This Tasting TwEAT up program was designed to integrate the exclusive food-pairing beer Estrella Damm to this event where myself and 5 other lucky guests including Fashion, Food & Flair and EatnMingle had a night to remember. Although we were not judges of Vittorio’s culinary creations by any means, we were surely all very impressed. But before I go into the details, why don’t we delve in a little bit deeper on the two main stars of the night, Estrella Damm and Vittorio Colacitti’s The Good Son Restaurant.
Estrella Damm is a beer company hailing from Barcelona, Spain and has been recognized on numerous occasions with prestigious prizes such as Vienna 1904, London 1905, Munich 1906, Paris 1964, The World Beer Championship 1998 – Australia and The World Beer Championship 2004 – Chicago. The beer is brewed according to its original recipe back in 1876 where 100% of its ingredients are natural including malta, hops, and pearl rice, a very Mediterranean ingredient that characterizes Estrella’s flavour. They are actually one of the few breweries in the world that still produces all of its malt barley in its own malthouse.
On the other hand, Vittorio Colacitti appeared in the most recent season of Top Chef Canada (season 4) on the Food Network finishing fourth. Born in Toronto and with an Italian heritage he was always surrounded by food growing up. His grandfather on his dad’s side was a chef and a butcher and his grandparents on his mom’s side owned a farm just north of Burlington. His dad even today still owns a house in Italy that makes and sells their own olive oil. As you can imagine, his whole up bringing on both sides of the family was based on good food and naturally has developed in him a passion for cooking earning a culinary diploma in Thailand and having worked at restaurants across Canada and Italy. Vittorio’s mother always called him “A Good Son” and little that he know being a good son would be the catalyst of him opening up his very own restaurant in downtown Toronto and the location of this Tasting TwEATup event.
When I first walked in to The Good Son I was just in awe at how beautiful it was inside. There is this very large chandelier hanging from the ceiling that adds a great sense of prestige to the atmosphere, but another big trait of this restaurant is that you just feel like you’re at home. It has a very intimate and cozy vibe, pictures, clocks, and paintings hanging on the walls decorated almost exactly how any one of our grand parent’s house would look like. It is a very charming restaurant. You get a clear sense of where Vittorio comes from, his family and his Italian roots.
