On Tuesday, Rachelle and I went out to dinner at Ursa, a new restaurant on Queen West in Toronto. We knew virtually nothing about the place other than it was on Enroute Magazine\u2019s list of the 10 best new restaurants in Canada, and so, looking for someplace different to celebrate our anniversary, we went there.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a great space. Cool and sophisticated, it was an effortlessly busy spot full of confident looking people undaunted by the presence of beauty. It emitted a really charismatic, downtown vibe. Waxed mustaches, iPhones and carefully considered lighting were all around us. The chefs working in the open kitchen at the back were illuminated as if actors on a stage, coming across more like artists than cooks, so theatrical and precise were they in the execution of their tasks.<\/p>\n

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The food was great, arriving like sculpture on plates, each one a conversation piece to photograph and post on Instagram. It was a little bit precious and eating the food almost felt secondary, as if it was the destructive, privileged indulgence of ruining somebody else\u2019s creation (think of a bullying child knocking over a sand castle) rather than a simple act of physical restoration.<\/p>\n

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Much of this feeling arose from the comically small portions that are served at Ursa. It was as if a parody, with the experience of dining in a restaurant having virtually nothing to do with actually getting fed. Our main course, that cost $26, was artfully arranged, but it had less than three ounces of beef in it. My appetizer, one piece of tofu that was embellished by a broth poured at the table, $12, and Rachelle\u2019s beet salad, which I think contained one beet, was in the same ballpark. You weren\u2019t being fed, you were being fluffed, and walking out of the restaurant– now hipster laden and cocktail shaken– we had to figure out where to go to eat. Seriously. It was as if the theatrics had been done with– as well as a good chunk of money– and now it was off to get something less \u201carranged,\u201d but more sustaining.<\/p>\n

By definition the foodie culture is judgmental. It\u2019s implied that you need a certain level of education to appreciate what\u2019s in front of you, but unlike other art forms, the consumption of the food does nothing to elevate you. It doesn\u2019t make you a better, more empathetic person or lift you up and out of yourself, but simply moves you into a class above others. It\u2019s the surface taste of things, and the love and nourishment we imagine present in meals is oddly displaced, with each trip to a restaurant more like a visit to a museum than a participatory, reciprocal expression of something shared and humble. Taste, as they say, is not a moral virtue, but a privileged acquisition that has more to do with “belonging” than the content of any given individual.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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