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Eat Me: D-Ganz
Eat Me is a regular feature about the nooks and crannies of Toronto’s restaurant scene, about the amazing restaurants that are––for some reason––criminally underpatronized.
There are few non-vegetarian pleasures in this life finer than a really good steak. The problem is that a really good steak tends to be really pricey. So if I said, “Hey, I know a place where you can get a really good steak––and I mean a really good steak––for less than fifteen bucks,” you’d expect that place to be crammed on a regular basis, right? Especially if it’s a small place. Say, twenty-four customers, tops?
D-Ganz (815 St. Clair Avenue West), however, is pretty accessible for walk-in customers, just about all the time. Which is mind-boggling, because owner/chef Steve Lei, a veteran of the Purple Onion’s grill, makes a damned good steak, grilling each and every slab of delicious, thick premium beef to perfection. Lei grills the choice cuts of beef exactly to order, every time, period. You will never get a steak that isn’t just right at D-Ganz.
And it’s not just the steak here that’s excellent: the side dishes, while simple (ranging from garlic mash to caramelized onions and peppers) are all just about perfect examples of their kind. The all-day breakfasts are uniformly excellent (the “D-Ganz Breakfast” provides the best value, with eggs, bacon, French toast, Lei’s fantastic home fries, toast, and coffee for under eight bucks), the omelettes are exactly as you’d find at the Purple Onion or the Tulip (which is good), the burgers are delicious, and even the humble chop-steak is a winner when it comes out of Lei’s kitchen. The only dessert, a fantastic apple crumble pie, is a ship-in, but man, what a ship-in.
Almost as important as the quality of the food is the price. D-Ganz has a relatively small menu, which is almost entirely beef- or egg-related. This helps Lei provide high-quality food at extremely good prices; there’s nothing on the menu over twenty dollars, and most of the platters offered are under twelve, including a 10-ounce steak special that’s worth a visit all on its own.
The atmosphere at D-Ganz is likewise excellent, with almost-vintage decor (a gorgeous pressed copper bar, exposed piping, the now standard display of local artists’ work) that creates a warm, homey feeling and a patio atmosphere in summertime––the eatery uses the old trick of having a garage door as the front of the restaurant, so when that door gets raised in summer, practically the entire restaurant is open-air. It’s simple and it works magnificently.
So you want a steak or a late breakfast, and you want it good and you want it cheap? Hit up D-Ganz. It deserves more patronage. Good, cheap steakhouses are a rarity in any city, and Toronto isn’t an exception.
Photo by Christopher Bird.