It’s warm in the sun on Carlaw and the line outside the black box theatre is full of people in new clothes for the season; girls in summer sheath dresses and guys in light sports coats. It’s a Haspel and madras affair and a real fashion statement in a double breasted gold knit jacket. It’s not quite the beer festival crowd and the beards, where present, are more carefully manicured.

The event is the Estrella Damm Gastronomy Conference and for the second year in a row, I’m attending and taking notes to see what can be seen. The brand’s star is draped on most visible surfaces, and the sweating glasses of Spanish lager waiting on trays just inside the door evoke covetous sidelong glances from the attendees waiting to check in.

VIP tickets to the event are $125.00 and people are here to see Joan Roca from El Celler de Can Roca in Catalonia. In the last year I’ve seen three chefs with Michelin stars do cooking demos in Toronto. Make no mistake: we’re a food destination. The Estrella Damm events take place in Lisbon, Melbourne, London. Cities of culinary reputation. I’ve heard it said that Toronto is kind of a food city by proxy. We may not know how to dine, but we certainly know how to eat. Some of the best agricultural land in the world and a massively diverse array of cultures give us a lot of options.

There are VIP seats down at the front, but you want to sit in the back row. Something magical is going to happen when the event gets going. The audience is seated on retractable bleachers and the etiquette for such a space isn’t clear. The half hour reception has slaked thirst and filled bladders and people wander in to their unassigned seats with half pint glasses, eventually deposited, half full or empty next to their feet as though they were at the Rogers Centre. Restless legs alone will account for chiming thunks against the carpet.

You can say what you like about Estrella Damm’s beer. I have, certainly.  The Gastronomy Congress is something unlike anything else being done to promote beer in the world. A brewer friend of mine once asked, probably rhetorically, “why can’t I have a beer paired tasting menu at Alo?”

The answer is simple: until Estrella Damm, no one has spent any money on promoting the idea. In the last two years, we have had Albert Adria and Joan Roca doing demos to a rapt audience here, and while they may never have actually talked about putting the beer next to their food, the association is not lost on the attendees. I know some chefs in the audience, and they’re here to see what the man behind one of the world’s great restaurants will have to say.

I’m sipping Damm Inedit. If it didn’t have Ferran Adria’s name on it, it would be called a Belgian Witbier. It is, for all intents and purposes, a fairly good one. The website claims Inedit means “never been done before.” Of course it has. It just hasn’t been done by Ferran Adria, which to some audiences would lend instant credibility. There is the subtle difference of plain language. “Malt and wheat beer brewed with spices” requires the drinker to know nothing. For the target audience, the jargon of beer might be impenetrable or at least obfuscatory. “What’s Belgium got to do with it? This is from Spain!” It’s not dumbing down if it results in a more universal reception. Ooh! Spices! The stands wobble as people climb into the last empty seats and the lights darken slightly.

After a brief introduction, Chef Roca takes the stage. This is nominally a cooking demonstration, but the amount of cooking that will actually take place is minimal. The product isn’t food, although there will be pintxos at the post event reception just before the line for pictures with the Chef. In many ways, it’s an odd dynamic. There is a sous chef, Nacho, who is preparing things more for the purposes of display than for any other reason; big screen closeups of preparations that will never be eaten.

Here is a man who can tell a young chef that yes, it can be done and this is how I did it. That the drive to create and excel is sometimes rewarded is the kind of push that puts paid to flagging morale in a career. Those chefs will go away a little inspired and a little refreshed and better for a night off the line. For the rest of the audience it might be more aspirational and result in a flight to Barcelona. Whether in the trade or at the table, the draw is the authenticity: a man who has done this his entire life, here to talk sincerely and as openly as one can in front of an audience, through a translator.

Chef Roca has broken, for this purpose, his restaurant into conceptual pieces. Fundamental principles and concepts that help to make El Celler de Can Roca. He says the ethos of the restaurant is curiousity, daring and, knowledge. Those pillars have substrates. They are arranged into brief modules. Between the modules, as people make their way to the bar or the bathroom glasses clink as they are kicked over, and from the back row, I can see heads turn neatly choreographed in disapproval.

Memory includes a brief foray into full Proustian mode, as we are treated to video of Nacho dropped into Swann’s Way, albeit without the cork lined walls. I’m struck by the middle class aspirational quality of a Proust reference, as even finding the time to be able to attempt the first of seven volumes is a luxury. The dishes referenced emulate those memories of growing up in a restaurant. A campari and grapefruit bonbon. Lamb with bread and tomato.  

The one that resonates with me, as I am designing a continuing education beer and food pairing course, is that of Landscape. They have paid a biologist to come up with an inventory of local, wild, edible plants. Nearly 60 of them. It has resulted in a Sagebrush liquor. Rather than taking that literally, I suspect I need to take stock of what is readily available in my backyard. Toronto is a large backyard.

Bar Isabel might be a good place to start, given the flavours of the pintxos turned out for the reception. The line to have a picture taken with Chef Roca stretches around the room. Aside from the photographs, there is a lasting impression. Some of the chefs in attendance will take inspiration from the event and it will improve the Tapas Journey Estrella Damm promotes annually. Perhaps there will be new ideas on offer. Perhaps they will just borrow ideas from the cookbook in the gift bag. Either way, Estrella Damm’s Gastronomy Conference has made a small contribution to the quality of dining in the city. Their brand may find its way on to taps permanently, but maybe it is just a gateway beer that will lead to more.

At this point, with the craft beer market casting about for more accounts, I’m in favour of any which way we can.  Relying on more craft beer friendly bars opening is not a good strategy. More legitimacy with restaurants of just about any stripe would help the industry continue on an upward trajectory. How does one accomplish that, outside of flying in a three Michelin starred chef?