We need more spaces like the one at 144 Lonsdale Ave.
There’s something about that narrow, intimate room that seems to appeal to straightforward and approachable restaurant tenants, the kind that produce reliably tasty and affordable food with a no-nonsense attitude.
Before its current occupants, 144 Lonsdale was home to La Tasca Lounge, which offered up an eclectic assortment of international dishes produced by affable, humble chef Giorgio Prego. La Tasca was sadly short-lived and my email efforts to contact chef Prego to find out what prompted the sudden closure of his diminutive diner fell into the spiraling abyss of cyberspace. I eagerly awaited new signs of life in that room, which sat empty for months, hoping that it would be taken over by another independent restaurateur. Happily, it eventually was.
Martin and Shari O’Neill, the cheery and welcoming husband-and-wife team that have reinvigorated this tiny bit of Lower Lonsdale real estate, have recently opened the cutely, if somewhat campily, named Meat at O’Neills, an eatery singularly dedicated to the provision of mighty tasty, comfort-oriented sandwiches.
My brother-in-law Tom, a charismatic and forward-thinking young guy, owns and operates a very successful collection of sandwich shops in Glasgow. He calls the business Piece, which is a Glaswegian colloquialism for sandwich, revealing one of the key insights into the success of his business: don’t take yourself too seriously.
I have gleaned a few valuable insider tips from Tom over the years on the operation of a viable sandwich shop. Aside from maintaining a healthy dose of humility (making a good sandwich is pretty much within everyone’s grasp, really, so turning the experience of eating one in your shop into a pretentious, unduly complicated or pompous affair is simply not going to fly), it is also important to ensure that you can stand behind 100 per cent of the ingredients that go into your creations.
If you want to distinguish your shop from a certain ubiquitous chain named after an underground mode of mass urban transit, you need your ingredients to positively sing with every bite, showcasing the care and attention to detail that make your sandwiches artisanal rather than cookie-cutter.
I was pleased to discover on my recent visit to the North Shore’s newest casual dining destination that the O’Neills have embraced these important principles of sandwich artistry (or is it sandwich craftsmanship, more to the point?).
The menu is small and focused, allowing the O’Neills to ensure consistent quality and care across each offering. The majority of sandwiches are based on slow-cooked meats, which issue from an on-premise slow roaster set up out back. Sandwich offerings include pulled pork, braised beef brisket, bratwurst with sauerkraut, meatloaf, three-cheese grilled cheese, and a handful of reasonably priced breakfast sandwiches, which are available all day (an Egg and Tomato breakfast sandwich, served in a bun, is just $3.50).
Meat at O’Neills has about 20 seats or so, mostly surrounding a large, rustic communal table that spans the middle of the room. A few additional seats line a small counter protruding from the left wall.
It was a beautifully sunny weekend afternoon when I visited, so I opted for take-out. I found rockstar parking on the corner of Second Street and Lonsdale Avenue and left my family in the car as I popped into the shop to score a picnic lunch for us to eat under a tree somewhere.
My picnic order included four sandwiches. Each was tasty in its own right, but my favourite of the lot was the Braised Brisket, a fresh and chewy, oblong Turkish bun (the bread of choice for the meat sandwiches at this shop) stuffed with a generous portion of tender, fall-apart, nicely caramelized beef that offered full, round flavours of red wine braising liquid and green herbs. The brisket was topped with house-made crispy coleslaw.
A close second on the flavour chart was a spicy Mexican Meatloaf sandwich, also served on a Turkish bun, with tomato sauce and melted provolone cheese.
The meatloaf had a complex depth of flavour attributable, presumably, to the addition of smoked bacon and spicy pork sausage to the ground beef that formed the loaf.
The three-cheese grilled cheese, served on golden brown, sliced granary bread, was a masterful example of a proven classic, its blend of gruyere, fontina and red Leicester achieving just the right balance of indulgent creaminess and tangy bite. The final sandwich, the Bratwurst with Sauerkraut on a soft, long bun, was also enjoyable with its good quality sausage sourced from Black Forest Deli, but for my taste, perhaps because I have been grilling these at home all summer, I would have appreciated a touch more grill marking/caramelization on the brat.
The restaurant’s website reports that hearty stews will make their way to the menu this fall. Our four sandwiches, with three bags of chips and four sodas, was $48 before gratuity. Meat at O’Neills. 144 Lonsdale Ave. 604-987-1115. meatatoneills.com
Chris Dagenais served as a manager for several restaurants downtown and on the North Shore. A self-described wine fanatic, he earned his sommelier diploma in 2001. He can be reached via email at [email protected].
