Cava Restaurant Dinner Highlighting Spanish Wines

Cava is an outstanding restaurant to experience regional Spanish flavours influenced by highly acclaimed chef Christopher Mcdonald and his partner and co-owner chef Doug Penfold.


We began with suquet (a Catalan style seafood stew) of Pacific halibut with wild Irish mussels, Fanny Bay oysters, sea asparagus and sea urchin alioli. The highly flavoured dish was briny and redolent of the smell and taste of the sea.

Then, we enjoyed corn and chanterelle soup with bits of Nova Scotia lobster. This was a bit of sweet heaven.

A fabulous paella of Chanticler chicken, Quebec's version of poulet de Bresse, a standout, no expense spared ingredient in chef's version of paella that also included okra and snails. The texture of the paella was a dream. It was so moist and full of complex and earthy flavours. For me, the best paellas that I have experienced in Canada, are enjoyed at Cava.

Finally, lamb presented 4 ways: very tender, medium rare loin; succulent pickled tongue; tender braised cheek; squash blossom lamb's brain fritter (the brain nor the blossom do not justify each other as the flavours are lost) accompanied by smoked pimenton sauce, a very sweet and tender carrot and braised dandelion greens which most of us felt was overdone to an extreme bitterness ( the idea was right but the execution taken to an extreme). 

The dessert (no photo) was Spanish trifle with Pedro Jimenez soaked prune and seville orange sabayon. The perfect ending to a terrific meal.