Restaurant Week Report: Canary By Gorgi

I have to share that we had the most delightful dinner at Canary By Gorgi on Saturday night. We hadn’t been there before, but after looking at Chef Gorgi’s RW menu, and knowing we could cross another off on our quest to eat at all 100 of the D Magazine Top 100 restaurants (we’re at 84 thank-you-very-much), we happily pointed our car north to Addison.

The 4^th course was actually the 1^st course, and was a poached shrimp on a grilled avocado with a puttanesca sauce. The warm tomato sauce and shrimp came together so well with the cooled avocado. We knew that if the rest of dinner was like this, we were certainly in for a treat.

I then had the seared sea scallops, which had a delightful gazpacho salad with them. What a welcome change to have a gazpacho salad rather than the usual, and often not done well, gazpacho soup. The Sig-O loved the escargot. Again, a welcome change being served in a Mediterranean pomodoro sauce rather than the usual garlic butter.

While I’m normally not a steak during RW person, the side of gnocchi with valdeon cream sauce convinced me to try the filet. So glad I did, as this is one of the places in town you can count on to cook your steak to the perfect temperature. When you ask for medium rare, that truly is what comes out, not the more medium pink that many places pass off as MR. The Sig-O was quite pleased with the lamb T-bone and grilled quail, “Wait, I get both.” Yes, it was quite the plate, and proof that Chef Gorgi knows how to treat RW diners right. When the table gets suddenly quiet after the entrees are brought, that is generally a good sign. We both agreed that this was one of the better RW menus we experienced.

But wait, there’s more! Desserts were the chocolate liqueur cake and the date and Turkish kefir butterfly. What a wonderful flavor juxtaposition we had with those two – chocolate cake was dark deep chocolate with a sweeter icing, while the butterfly was beautifully tart and well complemented by the sweeter date. Chocolate and kefir, what an interesting finish to our meal.

After so many years of RW and countless delicious meals, it’s so refreshing to see Chef Gorgi still embracing Restaurant Week and the cause behind it. More importantly, with his charming demeanor and delicious food, he’s enticed new customers to come back to his lovely little Addison gem. I know we’ve already decided to go back for our anniversary this fall, if not sooner.