Richmond Station located at 1 Richmond St W in Toronto

March 1, 2019:  I returned to Richmond Station for a meal!  The first and last time I came here was actually in 2013, six years ago!  That was at the very start of my food blogging adventure and I actually read my blog post again before I had this dinner just to see what I had had previously.  I knew that the Station Burger was something that I had promised myself to try on my next visit since I didn’t have it the first time.  Indeed, that was what I ordered on this visit!

Calling to make a reservation for dinner at Richmond Station was not easy.  When I called to make a dinner reservation for a coming Friday, the staff on the phone only had three available options for me, all of which were at the Chefs Table.  I didn’t mind it and thus we got ourselves a table for the 7:15 p.m. sitting.

Storefront

The interior of the restaurant as just as I remembered.  It’s such a nice place for a meal and the servers are all very professional and friendly.  I liked how when we left the restaurant that every single server who crossed our path thanked us and wished us a good night.

The view when sitting at the Chefs Table

Our table at the Chefs Table was a table with chairs facing an open window looking into the chefs’ cooking and prep area.  We could see the various cooks walking around and making food and carrying beautiful dishes.  The Top Chef Canada season 2 winner, Chef Carl Heinrich, wasn’t in that day.

Water bottle with the restaurant’s logo on it

Menu cover

Sitting at the Chefs Table, it was cool to just have our server appear in the window in front of us.  This was how she served us our food and refilled our glasses throughout the night.

Dinner menu

Desserts and drinks menu

Dining room next to the Chefs Table

The ever-changing chalkboard menu (based on what they have available)

Lamb Tartare. $11
-pommes kennedy, sundried tomatoes, olives, egg

We ordered the Lamb Tartare to share.  It was a small appetizer and was more like canapés in my opinion since it was eaten as finger food.  There were four pieces on the wooden board.  The raw lamb was mixed in with egg and some olives with sundried tomatoes and sat on a triangular slice of fried potato.  It was a very unique way of eating lamb tartare.  The slice of fried potato was soft on the inside like a mash.  The lamb tartare itself was delicious.

Roasted Leg of Venison. $33
-sunchoke purée, confit potatoes, caramelized celeniac and brussels, a hazelnut gastrique, spiced jus

It took a bit of time for our mains to arrive but I could barely notice the wait since there was so much to watch through the window.  When our mains arrived, they looked really great!  My friend’s dish was a specials of the day which was a Roasted Leg of Venison.  It looked like those fine dining dishes where every ingredient was meticulously assembled.  It consisted of sunchoke purée, confit potatoes, caramelized celeniac and brussels, a hazelnut gastrique, and spiced jus.

Station Burger. $24
-lettuce, beet chutney, aged cheddar, milk bun, rosemary fries, dill pickle, garlic aioli

The Station Burger was presented with a large portion of rosemary fries and a container of garlic aioli in a black two-handled pan.  The burger itself consisted of lettuce, beet chutney, aged cheddar, between two milk buns.  The garlic aioli was delicious!  It was so thick and rich and went well with the rosemary fries.

The Station Burger was cut into two halves which I was a bit surprised about.  It did make for easy eating and a convenient item to share if  that was your intention.  It was very juicy and the first bite left me asking the server for extra napkins since the juice rolled down my hands.  The milk bun was very tasty as well.  The beet chutney gave the burger some sweetness to it.

It was such a big portion that I ended up taking the majority of my rosemary fries home.  I like that they used a paper container for the doggybag.

Salted chocolates (so delicious) and our receipts came with a take-home postcard

We were presented with cubed salted chocolates at the end of the night when receiving our receipts.  The receipts were accompanied by a black and white postcard to take home.  The small cubes of  chocolate were so rich and deliciously salty and sweet.

I’m glad that I was able to try out Richmond Station again.  I think my impression of the restaurant remains the same as my first visit.  It is a very nice place for dinner and to impress guests especially, but I wouldn’t say it’s over-the-top spectacular and somewhere I would rush back to return to.  They don’t have a very large dinner menu and the prices can be steep if you order several appetizers to share in addition to ordering a main.

With that being said though, I actually am curious about their $80 tasting menu (the Chef prefers to call it “carte blanche” instead of a “tasting menu”).  I absolutely love tasting menus because you never know what kind of food you are going to get.  It also appeals to me considering that the chef uses all seasonal ingredients to make up the dishes and how it could be anything from five dishes meant to be shared a la family-style or 15 individual courses elegantly served.  I wouldn’t be surprised if I came back to Richmond Station in the future just to try this out.