Opinion | Next stop Monaco: Future hospitality stars compete at Toronto’s Don Alfonso 1890

He has a Michelin star.

And he’s got the tattoo to prove it.

At an event held earlier this week atop Don Alfonso 1890 — 38 storeys high — I ran into its executive chef, Daniele Corona. Having moved to Toronto from the Amalfi Coast to take the reins at this restaurant, he was clearly still giddy from the one-star recognition nabbed during the first, deafening burst of Michelin noise in Toronto last month. So giddy he flashed me some wrist art.

A chubby red star. To go. A tattoo that he had done at Chronic Ink to mark the honour.

“On Dufferin,” Corona said in his charming, Naples-whisked accent.

Also, clearly feeling it: the man behind the restaurant, Nick Di Donato. “We are booked until January,” he told me, as he held court in this dazzling, ring-shaped space (inside the Westin Harbour Castle), which also happens to come with a real-life “livestream” of the entire city skyline from one side, and the lake and islands from the other.

One of the stalwarts of the hospitality scene in this town for decades — the boy who started as a busboy for the family restaurant, Lorenzo’s, when he was 15, later parlaying that passion into his own multimillion-dollar company with more than a thousand employees — Di Donato mentioned that Don Alfonso 1890 was adding an extra night, starting next week. To meet the extra demand. “Tuesdays,” he said, bringing dinner service here to six nights a week, closed Mondays.

All, clearly, just part of the daily juggling act that is his Liberty Entertainment Group, which has sired a flux of restaurants and special event spaces around town, past and present: from the storied Phoenix Concert Theatre, the monster-sized Klub Max and swish eatery Rosewater Supper Club (RIP) to their ongoing orchestrations at Casa Loma (where they also have the BlueBlood Steakhouse) to various Cibo restaurants to the nightlife space Arcane.

The specific reason for our gathering today, however? And why we had gathered midday (since Don Alfonso is not typically open for lunch)? To take in the inaugural Canadian round of the Young Chef Young Waiter competition. The restaurant had kindly offered to host it and I had been asked to guest judge. Established in 1979 and relaunched in 2019 by an international coterie, including UKHospitality, the competition invites those under 26 years of age to participate and seeks to promote careers in hospitality as a vocation.

Ah, the theatre of dining.

Taking my seat at a table next to Di Donato’s wife, Nadia, the award-winning designer who has long been the secret weapon at Liberty in that she creates all the spaces, our lunch started off a bit shaky when our assigned waitress — one of the three finalists — approached to take drink orders. Putting myself in the Simon Cowell role, and having been instructed to ask this specific question, I wondered if she could tell me what is in a French 75 cocktail.

Eeks. She froze. Told us she could not. (Gin, champagne, lemon juice, simple syrup, by the way). And, even more unfortunately, made the mistake of not offering to go and find out. Though otherwise quite personable and lovely — the server usually works at Langdon Hall — it sort of set the tone, nerves-wise. When she later came to pour the red wine, down came one, two … three … drops, hitting the white tablecloth, as we all pretended not to notice as she watched us pretending not to notice. All of it happening in slo-mo — like watching Keanu Reeves in “The Matrix.”

She did considerably better when bringing out our mains later — a beautiful bison dish, adorned with white truffle olive oil — at which point I impromptu asked, “Where is the bison from?” Taking a beat, she told us: “Manitoba.” Cue the handclap emoji.

Alas, our assigned chef here lost points when our entire table decided that, as flavourful as the dish was, the temperature was off. Too cold! Would have been a knockout if it was warmer! Bison-wise, the tepidness undermined it — almost like when you see a good dress with the wrong shoes.

After all was said and eaten — and scorecards ranked and weighed — it was time for the announcements. Paul Mckeand, who also works at Langdon Hall, took top prize in the server contest, while Haofeng (Tyler) Lin from Hilton Toronto won the chef category. Next stop: Monaco. These two Canadians head to the international competition next month.

The Di Donatos have plenty on the go themselves, by the way. When they are not running a hospitality empire and/or having bison for lunch, the power couple are readying for a personal milestone. Their older son, who is a family doctor, is getting married. Where? Casa Loma, of course. “We have an in,” Nick joked.

Taking over all levels of the castle, the plan is for a more relaxed affair. “We are doing food stations,” Nadia said, with a big dance party to follow. No assigned seating! And no long, drawn-out rigamarole. “People are a bit tired of those,” she mused.

Of course, work never ends and Nadia, in particular, is also hard at work getting the design going for their next, big project: a steak and sushi restaurant inside Union Station at Bay and Front streets. “It is going to be very vibrant,” Nadia said about the ambitious 8,000-square-foot project. Expected to open — fingers crossed — in the summer of 2023.

The name? Blue Bovine, a nod to BlueBlood, but also one that brings to mind the famous Toronto spot Bovine Sex Club. Nadia laughed and said they actually checked with the club to see if it was OK with them using that name. Full steam ahead! One thing is for sure, though: the plan is to play up the heritage of the station itself in the design of the new restaurant and incorporate that into the materials.

Also on the horizon in December: a family trip to Qatar, with plans to watch Canada play in the World Cup. This, plus, an add-on trip to Dubai. “Send me restaurant suggestions,” Nadia nudged.

There is always another lunch, after all.

Shinan Govani is a Toronto-based freelance contributing columnist covering culture and society. Follow him on Twitter: @shinangovani

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