Delectations : Chefs d'euvre.

After a strenuous session with the Zagat restaurant guide, our colleague John O'Sullivan will sometimes come up for air asking, "What is your favorite restaurant in the world?"

The first few times, I tried hard to answer, but I finally realized that it could not be done. There are some questions in life that must be answered once and for all (or at any rate once at a time): whom to marry; of what religious body to be a member; until recently, of what country to be a citizen. But not, What is your favorite restaurant (novel, opera, flower)? There we may enjoy a wide variety with no trace of disloyalty.

And so, What are your favorite restaurants? is a question I love to answer: Nicola Paone here in Manhattan, the Capannina in Cortina d'Ampezzo, the Isle de France and the Swisspot in Stowe, Vermont, the Perle du Lac in Geneva, the Boule d'Or in Paris . . . But very high on any such list would be Rundles in Stratford, Ontario.

Twenty-some years ago a young Irishman, James Morris, armed with formal training in hotel and restaurant management and several years' experience in Ireland and England, decided to see what Canada might have to offer. He settled in Toronto and, the theater being one of his great loves, frequently drove down the highway to Stratford during the Festival season. Before long, the thought had occurred to him: You couldn't possibly fail opening a restaurant here.

That was the period when Clive Barnes, then chief theater critic for the New York Times, would begin his annual review of the Stratford season by lambasting the city for its culinary deficiencies. And agree with him or not on the plays, he had the restaurants dead to rights. If you weren't into "Chinese-Canadian cuisine" and you couldn't enjoy a cheerful but third-rate steakhouse more than once a visit, you were pretty much out of luck.

Suddenly in the late Seventies-roughly coinciding with the arrival of Robin Phillips as artistic director of the theater company-Stratford became nothing less than a gastronomic destination, with The Church, The Old Prune, and Mr. Morris's Rundles all opening within two years' time.

The atmosphere at Rundles has always been delightful in a theatrical way, but I can't honestly say I remember details about the food before Neil Baxter-a young Englishman whose training included stints in France at Jamin, Taillevent, and Les Freres Troisgros-arrived as chef de cuisine in 1981.

My regard for Mr. Baxter approximates that of Bertie Wooster for his Aunt Dahlia's chef, Anatole: I will trustingly eat, from his kitchen, combinations of ingredients that, in other hands, make me wonder how long the taste for fusion can last. If I have some nostalgia for the days before Mr. Baxter went heavily into North African and Far Eastern seasonings-the days when he gave us salmon strudel with beurre blanc or braised garlic with goat cheese or salade tiede avec cuisses de caille- well, he may come back in that direction eventually. And meanwhile the twice-cooked lamb shanks, chicken tagine, and, always, the lemon tart will keep me going.

But Rundles's contribution to the general good does not stop with pleasing diners at its own tables. It also runs (in partnership with The Old Prune) the Stratford Chefs School. During a visit to Stratford last summer I asked Mr. Morris what had persuaded him to start the school. The answer was, to my great surprise, the urging of the Ontario government.

When Rundles started up, it routinely hired European personnel, men and women who regard restaurant work as a serious craft.

Why don't you hire Canadians? an Ontario official asked one day.

Because they aren't properly trained, said Jim Morris.

Why don't you train them? asked the official.

Because it would cost too much, said Mr. Morris.

What if we help pay? asked the official.

I'll go to the drawing-board, said Mr. Morris.

By 1983 the school was up and running. Mr. Morris stresses that it is a chefs' school, not a school where home cooks refine their skills. While giving an elegant dinner party for 12 or a bang-up cocktail reception for 50 requires a great deal of logistical skill, it is a different skill from that employed in feeding 150 people a choice of dishes within a two-hour time slot-and doing that six nights a week. Just the heat of a restaurant kitchen has undone some very talented cooks.

From November to March, while the Festival hibernates, the school is in full swing, with rigorous classes taught by the restaurants' personnel and by guest teachers. During the season, the students apprentice at the restaurants themselves. Some of the school's graduates find permanent slots in Stratford; others have gone out throughout Canada and the United States (including Ellen Greaves at the Tea Box in Manhattan).

Looking over the lineup for the Stratford Festival's current season, I noticed that, in several must-see productions, some of the leading roles are taken by actors who began as very young apprentices and have, as company director Richard Monette once put it, grown up before our very eyes. It's good to know that the meals between performances will also be musts, and that the Chefs School is also training future stars.