It’s coral pink, rippled with buttery fat and practically melts in your mouth. But rare pork, a new Toronto food trend, also contravenes Ontario food regulations.

Rare pork is on the menu at two trendy city restaurants, Bar Isabel and The Black Hoof. While the penalty for offering the dish can be $5,000 for each day its served, the two tastemakers consider it dissidence for the sake of flavour.

“You’re really sucking out the soul by cooking it until it’s grey,” said Jesse Grasso, head chef at The Black Hoof, which has served a lightly seared pork carpaccio for a few weeks now.

“We’re not trying to be Fear Factor,” said Grant van Gameren, chef and owner of Bar Isabel, who imports Spanish acorn-fed pigs and serves a ruby-red shoulder cut. “When it comes to super-high quality pork, the only way you do it justice is by serving it like this.”

According to Ontario Food Premises Regulations, a series of requirements under the Health Protection and Promotion Act, pork must be cooked to an internal temperature of 71C (160F) for at least 15 seconds. It’s a rule designed to kill salmonella and tiny trichinella worms, a parasite that can be transferred to people from uncooked meat, hatch within the intestines and spread through the arteries. The resulting disease is called trichinosis, and severe cases can be fatal.

But infections are incredibly rare. In Ontario, the most recent human case occurred in 2013 when a boy in Owen Sound ate pork from a Mennonite farm. Before that, the last case of pig-to-human trichinosis occurred in 1980.

These days, trichinella is mostly limited to bears, cougars and wild game. A few dozen people were infected in 1993 while dining on wild boar.

“This outbreak reminds us that although trichinosis is rare in Ontario, physicians must maintain a high index of suspicion for the disease,” wrote researchers evaluating the case in the Canadian Journal of Public Health.

Both Toronto chefs are aware of the rule, which Grasso said is “absolutely not” necessary.

“I don’t keep up with (the regulations), I keep up with my sensibilities as a chef,” said van Gameren.

Serving rare pork is a “serious offence” that could mean an automatic court summons, said Sylvanus Thompson, associate director of Toronto Public Health.

However, Toronto Public Health would likely issue a warning first and “condemn” the dish from the menu, Thompson said.

“It’s true that trichinosis is very uncommon. But you never know when it will happen. You just can’t tell which pork will have trichinella. We still don’t know so we don’t want to take the risk.”

So why is it OK to order a ruby-red filet mignon and not rare pork?

“Pigs are more closely related to humans. What can affect the pig can often affect us as well,” explained Keith Warriner, a professor of food safety at the University of Guelph. “I wouldn’t say it’s cannibalism, but close.”

Pork is more likely to contain hepatitis E, which affects the human liver similar to hepatitis A. There is also a 10 to 20 per cent risk of salmonella in pork, Warriner said.

“In a cut of beef, the inside is sterile, whereas with pork, it can harbour these pathogens. The risk is low, I admit. But then again it’s there,” he said.

The fact that The Black Hoof and Bar Isabel sear the pork’s edge is a plus because it kills off salmonella, which lives on the outside of the meat, Warriner said. However, there is still a risk.

“They’ve got these novel concepts that differentiate themselves as restaurants, but what is happening is they’re putting people in danger,” he said.

If Toronto Public Health cracked down, The Black Hoof would stop serving pork carpaccio, Grasso said.

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“If they do, I’d take it off my menu. But I’ll never stop knowing and believing it’s not going to hurt anyone,” he said, adding that a single person has yet to fall ill.

Both restaurants insist they put an immense effort into serving safe, high-quality pork. Van Gameren personally visited the Spanish farm where he sources his pigs.

“It’s beautiful. All these beautiful pigs are out underneath the acorn trees. They’re so well taken care of,” he said. “I believe you can eat anything raw as long as it’s a well-raised, clean slaughtered animal.”