By Amy Pataki
Some of the places where readers tell me to go are anatomically impossible to reach.
But when Peter Kovtman tipped me off about a plucky Caucasus restaurant with delicious kebabs, it seemed a good journey to make.
“I just left this restaurant called Kavkaz in North York and was stunned with the way they prepare the meat. Morton’s or Jacobs need to step aside,” emailed Kovtman, a lawyer with no link to the restaurant.
Kavkaz is an Azerbaijani restaurant, probably the only one in the Greater Toronto Area. The community here numbers about 2,100, drawn from the Caspian Sea republic bordered by Russia, Iran, Georgia and Armenia.
Azerbaijani food, or at least that served at Kavkaz, is a delight. Lamb, poultry and fish are grilled straight-up or stewed with dried fruit. Tart pomegranate juice and sumac add a pleasing sourness, bay leaves and basil a familiar presence. There are impressive bits involving hand-stretched dough, both savoury and sweet. The kebabs are like those in Iran or Turkey, minus the yogurt.
“I don’t put yogurt in, no way,” says Eldar Asadullaev, chef and owner of the 14-month-old restaurant.
Asadullaev is a good ambassador for his cuisine, referencing Shirali Muslimov, an Azerbaijani shepherd he says lived until the age of 168 by eating an “organic, old-style diet.”
“Azeris don’t make oily food. It’s simple, natural, the best,” says Asadullaev.
A small man with spiky black hair and wide cheekbones, he runs his kitchen with the help of carefully vetted subcontractors. To choose a pastry supplier, he tasted his way through Azeri community potlucks until he found a cook whose baklava ($2.50) he considered worthy. She now bakes it weekly for him, thin layers of dough separating fudgy pulverized walnuts infused with cardamom. Glorious stuff.
Kavkaz is a sleek space, with modern décor and mood lighting. Like Aragvi, the tiny Georgian restaurant in Wilson Heights with some of the same offerings, Kavkaz survives by appealing to the wider community. Still, Russian more than English is the lingua franca here. Guests walk straight up to the kitchen window to discuss a catering order. On weekend nights, musicians take over a small stage, singing Russian pop.
Every meal begins with a plate of pickled cucumbers and pink cabbage wedges. When they know you’re coming, the pickles are waiting on the table along with the reserved sign and baskets of stiff Iranian flatbread.
The kebabs are enjoyable. Chicken breast ($14.95) is juicy, thighs ($14.95) even juicier. Both are boneless, seasoned with cumin and sumac in a way both familiar and exotic. The lulya ($14.95) blends ground lamb, beef and onion into flame-licked harmony.
These charcoal-grilled meats are a case study in restraint, served simply with red onions, fresh cilantro and the best of the side dishes: fried potatoes slathered in garlic. Small metal pitchers hold ketchup doctored with garlic, basil and a whack of chili pepper. The woman at the next table pours two pitchers over her meat.
I’ve been an outsider at community restaurants where the service is perfunctory, bordering on rude. Kavkaz is not one of those restaurants.
I’ve also been at restaurants where servers are happy to explain their culture’s ingredients and cooking techniques. Kavkaz is not one of those restaurants, either.
Kavkaz falls in between, with smiling servers who can’t answer food questions. That job falls to Asadullaev, who on the phone gushes like a Baku oil rig with information about his cooking.
We talk about his qutabi ($10.95), fried dough circles filled with ground lamb and barberries. They are an Azeri specialty, as is lavangi ($18.95), in which Asadullaev stuffs a Cornish hen with a heady pulp of walnuts, onion and, this is the cool part, sour plums from his hometown of Lankaran. The stuffing is tart, fruity and rich, a balm for the somewhat dry roast poultry.
The recurring and pleasant sharpness I detect in the food sometimes comes from tangy pomegranate molasses, brushed on a brace of grilled quail ($11.95). In an excellent mashed eggplant appetizer ($4.95), a good squirt of lemon juice does the trick. Rare is the dish without that sharpness, like a bland tomato-stewed lamb shank ($8.95).
Not everything works. Plov ($14.95) is dry lamb stewed with apricots, dates, raisins, prunes and peeled chestnuts, all stained yellow by turmeric. The Georgian meat soup kharcho ($4.95) is thin on flavour, while margarine-based commercial dough ruins the cheese turnover khachapouri ($9.95).
Kovtman, the reader who recommended Kavkaz, tells me he’s since been back six times, drawn by the rack of lamb. I would return to try sturgeon kebabs, unavailable both times I was there, or a special order of dushbara, meat-filled dumplings the size of blueberries.
Now, where else would you like me to go?
