , along with his partner, chef Derek Von Raesfeld.

Michael did not come from privilege, culinary schools, or restaurant dynasties. He came from Hamilton, Ont., the son of a foundry worker and a seamstress. His first training ground was KFC, not Le Cordon Bleu. There he learned something many restaurateurs with Michelin pretensions still haven’t: discipline, consistency, execution. Then he climbed through Toronto’s finest kitchens — Fentons, Bemelmans, Bersani & Carlevale, Harbour 60, Pronto — absorbing lessons in what makes restaurants work and, most often, why they fail.

But the moment that changed his career didn’t come behind the stove. It came one night in 1998, at the Park Plaza rooftop, when Michael joined 10 friends for a celebration. The food was fine. The service was abysmal. The entire evening was ruined.

That’s when he realized what most restaurateurs never grasp: the waiter has more power than the chef. You can ruin a $100 steak with five minutes of neglect. Restaurants aren’t just about eating. They’re about milestones — anniversaries, first dates, reconciliations, job offers. Get the service wrong and you don’t just ruin a meal. You ruin someone’s memories.

Armed with that insight, Michael did what most never would. After managing Harbour 60, he mortgaged his house, sold his car and everything he owned to open Michael’s on Simcoe . Opening night, TIFF 2012, was packed with celebrities and industry elites. When TIFF ended, the room was often completely empty. That kind of failure either destroys you or hardwires lessons you never forget.

At The Butcher Chef, those lessons are gospel:

• Keep it small — service collapses when a dining room tries to be an aircraft hangar.
• The chef must have skin in the game. If he doesn’t, he’ll be lured away and your customers will follow.
• Family matters. His daughter is behind the bar. His son-in-law is in the kitchen. Michael is in the room almost every night.
• Never miss a phone call, even off-hours. A lost reservation is a lost customer, and customers don’t forgive.
• Greet people at the door and on their way out. It’s called respect.
• Every detail counts — the plates, the glasses, the piano in the corner. Immaculate isn’t optional; it’s survival.

Michael sums up his approach like this: “You are only as good as the last dinner you served and need to maintain constant vigilance, as challenges can arrive at any moment.”

So how is the food? I am on national and international restaurant review panels and spend much of my spare coin and time travelling the world visiting its top restaurants. This one astonished me because it was far more than a steakhouse.

Chef Derek, a partner to Michael in the restaurant, is one of the very top chefs in Toronto. His pedigree includes North 44, Mistura, Prego with Michael Carlevale and with various European Michelin-starred restaurants. He is ingredient and seasonality focused, creating new designs with old classics. He has a tasting menu competitive with our very few best.

My meals included, in addition to a variety of steaks experience, zucchini blossom shumai, filled with pork and shrimp and topped with sturgeon caviar, truffle agnolotti stuffed with wagyu short rib, truffle and Parmigiano reggiano, clams casino with chanterelle and a succulent and sweet heirloom tomato salad.

As for his steaks, the chef hand-picks the beef at the firms, spending time around the world visiting beef farms, looking at their feed, the soil, their lifestyle and the environment the cattle are in, tastes the dishes before they leave the kitchen, and delivers steaks with the kind of char and tenderness that justify the price. Sides are crafted with the same care. No pyrotechnics. No gimmicks. Just precision and quality — and brilliance.

But here’s the truth: you don’t come to The Butcher Chef just for the steak or even the spectacular non-steak courses. You come because it’s one of the few restaurants in Toronto that understands what dining is supposed to be. A restaurant is not a real estate investment, a branding exercise, or a chef’s ego trip. It is a stage for the moments that matter in people’s lives.

Michael knows that because he lived it — through Hamilton’s grit, through empty dining rooms, through betting everything on the belief that hospitality still matters.

That’s why The Butcher Chef succeeds where others fail. It’s not just a restaurant. It’s a reminder of what restaurants were always meant to be.

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