298 Water St.
Ph. 576-2880
I’m not sure why owners Gary Boland and Jerome Coady chose the name “Celtic Hearth” for their new Water St. restaurant and pub. I was expecting an interior design that perhaps suggested an Irish kitchen with great stone hearth as centerpiece. There was a hearth of sorts. A fairly modern looking glass-fronted propane fireplace of moderate size stood inconspicuously in a cozy corner. I also noticed a commercial electric oven at the front of the restaurant but that didn’t evoke any feelings similar to nostalgia. Apparently someone bakes bread in the oven during the day and you can purchase a loaf of whole wheat or white to take home with you.
What did seem entirely appropriate given the obvious
turn-of-the-century Water St. “general store” theme of the Celtic Hearth was a
black cast iron pot-bellied stove situated in the middle of the restaurant.
I’ve seen pictures of Water St. businesses from that era with the same stove
standing prominently on the shop floor. Given the actual interior motif of the
Celtic Hearth, I would suggest a better name for it would have been, Boland
& Coady - Purveyors of Fine Food and Spirits (or something like that).
Names aside, I was very impressed with the interior design
and decoration of the Celtic Hearth. The restaurant - partnered with a pub area
to the west - covered two levels of space. Both levels were divided into
sections with clusters of tables for a more intimate dining experience.
Cherry wood finish dominated through dark, sleek built-in
fixtures - drawers, cabinets and glass-enclosed shelving. It’s a treat in
itself to let your eyes rove around the room as you experience a kaleidoscope
of shapes and colours manifested in the vintage merchant-trade collectibles
that adorn those cherry wood fixtures. I saw items like old Stag chewing
tobacco cans, patent medicine bottles, faded Quaker Oats cans, preserved
biscuit labels, bone china cups and saucers, period jewelry, glazed hooch jugs
and homemade carpentry tools. Before I’d eaten a morsel I felt satisfied, to
some extent, by the Celtic Hearth’s wonderfully rich interior.
As usual, the first food I tasted was their bread, no doubt
baked in the aforementioned oven. Slices of white came with a dish of sun-dried
tomato butter. The butter was flecked with bits of dried tomato. It helped the
bread that I found to be a bit too light and airy for my taste.
My starter was described as “carpaccio - choice tenderloin
shaved thin and marinated in olive oil and balsamic vinegar on toasted baguette
and topped with capers, red onion and Parmesan cheese.” That pretty much
describes a dish of carpaccio although I did note that there was no mention of
carpaccio being essentially raw meat. It’s just as well because what arrived
certainly wasn’t raw. It was actually slices of “rare” steak about five times
thicker than carpaccio should be, cooked on the outside and even charred at the
edges. I enjoyed it very much even though it was far from what I expected.
Although I encourage other people to complain in restaurants
when justified, I try to refrain since I’ve been a restaurant reviewer.
However, in this case, I complained - not about the thickness of the meat or
the fact that it was cooked, because that may very well have been the chef’s
personal interpretation of carpaccio. What bothered me was the fact that even
though the menu promised toasted baguette, balsamic vinegar and parmesan,
neither of those ingredients showed up on my plate. Restaurants should deliver
on promises and if a particular ingredient or item is missing it is the
server’s responsibility to inform the customer of unavailability. In this case
the server was smart enough to strike the item from my bill. That would have
been unnecessary if I’d been put in the picture in the first place.
The spinach salad did live up to its billing, “a sensory
delight of leafy spinach, fragrant beet…” and so on. The mixture was tossed in
honeysweet citrus vinaigrette. I found it fresh, multi-flavoured and quite
enjoyable.
My guest chose a glass of Robert Mondavi sauvignon blanc to
go with a seafood entrée – Celtic Hearth’s shrimp and scallops tossed with
fettuccine in a tomato gin sauce. Neither gin nor juniper berry flavour were
detectable in the rather heavy tomato sauce but the dish overall tasted quite
fine. The shrimps and scallops, however, were slightly overcooked.
The Celtic Hearth is a 24-hour restaurant that offers pub
fare as a mainstay but between 4 pm and 11 pm they offer fine dining
selections. They should think about changing their recorded music between those
hours as well. I like Bare Naked Ladies but they wouldn’t be my first choice
while dining on beef carpaccio or 25 dollar pan seared duck finished in the
oven with a blueberry and port sauce. I would have enjoyed music that was a
little mellower.
I love duck and any chance I get to order it I do. Celtic
Hearth’s creation was palate pleasing however the dish had a few problems.
First, the duck pieces were a little tough. I also thought the dish could have
used a little acidity to balance out the sweetness of the berries and the port.
Finally, the vegetables - onions, zucchini and carrot - were very undercooked,
to the point of being raw in the case of the carrot and the underdone onion
made the dish bitter.
The Celtic Hearth offered a variety of desserts. I tried
their apple crisp. It was good. The oatmeal topping was chewier than crisp -
perhaps because of the incorporation of a thin layer of caramel sauce. It was
super sweet however. So, if you don’t like your desserts really sweet, try
something else.
The Celtic Hearth is a good addition to the downtown
restaurant scene. The owners have done an outstanding job with the interior of
this restaurant. It has the potential to be a place for a superb dining
experience. They aren’t there yet but I wish them the best of luck.
Celtic Hearth is worth a visit for the atmosphere alone.
Areas for Improvement
Pay close attention to your menu and your cooking times, especially for seafood.
Ratings Category
This time the Celtic Hearth gets 7.5 points out of 10.