While Yorkville restaurants come and go with the speed of movies opening and closing at the Famous Players, Bellini's has stood the test of time and never wavered from it's focus of elegance, good taste, classic food and professional service. No slave to food fashion, it has resolutely resisted trends.

And now, the owner has taken it all up a notch by hiring chef Paul Bohmer, whose many fans will remember his skills from his days at Opus, Atlas and Prince of Wales at Niagara-on-the-Lake. He's happy as can be to be back in the city and working with a restauranteur of elegant taste.

Boehmer's new menu is a dreamy compendium of gastronomic promises. It's enough to make a grown woman cry. How can one choose between dishes like butter-braised lobster and sea scallops with green and white asparagus in a lobster basil broth, and the siren call of Provimi veal osso bucco with vegetable ragu and lemon thyme jus, or risotto of smoked pheasant and wild mushrooms?

This dilemma calls for only one thing -- a degustation, or tasting menu. Boehmer is delighted to comply and thus begins our six-course dinner of small portions of exquisitely prepared food that rocks and rolls from land to sea. First up is a truly succulent breast of seared quial in a shallot and port wine reduction, topped with crispy onion frites. A basket of wonderful fresh breads comes in handy here -- we can't let even on drop of this delicious sauce return to the kitchen. Can they come up with a course to top this?

The chef spoons Oscetra caviar atop a huge seared scallop and gently sets it on a raft of minced tomato, sweet onion and cucumber. It's surrounded by dazzling dollops of red pepper aoli. Surely, this will be my favourite course.

A glass of Late Harvest Muscat introduces seared foie gras that glides like silken panne velvet over the tongue. It's flattered by maple-glazed, softly firm sections of baked apples, and a few touches of black currant puree. Two or three grains of coarse sea salt add sharp hits of flavour. No contest. This is my favourite course.

The restaurant manager has his spot at the rear of this romantic, candlelit room, and from this vantage point, his expert eye misses nothing. Leave your table for a few moments and your napkin is neatly refolded at your place -- spill a few drops of say, rosemary shallot jus on the tablecloth, and a napkin is brought and unfolded to discreetly cover the stain.

Every customer is treated like a VIP. With a galss of Chardonnay, we're back to the sea for our next vignette: A brash bracketing of Arctic Char gravlax (lighter and creamier than salmon), and cold lobster salad with avocado that's been moistened with white balsamic vinaigrette.

Is it the coral pearls of salmon roe or the pretty detail of edible flower petals that makes my friend insist that this is her favourite course? Boehmer produces some of that old black magic in the next dish. A lovingly balanced oval platter of sliced duck breast fanned into a flower and connected to its partner, a potato galette that's topped by carefully trimmed green and white asparagus, by a reduction of duck jus and white truffle oil. The wine is a Shiraz from Australia.

I could eat a hundred of these precious potato cakes because they are so delicate and delicious. Small raw potatos are sliced paper-thin on an Itallian mandolin, then arranged into saucer-sized rounds. Fresh herbs are sandwiched between two layers of deep-fried potatoes. Would it be too gauche to one day order these potatos as a main course?

Can you get sweet on a restaurant just because of the desserts? To bring dinner to a satisfying coda, there is actually a choice of appealling desserts, but I'd recommend the individual white chocolate cheesecake with a centre of fresh blueberries, topped with a scoop of blueberry sorbet.

Managed with much self-esteem and unforced polish, Bellini's recalls what an effortless, sophisticated, affordable pleasure fine dining without fuss can be.

(Dinner for two with tax & tip: $120, tasting menu(food only), per person: from $60)

Toronto's Favorite Restaurants
Most often reviewed of all. "My guests were very impressed with my decision
to eat here." "Cozy, warm burgundy's," "beautiful artwork," dark, "could eat
and talk without being aware of other people around." "Lots of paintings
and candles." A large and loyal following. Service was unanimously "polite
and attentive," "quietly professional." "Calamari - wow!" "Baby shrimp and
avocado," "veal with mushrooms," "chicken Bellini," grilled salmon,"
"seafood linguini," had "authentic" taste, were "adequate" in size and "a
veritable optical feast." "Best tiramisu in the city." "Not inexpensive" but
"good value." Dinner only.
                                  Occasions - Romantic, Business

The Financial Post
Restaurants By Sara Waxman
Consistency, Class set the mood at Bellini's
What is it about Bellini's Ristorante that makes one want to order a really good bottle of wine?  Is it the high-back velvet chairs that create a cocoon of privacy at each table?  The sophisticated mass of blossoms in an antique vase?

The room is a reflection of its own Baha Eddin Ghobt.  When you walk down a few steps into it plush interior, you'll find an ambiance of elegant good taste with a romantic edge.  And Ghobt, the consummate
host, does a charming dance of attendance at each table, making patrons feel essential to the scene.  It is this feeling of longing, of being welcomed and expected that keeps his customers coming back.

In fact, the first customer who entered Bellini's when it opened Dec 7, 1983, still comes back for dinner.  About 90% of the clientele are regular customers - except for the international film or TV stars visiting Toronto who stroll in from the neighboring Four Seasons Hotel.

There is something to be said for consistency.  For the past 13 years the same chef has been preparing the dishes.  Regulars, once familiar with the menu, know that the delicate scallopini of provimi veal balsamico will be perfectly pink and tender, the caramelized shallots and roasted artichokes done just so.

They know that the standard, seafood linguine, will be an oceanic tangle of pasta, grilled tiger shrimp, sea scallops and more, scented with roasted garlic, fresh basil and plum tomatoes.  The kitchen prides itself on the fact that the only precooked items on the menu are the soups.

Whether you call it back to basics or nouvelle grandma, oven-roasted rack of lamb, crusty with mustard seeds and sesame sauce, is divine; and medallions of pork loin are given a fruity tang with mango and pineapple chutney.

There may be occasional slip - an oyster raggedly shucked; an undercooked shrimp.   Eye contact with a watchful server brings him lickety-split to whisk the plate to the kitchen and back in minutes.  And there is the occasional grand gesture - our guests applaud the unique dressing on the Bellini salad and are presented with a jar of it to take home.

While most people know exactly what they like, I look for new excitement on the "Specials for this Evening" menu.  All of the Italian and Ital/Asian inevitables-of-the-moment appear on this daily changing card.  Rich indeed are the grilled medallions of Atlantic salmon, in colorful contrast to a pillow of black Thai rice, and orange saffron vinaigrette that seasons a sauté of spring vegetables.

Wrap yourself in the scent of the Tuscany region with a bowl of subtly flavored Tuscan bean soup.  A heap of parmigiana makes it even better.  Papardelle is a success with tasty duck ragout; ravioli is plump with mushrooms and cheese, and blessed with a silken red pepper, spinach and gorgonzola sauce.

From where we sit, under the skylight near the front, we can look out at Yorkville's passing parade. This area seems to reinvent itself every decade or so, and now it has taken on a new cachet.  That's due, no doubt to the greening of Cumberland Park and to the upswing in the economy.  Proof of this is that the pretty, 45-seat private dining room is booked even more often.

Confident of a bright future, the host will open Bellini's for lunch, beginning in September.  There may be plans afoot by others, but until then Bellini's will have the distinction of being the only fine-dining lunch stop on the street.