Hawthorne Food and Drink

3 stars out of 4

Address: 60 Richmond St. E. (at Church St.), 647-930-9517, @HawthorneTO

Chef: Eric Wood

Hours: Lunch, Monday to Friday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Dinner, Wednesday to Saturday, 5 to 11 p.m.

Reservations: Yes

Wheelchair access: Yes

Price: Dinner for two with pop, tax and tip: $55

Hawthorne is edible proof that something good can come from something bad.

When SARS hit Toronto 10 years ago, it killed 44 people and turned us into a tourism pariah. Hotels laid off thousands of staff, and their union rolled out a retraining program that has since helped hundreds. Hawthorne Food and Drink is the latest and most scrumptious stage in its evolution.

Hawthorne opened Dec. 5 on the ground floor of the Richmond St. E. co-op built by Local 75 of the hospitality union UNITE HERE.

It’s a joint venture between the union, which represents more than 7,000 workers in the GTA, and our major hotels. The union’s Las Vegas Culinary Training Academy was the model; locally, it resembles the training program at Paintbox Bistro, but with much better service.

About half of Hawthorne’s nine staff are paid interns upgrading from their current jobs at the front desk, dishwashing or cleaning.

“A lot of women, newcomers to Canada and people of colour end up in our industry. We want them to have a skills program to move up to the higher-paying job classifications,” says Local 75 president Lis Pimentel.

Giving them a leg up is general manager Eric Wood, the chef who previously trained gay youth at Fabarnak restaurant in the 519 Church Street Community Centre.

“I sort of stumbled into this social-conscious thing about food,” says Wood.

The 33-year-old chef runs a rigorous kitchen where few shortcuts are allowed. Butchery, pickling and charcuterie are done in-house. The last time I was there, I watched a cook painstakingly clean the bones of one lamb rack after another.

“I want it to be one of the hardest jobs they’ve ever had because I want them to go elsewhere with great work habits,” says Wood of his interns.

Hard for them, maybe, but fun for us, thanks to Hawthorne’s confidence and humour.

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Squarefoot Design is responsible for the 42-seat room done up in browns and greys, with counter seating and intimate booths for couples. An iPod shuffles quietly between Rolling Stones and disco. Winter sunlight floods the floor-to-ceiling windows, setting decorative jars of preserves aglow.

The menu is a little cheeky, from homemade pop ($3) served in glass cowboy boots — a kitsch memento from Wood’s childhood — to the hilariously named “knuckle sandwich,” a $13 lunch offering of lobster knuckle meat and crab salad between toasted sourdough.

I have no regrets about the shareable, global, health-conscious dishes I try. They reflect Toronto’s diversity in an organic way.

Take the East African chicken ($12), a quarter bird sent to the table in a black tajine (handsome but on the wrong side of the continent). The server removes the conical lid with a “ta-da” flourish, releasing a scented cloud of allspice, cumin and the Ethiopian spice blend berbere. It’s like a mash-up of doro wat with a classic roast chicken.

Edamame ($7) are post-izakaya genius, a must-have. That’s because the kitchen chars the soy bean shells in the wok, drizzles on salty molasses then tosses in a flurry of chopped peanuts. It’s sticky work, picking up shells with your fingers and bringing them to your mouth to squeeze out the beans within. You’ll want to eat the shells, too.

Other dishes are more straight-up, such as Hawthorne’s take on fish and chips ($7): a paper cone filled with fried smelts and chunky fries, seasoned with dill and malt vinegar.

Side dishes are flavour bombs, like the Italian bread salad panzanella ($4) punched up with roasted butternut squash and golden raisins. Or floppy collard greens ($4) and firm red kidney beans cooked in vegetable stock. A salad ($8) of whole grains, dates, kale and squash manages to feel, look and taste good.

Then there’s the steakfrites ($17), which Wood bills as “perfect.” It’s not, since the double-thick strip loin is cooked sous-vide to medium rather than medium-rare, but it’s very good. Seared and sliced, it comes with crisp fries and a classic demi-glace that any intern should aspire to. Wood says it won’t be on the menu for much longer, so order fast.

Too bad the kitchen loses its momentum with desserts ($7) like rubbery panna cotta perfumed with lime leaf; it would be far more sensuous with less gelatin.

Then again, any restaurant that serves The Elvis — a surprisingly subtle combo of grilled banana bread, candied bacon, peanut butter and apple-strawberry jam — has intrinsic value. As do the workers in the training program.