Restaurant review in Stratford, Ontario

I am told that many decades ago when the Stratford Theatre Festival first started in 1953 the choices of restaurants in this small community of 30,000, it was much less then hovering around 12,000, was rather limited. People often came by special trains organized by the Toronto Telegraph Newspaper. You had dinners offered by the Parkview United Church ladies, good, solid food but nothing fancy. There was also the famous Golden Bamboo Chinese restaurant now close for the last 10 years, fondly remembered and still up for sale, and maybe one other diner. In such a small community people had meals at home or went to Kitchener or Guelph for more choices on special occasions.

Today Stratford offers a huge array of fine gourmet dining, the only thing is that if you have evening theatre tickets for a show at 8pm this means having dinner at 5pm and making a table reservation a week or more in advance. If on the other hand you are willing to wait until 7:30pm for dinner then the town is yours as most people will be gone to one of the four main theatre venues.  This is why we enjoyed our B&B so much. At the Stratford Whitehouse www.stratfordwhitehouse.com we had an efficiency apartment with full kitchen, so we could cook meals, easy enough and relaxing.

We also took in Matinées so a show at 2pm is over by 5pm and then its time for cocktails and dinner afterwards.

We went for coffee at Revel Café revelcoffee.com, a very nice coffee shop, modern and funky decor. We had meals at Mercer Hall, www.mercerhall.com great food made from Ontario produce with a European flair and style, I had one of the best steaks ever, reminding me of Tuscany beef and Florence.

We also went to Raja Indian Restaurant, rajafinedining.ca/stratford the service was great, so were the drinks and food. Keystone Alley Café keystonealley.com had the nicest staff and great food.

Pazzo, the Italian restaurant www.pazzo.ca is not to be missed, the Chef Gilad Rozenberg makes his own Burrata in house, I could not believe it, this type of cheese is from the same family as the Mozzarella with the difference that the inside is soft and creamy. In Italy it is made only in the Puglia Region (the heel of the  boot). Their pizzas are also authentic Italian nothing North American about them.

Down the Street downthestreet.ca we went to for cocktails and meals, the kitchen is open late for after theatre crowds. Finally Features restaurant is the best for a great breakfast.

We also went to The Barkery (like in Bark Bark) its a healthy bakery for Dogs. See the webpage at
www.thebarkery.ca Their cookies are so good people eat them, all natural, hypo allergenic, etc...

Now I would be remiss if I did not mention Tim Horton the Canadian doughnut chain available everywhere I am told, sigh....
Well on this trip the infamous Dr. Spo who I am told is the North American Authority on Tim Horton doughnut (see Guinness book of world records) was with us and of course he waxes poetic about Tim Horton. I thought we would need the OPP (Ontario Provincial Police) to restrain him when we pass by the local doughnut shop on Ontario street. Apparently it is his considered medical opinion that humans can actually live off a diet of Tim Horton doughnut. It may be true if I look at our Prime Minister S. Harper who is know as a fan of the doughnut chain, he is known to have missed meetings at the United Nation General Assembly in New York to be at the opening of a new Tim Horton.

Though strangely enough, despite the fact that Dr. Spo speaks non-stop of Tim Horton, I never actually seen him eat one. Strange, very strange.

our road trip to the Stratford Theatre Festival 2013

Settlement in Stratford started in 1828, it is located in South West Ontario with a population of 30,000 persons. Part of the river that crosses the city was named the Avon by Canada Company Official John Mercer Jones, the rest of the river which is 273 KM long is known as the Thames, a name given by Governor John Graves Simcoe. The original name in Algonquin language is Askunissippi (Antler) and the lake in the middle of the town is named after Queen Victoria.

Stratford was an important railway junction as of 1858 and then became known for fine quality furniture manufacturing. In 1953 Tom Patterson, a journalist suggested that a Theatre Festival be mounted and only 2 years later, the dream came through. The Festival has become famous because of the big name actors who perform there each summer, in years past, William Hutt, Martha Henry, Sir Alec Guinness, Christopher Plummer, Peter Ustinov, Dame Maggie Smith and the list goes on. But also the quality of the productions, sets and costumes has enhance the prestige of this festival.

This was my first visit to Stratford and for Will it was a return visit the first in 35 years, he attended each year from 1958 to 1978. We saw Fiddler on the roof, Blythe Spirit, The Three Musketeers, Waiting for Godot and Taking Shakespeare.

Will made a donation of theatre material he had collected through the years and we visited the archives of the Festival and met with its Director, Doctor Francesca Marini. The archives building is a very big site and holds costumes, decor, various objects connected with 60 years of Festival performances.

We went to Stratford after I spoke for about two years with fellow bloggers in the USA, Michael http://sporeflections.wordpress.com and David http://harpersvalley.wordpress.com from Phoenix, Arizona. Both have blogs that I read and both suggested we should meet at Stratford. We also met their friend Martin Katz http://songfest.us/martin-katz-piano/ and Dale Zimmerman and this being a small world it turns out we have friends in common.

The City is beautiful and has that feel of a small town in South West Ontario farming community. It is two hours by car from Toronto and is far away to be untainted by that great miasma of a city.

The plays we saw, Fiddler on the roof was the strongest in my opinion, with Scott Wentworth as Tevye  in the title role. Then Waiting for Godot with Stephen Ouimette, Tom Rooney and Brian Dennehy as Pozzo was dark and oppressive, a different presentation from what I had seen in London with Sir Ian McKellen.  I was put off by the constant giggling of a certain number of people who appeared to think that this was a comedy on the scale of Mame. I think that when Beckett wrote this play in 1953 in French, he had gone through the Second World War and its horrors in France. It was a different time and the play appealed to a public who could relate to recent world events. Today all this is very far from us, so far it is difficult to relate to the characters. It would help if the next producer updated the setting to maybe stage it in a refugee camp today.

Taking Shakespeare with Martha Henry as the old professor whose talent is great and a pleasure to see and a young man Luke Humphrey as the student Murph who is starting in the theatre and whose performance is very uneven. We saw him in the Three Musketeers playing D'artagnan it was tedious and frankly I wanted to throw tomatoes, that is how bad it was. Maybe 20 years from now when he grows up....

Noel Coward's Blythe Spirit was a delight, though it is a period piece somewhat removed from our world today. Ben Carlson played Charles and Seana McKenna played Madame Arcati. In the end you realize that none of the characters are very nice people.

We stayed in a beautiful B&B which was more along the lines of an efficiency apartment but very pleasant. We could walk to all venues easily. I liked the fact that it was quiet, more so than Ottawa.

We are scheduled to go back next year to see our friends again and in the meantime I have to investigate more about life in Stratford, Ontario.