I had the pleasure of sitting down to a lovely summer meal prepared by Elle Cuisine.
Helmed by Chef Lauren Mozer, Elle Cuisine creates personalized food experiences. This includes catering, cooking private dinners, interactive cooking classes, weddings and more. They focus on building relationships and ensuring that their clients have a relaxing and enjoyable meal. The goal? To help people create memories and enjoy food.
Loved the personalized touches of the menu and name card.
For this dinner, the theme was Elle Summer Moments. For Chef Lauren, food represents moments of her life. The menu for the evening is personal, and is a trip through her summers. Each course has a story.
The first course was East Coast Road Trip, a chowder inspired by a 3 week road trip Lauren took with her mother when she was 16. This trip was the first time she experienced fresh lobster and seafood.
The dish is a Lobster and Corn Chowder (because corn is in season and she loves corn.) filled with Dungeness crab, butter poached lobster, fresh Ontario peas and smoked paprika oil.
The soup was the perfect palette teaser. The corn wasn’t overwhelming and let the fresh seafood shine.
The second course, Italian Summer, was my favourite! This was inspired by a trip to Tuscany for Lauren’s best friend’s wedding. Her favourite thing about Italy was the fresh cheese. She loved eating fresh cheese all day long, from breakfast to dinner, so she tried to recreate her experience for this dish.
Fresh cheese and tomatoes star in this handmade ravioli stuffed with goats milk ricotta, topped with roasted and confit tomatoes and Sicilian olives. The dish is sprinkled with “tomato dust”, dehydrated tomatoes that are put through a coffee grinder and is surprisingly tasty. Fried tomato skin is used as a crispy, tasty garnish.
Homemade focaccia bread is served with tomato butter. The butter has been roasted with confit tomatoes wiped with butter and herbs.
Tomato butter needs to become a thing, because it was amazing and creamy. I could’ve had 5 pieces of bread slathered with this stuff. Mmm.
To wash it down, this dish was served with a light Aperol Spritz, my favourite drink of the evening.
The third course, Aged and Smoked was inspired by Lauren’s birthday meal. Each year she goes to Jacobs Steakhouse for her birthday. She a carnivore that loves meat and dry aged steak. Here we have a 55 day dry aged rib eye cooked in a lemon Bearnaise sauce, served with asparagus and a potato crisp.
The final course, Burnt Marshmallow, is something we can all relate to. It’s inspired by late summer nights and roasting marshmallows by the fire. This dessert features a homemade vanilla marshmallow, spicy chocolate ganache infused with cyan and chili, and a S’more brownie. Last but not least, a scoop of homemade blueberry cheesecake ice cream finishes the dish.
The team behind Elle Cuisine did an amazing job bringing the tastes, emotions and spontaneity of summer to the table! To find out more about how you can book Elle Cusinie for a special meal or event, please visit www.ellecuisine.ca
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