There’s a word that comes up often in conversation with Sam Holwell and Caesar Guinto, especially when they’re talking about Creemore Kitchen, the restaurant they opened five weeks ago on Mill Street.
It’s there when Holwell recalls the reaction he and Guinto had to their architect’s original idea for the building – he wanted to blow out the front wall and replace it with a wall of glass, until it became evident that Holwell and Guinto wanted to keep it simple rather than make a big splash – and it’s there when Caesar describes his approach to cooking. “People kept asking me what kind of cuisine we’d be featuring while the building was under construction – would it be Cal-Ital, would it be fusion, would it be whatever,” he remembers, “and all I could tell them was, ‘I’m making good food. Local, seasonal, simple, good food.’”
The word that makes its presence known again and again, of course, is “simple,” and it’s remarkable how that’s also the first word that comes to mind upon entering Creemore Kitchen, despite the fact that the building has undergone extensive renovations since its previous incarnation as the former home of the Curiosity House bookstore. There’s a soaring vaulted ceiling with a recessed skylight, there’s a gleaming white kitchen visible from the entrance, and there are all kinds of unique design elements, from the bar front made of antique doors to the reclaimed workbench used as a counter in the coffee and retail shop tucked off to the left of the front door. It’s a grand transformation, and yet it all feels so… simple.
It’s all the result of a lot of dreaming on the part of Holwell and Guinto, who met six years ago when Sam was “cater-waitering” for the company that Guinto was cheffing for. “I was in the kitchen screaming and yelling at the wait staff and Sam was one of them,” is how Guinto remembers it.
The pair began thinking about ways of combining Guinto’s expertise in the kitchen – he’s been a chef for 25 years and was most recently the executive chef at the Royal Ontario Museum – with Holwell’s long-standing passion for design and his newfound love for the “front of the house,” restaurant-speak for everything that goes into the dining experience outside of what happens in the kitchen.
They also harboured a shared desire to move out of Toronto, and after a short-lived stint helping a fine-foods market get off the ground in Barrie, their daily Kijiji searches for restaurant possibilities brought them to Creemore. The first building they looked at, the current home of Mad River Veterinary Services, wasn’t exactly what they were looking for, but during a stop at the Old Mill House Pub for a bite to eat, they discovered that the village of Creemore definitely was.
“There’s a wonderful atmosphere here that most small towns don’t have,” explained Guinto. “Especially as a gay couple – you can feel it right away when you’re not wanted somewhere, and there was none of that at all when we were in the pub that day. I said, ‘Sam, I think this is the place.’”
Not long after that, they found the old bookstore, again on Kijiji, and after realizing the extent of what they’d have to do and convincing some old friends to come on board as investors, they took the plunge and bought the building.
Nearly a year of renovation later, the restaurant – dubbed Creemore Kitchen to keep things simple, of course, and staffed with a team of local faces to ensure an “all in the family” feel – opened its doors. In order to get to know people in the community during the long wait, Holwell and Guinto made several appearances at last summer’s Farmers’ Market, using produce from other vendors to come up with various country-style treats, and with little promotion other than the relationships made during those Saturday mornings, the tables at Creemore Kitchen have been full, and diners have been raving about the food on offer.
“Sam and I truly believe in silent success,” said Guinto. “We don’t want Toronto Life to come here, we don’t want the Globe & Mail to come here, we just want people to enjoy our food and let word-of-mouth do the rest.”
They also want their restaurant to be a place where everyone feels comfortable, from parents with toddlers to seniors, from locals to weekenders. Make good food, and they will come.
“A good portion of Ontario’s produce comes from this area,” said Holwell. “We want to use that produce and make something nice, something well-presented that doesn’t cost much more. We just want to take simple food, and elevate it a little bit.”
Creemore Kitchen, at 134 Mill Street, is open every day but Tuesday from 11 am to 11 pm. Reservations can be made at 705-466-2900. Coffee, baked goods and homemade ice cream are also available in the retail shop.