Two plays, three excellent meals (plus a bad one), and one off-piste hotel experience later, we’re back from a weekend in Stratford. It’s a trip we planned to do last year for Lindsay’s birthday, but our second bout with COVID derailed that.

Friday

After a work-related award ceremony, we suffered through a long, annoying drive to Stratford. Note to self: these is no good time on a Friday to leave this city. We got there just in time to eat dinner at Lovage, which we loved when we visited earlier this summer. Being there for dinner hit another level though:

• bread & butter
• cucumber & honeydew salad
• fried green tomatoes
• oxtail cavatelli
• sea bass
  • bottle of Tawse Tintern Toad Pinot Noir
• chocolate mousse
  • M. Chapoutier Banyuls
  • espresso

Everything was fucking great, but that oxtail cavatelli…my god. We were so enamored that we canceled our lunch plan for the next day and booked Lavage instead.

Finally, to end the day, we drove to our hotel: The Bruce. It’s a classic Ontario hotel and a Stratford institution. It’s also…very much not our style. I should have known when I booked it. Anyway, the room was big, and our stay was fine, but…yeah. A little old school for us.

Saturday

After a leisurely morning in the room, we drove back over to Lovage for lunch. This time we had a lobster salad, some merguez sausage sandwiches w/ frites, nice glasses of wine, and cappuccinos. We considered walking around the downtown and exploring a bit, but that lunch had other ideas, so we drove back to the room and took a big-ass nap.

Early in the evening we began our theatre-going experience with dinner at The Bruce’s restaurant. What a gong show. I don’t know if they were understaffed, or if they profiled us when we came in, or if it was just a comedy of errors. To wit:

• Our reservation was at 6. Ordering took forever, even as tables seated after us had their drinks and starters delivered. Our cocktails, the first things to arrive at our table, came at 6:30.
• The kid pouring our water was maximum twelve years old. I shit you not.
• The appetizers — Digby scallops w/ caviar and smoked butter; duck raviolo w/ fennel salad and duck vinaigrette — were fine, but the bottle of wine we’d ordered hadn’t arrived yet, so we had them with water.
• When the wine — we splashed out on a 2016 Ridge Estate Cab Sauv — arrived, the server broke the cork off in the bottle. He had to call in backup to open it fully. Not a big deal, but it didn’t fill us with confidence.
• Lindsay’s grilled ribeye was fine, but my pork loin was sooooooo dry.
• While it took 30 minutes to get our first drink, the entire rest of the meal happened in 35 minutes. They brought our mains as Lindsay was still finishing her starter, and they just stood there waiting until she moved it aside.
• Oh, and someone sitting next to us was wearing so much bad perfume I got a headache. Let’s just say the crowd skewed somewhat older.

We walked up the street to our first play of the weekend, Les Belles Soeurs, which was very very good. Still plenty topical some 60 years later.

Sunday

Spooked by our dinner experience, we hastily re-planned our meals. Rather than eat brunch at The Bruce’s restaurant, we ordered early room service breakfast. Mercifully, it was quite good. (And very fast!) After getting ready and checking out, we drove into town, parked, and walked along Lake Victoria for a bit.

We’d pivoted our lunch option to Bluebird, and immediately felt redeemed by the decor and overall vibe. The food (big “ploughman’s lunch” salad; fried chicken cutlet w/ fries; fried perch & chips) was excellent, as was our bottle of Anjou Blanc. Our server was cool. An excellent meal, all in all.

Our second and final play of the weekend was a re-telling of Richard II, set in the late-70s New York gay disco scene. It was as fabulous as it sounds.

After that, our drive back to Toronto was surprisingly easy. We’re not here long; we’re off again soon, as the September of Dan continues.