Little Sister

Address: 2031 Yonge St. (near Davisville Ave.), 416-488-2031, littlesistertoronto.com

Chef: Michael van den Winkel

Hours: Seven days, 4 p.m. to late

Reservations: Yes

Wheelchair access: No

Price: Dinner for two with cocktails, tax and tip: $75

When you go to Little Sister — and really, you should, because this uptown Indonesian restaurant does so many things right — make sure to order the chicken satay.

The satay ($6) comes as a trio of ground meat formed around bamboo and grilled over gas. It’s the kind of appetizer done badly elsewhere in Toronto. Here, scented with fresh lime leaves and cloves, each bite is a passport to a steamy Javanese market where galangal and garlic are piled high.

Such nuanced delights are par for the course at Little Sister, the three-month-old sibling of nearby Quince Bistro and at this point Toronto’s only Indonesian restaurant. It grew out of the rijsttafel or “rice table,” a Dutch colonial artifact chef/co-owner Michael van den Winkel periodically puts on at Quince.

Van den Winkel and partner Jennifer Gittins took three years to open Little Sister. They did it smart, bringing an Ossington vibe to Davisville through daring design and a small-plates sharing menu.

Commute Design created a rough interior of batik paper and shipping crate walls so casual that the menus are printed on cardboard squares. The boisterous space includes both intimate banquettes-for-two and a large communal table in front of the open kitchen. All that’s missing are twirling ceiling fans.

The sound of a cocktail shaker is nearly constant, drowning out the Jay Z playing. Journeymen mixologists Nishan Nepulongoda and Robin James Wynne successfully graft such Indonesian ingredients as lemongrass and palm sugar on classic drinks. The Ubud Hangout ($12) is their chili-goosed and cucumber-green take on a Pimm’s Cup, while shaking Bulleit bourbon with tamarind syrup and egg whites makes for a nicely tart whiskey sour ($12). (Bonus: If you sit at the bar, you get the remainder of the drink in the cocktail shaker, like a boozy milkshake.)

Van den Winkel, 48, grew up eating Indonesian food in Amsterdam (“it’s like curry is to England”) and learned to make the complex spice pastes called “bumbu” while serving in the Dutch navy with Indonesian sailors.

Not for nothing was part of Indonesia called The Spice Islands. Cinnamon, star anise, cloves and nutmeg were shipped abroad, while European, Indian and Chinese ingredients arrived in turn. I love the layers of galangal, ginger and chilies at Little Sister punctuated by shrimp paste, sweet soy sauce, garlic and molassesy coconut sugar.

The food is quite labour intensive, with some bumbus taking 16 hours to prepare; Little Sister needs six cooks for its 50 seats, double the ratio for Quince.

“I think that’s why you don’t find a lot of Indonesian restaurants in Toronto,” says van den Winkel.

He grinds a laundry list of spices for the shrimp curry ($15.25), the snappy pink curls smoothed out with coconut milk. Ditto the deceptively simple fried rice ($5.25). Sweet soy sauce (ketjap manis) and caramelized onions register first, followed by cumin, coriander seeds, ginger, garlic and sambal oelek, that oh-so variable Indonesian chili sauce. Shreds of carrot and cabbage add texture to the glossy basmati grains. Yum.

The menu is a map to the vast Indonesian archipelago, and a server’s guidance comes in handy. From Jakarta comes the slyly hot grilled chicken ($12.50) gilded by turmeric. Juicy pork satay ($6) originates in Bali, a largely Hindu island. The intense coconut curried beef inside crisp croquettes ($6.50) originates in Sumatra.

Bali is also the source for the improbably good grilled mustard greens ($6.50) showered in crisp shallots, ketjap manis and sambal oelek, a combination that would make those cardboard menus taste good.

And always the layers of flavour. Grilled pork belly ($15.75) is drizzled with a zippy roasted red pepper sauce that recalls gazpacho — until the fish sauce kicks in. Underneath lie the aromatic star anise and cinnamon used to marinate the pork belly. Curried cauliflower salad ($7.50) boasts the fruity-tart complexity of rujak, plus the crunch of coriander seeds and puffed rice.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

Desserts ($5) skew Italian. Orange-infused coconut milk is lightly gelled into panna cotta splashed with the dark caramel of coconut sugar. A semifreddo of coffee (Javanese, of course) is whimsically sprinkled with Skor bits.

“I went back to my roots,” says van den Winkel, who named Little Sister in part after his sibling Brenda, who died from a congenital heart defect at age 7.

By all means, let’s follow him.