Reeds

By Roberta Avery - back to list

Jesse Reed’s earliest memories of Meaford’s former Back Street Café date back to the 1980s when he was attending public school in Meaford and the restaurant was considered to be “the” place to eat, not just in Meaford, but in the entire southern Georgian Bay area.

Back then his mother’s best friend, Christine Collins, was one of the owners of the Back Street Café, so Jesse spent a lot of time in the restaurant watching food being served to delighted diners.
That’s when his love for good food began and set him on a path that would ultimately lead him back to where it all began.

Jesse studied business at university, but realized his first love was food, so with no formal training under his belt he started applying for cooking jobs in Toronto.
“I was so passionate about food that they gave me a job,” he says.

Over the next few years, Jesse worked with some of Toronto’s great chefs including David Lee at Spendido and Trevor Wilkinson at Lobby, and also attended one semester at the Stratford Chef’s School before opening his own restaurant with a partner in Kincardine.

That partnership didn’t work out, so last winter Jesse was looking for other opportunities when he heard that the Back Street was for sale and that his brother Adam Reed and his mother were willing to go into partnership with him.

Over the years, the Back Street Café had not only changed hands a number of times, but had also changed direction and was offering more of a bar atmosphere.
So Jesse and his family rolled up their sleeves and got to work. Their first task was renovating the restaurant to turn it into a chic dining room that would appeal to today’s sophisticated diners.
They restored the wonderful original hardwood floors that they had found hidden under the old carpet, updated the bathrooms, the bar area and the patio.
The result is a classy restaurant, which they renamed Reeds and opened on April 4 this year to rave reviews from local residents, weekenders and tourists.
Jesse’s dream is to take the restaurant back to its glory days as a culinary destination and he has introduced a changing menu that goes a long way toward reaching that goal.
Just as the Back Street was on the cutting edge of food trends in the 1980s, Reeds is offering discerning diners some very interesting dishes that promote today’s philosophy of good wholesome and local food served with skill and care.

Even items such as a Caesar salad that would have been at home on a 1980s menu, are given a twist for the 2000s with a yoghurt-based dressing, a parmesan cheese crisp, an organic, locally sourced romaine lettuce and a presentation that would wow even the harshest critic.

Although the menu is changed almost daily, one of the signature dishes that Jesse likes to offer on a regular basis is Ontario greens salad with Ontario duck breast (from Meaford’s 100-Mile Market), orange and pecans with a balsamic vinaigrette.

This was the salad that Jesse urged me to try when my husband John and I enjoyed a dinner on Reeds’ patio one summer evening.

Jesse was right, this salad was spectacular with a very interesting flavour combination and with the duck breast still a little warm (it’s cooked to order) an interesting temperature combination as well.
True to Jesse’s philosophy of sourcing out local products, John’s strip loin steak came from West Grey Meats – a cooperative of local farmers who are gaining a great reputation for quality meat. My half rack of lamb (kudos for the menu making it clear that it was not a full rack) came from Blue Ridge Meats in Collingwood, where owner Chris Rich sells his own lamb from his own sheep farm. Rich has been around since the 1980s and has a stellar reputation for great meat.

Our meals were served with no less than 10 different vegetables including asparagus, carrots, golden beets and boch choy - all a real treat.

Reeds’ wine list is a little limited with only about nine different wines on offer, but does include a nice Sauvignon Blanc from Chile and a good Ontario merlot, and six of the wines are available by the glass.
Desserts are also somewhat limited with perhaps only three choices each evening, but the dessert menu nearly always includes carrot cake, made by Christine Collins at her Meaford catering company.
This wonderful moist cake that bursts with carrot and pineapple is as good today as it was in the 1980s when it helped put the Backstreet Café on the culinary map.
“Christine’s carrot cake is our only throw back to the old days, but it’s so good that we decided to keep it,” says Jesse.

Directions

home | reservations | map | contact us | links
designed and maintained by http://www.averyconcepts.com
Irish Mountain Bed and Breakfast
R.R.#1 Meaford, Ontario, Canada
N4L 1W5
Tel: 1-519-538-2803
http://www.irishmountain.net
How do I get there? MAP