Teca: where the pizza is Italian-government approved

Second cook Sheena Kahn prepares D.O.C.-approved pizza in the Teca Restaurant kitchen

MINETT, ON—If you’re looking for pizza with some wild and wacky ingredients, don’t come to the 68-seat Teca Restaurant at The Rosseau JW Marriott hotel.  Hotel director of food and beverage and executive chef Mark Marchment favours classic Italian pizza. Pizza at Teca conforms to the Italian government’s D.O.C. standards. A note on the Teca menu explains.

“In 1998 the Italian government formally recognized Neopolitian pizza worthy of preservation and granted it D.O.C. status (Denominazione di Origine Controllata), which specifies the legally permitted ingredients and methods of preparation necessary to produce authentic Neopolitian pizza. Our Italian pizzas are made with traditionally recognized ingredients.”

Marchment got his classical Italian training by working with Michael Bonacini, one half of the Oliver & Bonacini partnership which has a number of restaurants in Toronto and Collingwood, Ontario.

Even though most of them are from Muskoka or Jamiaica, Teca hosts and hostesses have been trained to greet guests with by saying “buona sera” or good evening in Italian, as part of the authentic Italian experience.

Teca is just one of a number of open or planned eating venues at The Rosseau.  Other restaurants in the hotel include Lakes which seats 100 and Cottages which seats 160 plus at least 150 on the patio in good weather.  Two more restaurants—The Deck in the family fun zone down by the outdoor pool, and Fairways Grille at the Rock, next to the Nick Falder-designed golf course, will open in May.
 
The Deck will be old Muskoka style, with flip-up windows, and will sell French fries, salads and burgers—with a view.

Fairways Grille will be a casual steak house.

In addition, The Rosseau has room service, plus banquet catering for up to 500 people.
 
“In Cottages, we try to be as homestyle as possible,” says Marchment. “Our food is not overly prepared—you won’t find a leaning tower of food—but rather good clean, wholesome food.  We will buy from local, organic farmers in the summer time, get trout from Milford Bay and have a beef program with Rowe Farms in Kitchener-Waterloo-Cambridge. The co-op has naturally pastured, drug free, hormone-free beef.”

This local Ontario product costs about 20 per cent more than beef you’d get at a market, but Marchment really believes in it as a natural product everyone seems to love.
“We worked for a year to arrange the program, and we’re the first hotel to get their meat in volume,” Marchment says.

Executive chef and director of food and beverage Mark Marchment (centre) and his team at The Rosseau

At Lakes, the lobby bar, the philosophy is to have really good cocktails and staff, so that people are comfortable whether they are using their laptops and sipping a martini while still working, or having coffee with friends.

The menu consists of small bites—the Muskoka version of tapas or dim sum.  The cost is $5 single or $8 for a double order of three to five items such as lobster corn dogs, samosas, a single or double lamb chop, ahi tuna or meatball sliders.

The tables in Lakes and the nearby library have plug-ins for electricity.

At Lakes, flights for drinks are the number one seller once people see them.
 
“We have wine flights on a plank board with three items to choose from,” says Marchment. Guests can order flights of red wine, white wine or draft beer. “We’ve got a Martini flight coming,” he adds.

The whole area—The Cottage, Lakes and The Library are designed to feel more like a large scale, comfortable living room than a hotel.

“We recently had three guys in their housecoats in our ‘living room’,” says Michelle Petterson, event manager for the property.

For more on The Rosseau see Canada's First JW Marriott comes to Muskoka.