Chef Olaf Mertens curated a seven-course meal prepared and served by Niagara College students and based on his training in Germany and Budapest for about 70 diners at the Benchmark Restaurant at the Daniel J. Patterson campus
The moment the 70-plus diners sat down inside Niagara College’s Benchmark Restaurant they noticed something was different. Their tables were set, yet there wasn’t a knife, fork or spoon to be found.
That’s because the Thursday, Jan. 23 Chef’s Journey dinner was planned and hosted by the college’s faculty member Olaf Mertens. When Mertens took the microphone from Craig Youdale, dean of Culinary, Tourism and Beverage, he welcomed guests by explaining the glaring lack of cutlery.
“We’re going to eat with our hands today,” said the professor who is marking his 15th year at Niagara. “That’s why we have wet naps at our tables too. It’s a fact that one-third of the world’s population eats with their hands.”
The evening was the second in a series of eight such dinners, each allowing a different Niagara College academic chef to tell his or her culinary story through a curated menu of food and beverage selections.
Mertens went on to explain his cooking philosophy is based on preparing German and European dishes from his past using Canadian ingredients. That past includes apprenticing at the finest restaurants in Germany and Budapest and earning his Master Chef designation through the gruelling Kuchenmeister course.
Thursday’s seven-course menu took diners on a trip through the Austrian Alps with stops in the Black Forest, Berlin, Bavaria and Salzburg. It included varieties of cheese and bread, schnitzel, bratwurst, apfelstrudel and even a slice of venison.
The first course of the evening, an
amuse-bouche called One Big Bite.
Mishka Balsom
The venison was a key ingredient of the first course, an amuse-bouche that Mertens designed to “show hospitality Bavarian-style.” The thinly sliced venison loin ham was smoked in Sleeman gin and served atop a bed of Riesling pears and red current jam. Labelled as ‘One Big Bite’, the quick hit of sweet and savoury paired with a glass of Tawse Spark Limestone Ridge organic Brut Riesling was a perfect beginning.
Shortly after, Niagara College hospitality students dropped off baskets of pretzel bread at each table to prepare diners for the next course, which bore the decidedly un-German name ‘La Scarpetta’ (translation – sopping up the sauce),
The bread served as edible utensils to soak up the soft Onsen Egg (poached Japanese-style at 65 Celsius for 75 minutes) topped with traditional Frankfurter Grüne Sosse (green sauce) and a side of Oktoberfest Bier Cheese Obatzta Smear with Oma’s Sunday Gravy. Tangy, creamy and delicious.
Silverware finally arrived for the next course, a Winter Weiss Borscht-style soup served with Arctic Char and accompanied by a small box of ‘Chef’s Cereal’ to crumble on top. This was served with two more breads. One was a warm tear-apart loaf of Buchtein rolls coated in honey from Niagara College’s teaching apiary and the other was a dense, savoury rye with a cheesy cornmeal topping and sauteed celery, carrots and beets, the same ingredients used to make the white soup.
The Winter Weiss soup with a scoop of Arctic char and
Leckerie Krunch flakes, or ‘Chef’s Cereal’. Mishka Balsom
As guests began crumbling the ‘cereal’ onto their soup, Professor Gavin Robertson of the college’s School of Wine, Beer and Spirits explained why two very different glasses of NC wines were served with it. One was the 2023 Dean’s List Cabernet Franc rosé and the other its unfinished 2024 counterpart after a recent fermentation, leaving it with an interesting cloudy pink tone.
“They’re both from the same vineyard block right here at Niagara College,” said Robertson. “The grapes were grown by our students. We wanted to show you the process. That pink wine will look like the finished wine in a couple of years.”
Next came an intermezzo of a delectable Schwarzwälder (Black Forest Cake) soup paired with a Niagara College Black Forest Beer, which prefectly brought out the flavours of chocolate and cherry.
The intermezzo, or palate-cleanser,
a Schwarzwälder (Black Forest Cake) soup.
Mishka Balsom
The highlight of the evening had to be the main course, a combination of pork fillet schnitzel with lemon relish, bratwurst with Haus Bier mustard and pork belly with whiskey apple cider jus served with a dish of cheese Nockurl (an Austrian-style dumpling) poutine. There were many expressions of shock and awe at the size of this carnivorous collection, coming as it did as the sixth course.
The meat was accompanied by glasses of both a Niagara College Dunkel Weizen beer and a German Rosengarten Pinot Noir. In the spirit of the upcoming Caps, Corks and Forks event to be held at the college’s Daniel J. Patterson Campus in Niagara-on-the-Lake this spring, diners were asked to decide which beverage paired better with the dish. Not many were surprised when the Dunkel Weizen won by a landslide.
The evening concluded with an assortment of desserts prepared and perfectly plated by chef Catherine O’Donnell’s pastry students. This included apfelstrudel, iced mulled red wine and a Berliner (a donut), all paired with an Inniskilliln Vidal icewine.
Yes, it was a lot of food, all matched with appropriate wines and/or beers, all curated by Mertens along with fellow faculty member Erik Mauke and Robertson.
Niagara College president Sean Kennedy summed it all up at the end of the night with three words to the gathering – “Only at NC.”
The next Chef’s Journey dinner is on February 13 featuring Machael Olson and his wife Anna. Unfortunately, that one sold out quickly. Tickets are still available for dinners prepared by faculty members Frank Dodd (March 20), Erin Circelli and Isa Mottiar (April 3), Riley Bennett (April 24), Scott Baechler (May 8) and Oscar Turchi (May 2). Tickets are a very reasonable $135.60 and can be reserved on Eventbrite.
Two very different styles of bread were served just before the soup course. . Mishka Balsom