Restaurant offers menu featuring all-Ontario ingredients

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A Toronto restaurant group's decision to move toward more local products has turned out to be not only good for the environment, but also good for business.

Last summer, Il Fornello introduced its Ontario Grown menu into its nine GTA locations. It features items such as roast pork tenderloin and lamb fazzoletti.

Executive chef Owen Steinberg was instrumental in the move toward local items and he created the Ontario menu. While there were challenges at the beginning, reflecting on the journey one year later, he said it's been more successful than they thought it would be.

"It's been a good business decision. Not just for the reason of getting a share of the marketplace, but it aligns you with people, it attracts staff who want to work (in this environment)," he said. "We have success on many tiers."

In a climate where the growing season lasts just a few months and where labour costs are higher than those in Mexico or South America, choosing Ontario grown products over imports isn't always easy on the bottom line.

"Absolutely, it does come at a premium," Steinberg said, But, he added, the price difference between a pasta on the Ontario menu, for example, compared with one from the regular menu is only about 10 per cent higher.

And the new menu has proven to be a hit with customers.

"We are attracting a new clientele base. People who would normally not be choosing Il Fornello are now choosing us because of the menu," Steinberg said.

This past winter when Il Fornello ran its prix fixe menu it featured all-Ontario items and it was the most popular menu to date.

The vision for a local focus came from owner Ian Sorbie. He bought a house in Prince Edward County and found himself immersed in an area of roadside produce stands and farm-fresh food.

"I had forgotten these places even existed," he said. "It brought back to my mind how important it is for people to be connected to their food."

In the fall of 2006, when looking for a new executive chef, the concept of creating a local menu was a top priority. That clicked with the vision Steinberg had for food so he came on board and created the local menu. He was used to working with local ingredients and farmers from his days in fine dining.

But it wasn't easy to co-ordinate a constant supply of Ontario tomatoes or potatoes. It was a time-consuming process forming partnerships with farmers and growers, but Steinberg knew it could be done and both he and the owners at Il Fornello were committed to making the vision become a reality.

"When I approached several companies with this philosophy I got a lot of, 'You're not going to be able to find that. You're not going to be able to do this,'" he said.

However, Steinberg knew the farmers were out there so he bypassed the wholesalers and went straight to the farm. Il Fornello invested in a refrigerated truck and started delivering all of the items to all of the restaurants in the chain.

"I had to get a quick lesson in logistics," Steinberg said.

Today, Il Fornello works with a new company formed to fill the niche, 100km Foods Inc., and it is much easier to satisfy their needs.

"We look at very creative distribution or supply systems to make it affordable," Steinberg said. "When you cut out the number of hands who touch or handle the product, you're able to make it affordable."

This is helping support the Ontario economy as the company has spent close to $300,000 purchasing local products that normally would have come from places outside the province, and outside Canada. The money has purchased 65 tonnes of Ontario products such as root vegetables, greens, oils, vinegars, fruit, cheese and meat.

The entire menu will never go all Ontario - it just can't, said Steinberg. It wouldn't be able to remain an Italian restaurant without staples such as olive oil that can't be found locally, he said.

"What we're doing is focusing on making as many components of our core business as local as possible,"

In addition to the Ontario-grown menu, items on the core menu include Ontario ingredients - such as tomatoes or arugula - whenever possible.

"We don't necessarily promote that that's our focus, but it's what we do," he said.

Sorbie said he never worried the move to focusing Ontario ingredients would be bad for business.

"I didn't worry because I knew it was an important thing for us to be doing," he said. "I knew it wouldn't be easy... But, we were committed to it."