Montreal restaurant Joe Beef has landed at No. 81 on the World’s Best Restaurants list.

This, of course, is not to be confused with the list of Canada’s 100 Best Restaurants, which was topped by Montreal’s Toqué! in March. Joe Beef was No. 10 on that list.

Montreal Gazette fine-dining critic Lesley Chesterman gave Joe Beef a rare four-star review in 2011.

If you’re wondering why it’s big news to make the No. 81 spot on @TheWorlds50Best list, you’re not alone. The bottom 50 is an amuse bouche for the grand finale. Based in the U.K. and sponsored by San Pellegrino and Restaurant Magazine, The World’s 50 Best Restaurants list will reveal the top 50 on Monday, June 1.

Brasserie Harricana

✮✮✮ out of ✮✮✮✮ 

$$-$$$

95 Jean-Talon St. (corner St-Urbain St.)

Phone: 514-667-0006

Website: brasserieharricana.com

Open: Daily, noon to 2 a.m.

Licensed: Yes

Credit cards: All major

Wheelchair access: No

Vegetarian-friendly: Yes

Parking: On surrounding streets

Reservations: Essential

Price range: Snacks: $3-$15; snack bar dishes: $5-$20; main dishes: $14-$33; desserts $3-$4. Lunch buffet, $17.

Walking, driving or cycling around the city, you pass by empty rental spaces and think: Would that make a good restaurant? Is this a smart place for a café? Why doesn’t someone set something up here? And then you see a nice restaurant open in a cool space in the perfect spot and — bang — it lasts less than a year. Odd, but there you have it.

Figuring out what makes a restaurant a success is a challenge because I have seen establishments with terrific food and a great location fail and, on the flip side, mediocre kitchens thrive. So what’s the secret? An original concept is always welcome, really good food will always play in a restaurant’s favour and a lower price point helps. These three attributes are probably what make Brasserie Harricana such a hit, and to those I would add a fourth: beer.

Opening in December 2014, Brasserie Harricana is part restaurant, part bar, and part microbrasserie (craft brewery) located in an expansive corner space situated between Little Italy and Park-Ex. It’s not exactly the hippest of hoods and yet the restaurant was packed both times I visited, once on a Thursday night and then on a Monday at lunch. Full for the Monday lunch service? Interesting.

The name Harricana might be familiar to Montrealers as the store that specializes in recycled fur hats. But it’s actually named after a brasserie of the same name located in Abitibi (Amos to be exact), which for 12 years was the family business of the new Harricana’s owner, Marie-Pier Veilleux. Sadly, the Amos Harricana was destroyed by fire in 2013, but the spirit lives on in the new business where they serve 41 beers on tap. Master brewer Mathieu Garceau-Tremblay brews five in house at present with more to come. There are a few ciders, lemon bourbon and a spiced rum made here in Quebec, and all are distributed via a swanky Flux Capacitor system shipped in from California that insures the right level of carbonation for each brew. The beverage list also features a limited number of cocktails, some of which are non-alcoholic, but don’t look for wine at Harricana. This place is definitely more brasserie than bistro.

Designed by Alain Carle Architecte, the room is a huge part of the appeal of Brasserie Harricana.

Designed by Alain Carle Architecte, the room is a huge part of the appeal. Divided into several spaces, the restaurant is set on multi-levels. It’s all quite bright and airy, with dusty pink tavern chairs set at window-side tables around the perimeter of the room. Ceilings are high, the Lambert et Fils Studio light fixtures are exquisite, the floor is subway-tiled and the noise levels aren’t overwhelming. I like it here, but what I really liked about Brasserie Harricana was the food.

The menu is part modernized tavern snacks and part comfort food. From the first bite to the last, it was obvious the person in the kitchen can really cook. When I asked Veilleux who was behind the stoves, to my surprise she answered: “My mother, Danielle Veilleux.” Mme Veilleux and crew’s cooking is not complicated, but the ingredients are first class, the plating is clean and the seasoning is bang on.

At dinner, we began with two salads, a fattoush salad and a Caesar. Identified on the menu as the “fattoushie de Steph,” the fattoush includes a generous helping of feta, radishes, romaine, grilled pita bread and kale. Everything was bright and fresh, and the play of textures was good fun. The Caesar was textbook. Though served for two, we requested a single portion, which I soon regretted because, again, the freshness of it all, and the acidity vis-a-vis the fat in the dressing was perfectly balanced.

The fried beer can chicken is served in a half portion. The chicken arrived with a heaping helping of fries, mayonnaise and gravy.

For the mains, we opted for the fried beer can chicken and the veal liver. Served in a half portion, the chicken arrived with a heaping helping of fries, mayonnaise and gravy. Moist and full-flavoured but not crisp-crusted as you would expect fried chicken to be, the bird was still a treat and the fries were sublime. My only hesitation was with the coleslaw that was drenched in vinaigrette.

The liver was almost as good. The two thick slices of “foie” were tender and rosy on the inside, and served with the requisite mashed potatoes and sautéed onions. What’s not to like? Oh, wait, I could have done without the shrivelled baby spinach overtop. After two glasses of beer, a blanche and a blonde (priced at a reasonable $4 each), we polished off a slice of carrot cake and gâteau Reine Elizabeth and called it a night. And what a delicious night it was.

A few days later, I returned for lunch. Lunch is a big draw for one big reason: the buffet, an all-you-can-eat selection including a soup, salad, and two hot dishes, as well as a few mini desserts and a small glass of beer. All that for $17. Nice. The one on offer two weeks ago included a zucchini gazpacho, a spinach and feta salad, a braised fish dish and a chicken pot pie. Yum!

I passed on the buffet (not the smartest of moves, but I saw it too late), and ordered à la carte. First up, a great hamburger served with the option of fried oysters. I passed on the seafood, but the hamburger doesn’t need enhancing because it’s already loaded with fixings (bacon, cheddar, pickles, etc.) and it’s just terrific. I’d also recommend the club sandwich that’s served with a fine kale salad alongside. Yes, the sandwich would have benefited from a little more in the way of filling considering its price ($16), but the portion was generous. And, because I was curious, I ordered a “pain poutine sauce maman,” which consisted of a hot dog bun filled with poutine and topped with a dense tomato meat sauce. As fun as it was to see this Québécois tavern dish rejuvenated, it’s not something I would eat again unless a hangover was involved.

Great food, excellent beer and cool surroundings are all “on tap” at Brasserie Harricana, and you can add sharp service to that list. Our waitress, Laura, was not only downright lovely, but skilled at providing beer-pairing suggestions for the food.

Exiting the restaurant on both my visits, I looked back at this brilliant new restaurant, on this nondescript corner. What a boon Brasserie Harricana is to this up-and-coming neighbourhood. I plan to return often, not only for that enticing buffet, but to sample more of Garceau-Tremblay’s home-brews. I’m not the world’s biggest beer lover, but after a few meals here, that’s bound to change.

criticsnotebook@gmail.com

twitter.com/LesleyChestrman

You can hear Lesley Chesterman on ICI Radio-Canada Première’s Médium Large (95.1 FM) Tuesdays at 10 a.m., and on CHOM (97.7 FM) Wednesdays at 7:10 a.m.

Lili Co.

✮✮✮ out of ✮✮✮✮

$$-$$$

4675 St-Laurent Blvd. (corner Villeneuve St.)

Phone: 514-507-7278

Website: restolilico.com

Open: Tuesday to Sunday, 6 p.m. to midnight; Wednesday to Friday, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.; Weekend brunch, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Wheelchair access: No

Reservations: Essential

Parking: On the street

Vegetarian friendly: Yes

Licensed: Yes

Cards: Major cards

Price range: small plates: $4-$27; desserts: $6-$15.

Restaurant critics have the reputation for being tough. Wafflers, pussyfooters, fence-sitters and bush-beater-arounders, need not apply. You gotta tell it like it is, even if it means losing friends, chefs creating voodoo dolls in your likeness and, yes, even sometimes running the risk of getting it wrong. Remember that kid in a schoolyard who skinned his (or her) knee yet didn’t so much as flinch when the nurse soaked the gravel-specked wound in iodine? Chances are, that kid grew up to be a restaurant critic.

That said, restaurant critics have a tendency to wax sentimental when faced with something they love. Read through restaurant review columns and you’ll see that other side of critics: the gushers. For as much as we despise indifference, we are absolute softies when faced with brilliant chefs, schooled sommeliers and producers chuffed to see their foodstuffs listed on a great restaurant’s menu. But of all the people involved in this theatre of dining, the person who I’m finding has more and more of an effect on the positive outcome of the meal is the server.

In Montreal we are blessed with service staff of a tremendously high level. They are not the jacketed “monsieurs” that dominated formal dining rooms twenty years ago, but men and women, anglos and francos, newbies and veterans whose passion equals their professionalism. We allot much space to praising chefs, but not near enough to the great waiters and waitresses on the scene. A superb restaurant is influenced in equal parts by the front of house as what’s going on behind that swinging kitchen door. This week’s restaurant, Lili Co., is a perfect example of just that.

The name Lili Co. may seem familiar as it was reviewed in this space last year. Formerly located on the corner of Mentana and Bienville Sts., the restaurant is co-owned by maître d’ Catherine Draws and chef David Pellizzari, who garnered much praise for such offal-based dishes as blood pudding, veal tail and rabbit hearts “bourguignons.” Odd-bits cuisine is not an easy sell, yet they managed to pull it off as the food was served in small-plate portions, prices were reasonable and the black-walled dining room was small (30 seats) and chic. It wasn’t perfect but I enjoyed it very much. They also served a mean brunch.

Then word came last December that Lili Co. would be moving to larger digs on the Main, and in late April they reopened in a new space, double in size, with a more casual feel but a slightly more expensive menu. Most of the seating is now on stools, some set around a few tables, but most facing the open kitchen where diners can watch Pellizzari in action.

To get the ball rolling at this new Lili Co., I suggest beginning with a cocktail, especially as their selection leans toward the classics (Martini, Pimm’s Cup, Manhattan, etc). I sipped a bracing Gin Fizz (heavy on the gin and light on the fizz) while perusing the menu. Offal dishes remain — there was no missing the “couille d’agneau” (lamb testicle), on the menu — but I’d say the cuisine is more innovative, verging on experimental now than in the restaurant’s last incarnation. Reading through dish descriptions, you sit there wondering, “How the heck is this going to taste?” But you have to put yourself in Pellizzari’s hands, give yourself over to the experience. And this is where Draws comes in. Simply put: she did everything right and with such style.  It’s not just that she knew her menu so well. That’s a given. But what drew me to Draws was her composed and elegant manner. She somehow managed to make you feel like you didn’t want to be eating at any other restaurant that night. What a natural, and so friendly that I found myself looking forward to her every appearance at our table.

In this minimalist setting, Draws provides the warmth and Pellizzari’s cuisine further seduces the senses. We began with that lamb testicle (who could resist?) and it was fabulous. Sliced thin and fried to an ideal golden brown, the delicate testicle flesh contrasted beautifully with its crisp coating. And to further guild … the offal was enhanced with aioli, paired with radishes and drizzled with honey, making it, hands down, Montreal’s most erotic experience since Lili St. Cyr.

Though not quite as titillating, the dishes that followed were just as much fun. Grilled wild garlic scapes were topped with shaved Parmesan, sorrel and nasturtiums, creating a great mix of citrusy, peppery and garlicky flavours. Pleasantly chewy deer brochettes, prepared yakitori-style, arrived with a smear of cashew butter and a showering of sesame seeds. A tomato salad was zuzzed up with two kinds of fish roe, glasswort and more sesame, taking this summer classic in all sorts of unexpected — and delicious — directions.

I wasn’t quite so taken with Pellizzari’s take on scallops, which were seared and served with asparagus, sautéed breadcrumbs, salted egg yolks and a lemon sauce, simply because the scallops were gritty. But the kitchen redeemed itself with the three next dishes that included my favourite of the night, taglietelle with morels, blanched sedum, a fromage frais cream and rapini pesto. Quebec morels can be bland, but these babies packed a nice punch in this luscious twirl of pasta.

A variation on surf & turf, our next plate consisted of a generous serving of beef sirloin and lobster slices scattered with peas and blanketed in a rich lobster sauce, resulting in a skilled makeover of a tired classic. A dish of deer medallions served with a lamb jus and a newfangled béarnaise sauce was devoured in no time. The dish also included fried zucchini flowers and blanched sea pea leaves. I love the way Pellizzari enhances his dishes with so many unusual sprouts and greens. The food would be great without them, but the fact that he makes that extra effort shows how much he cares.

Desserts carry on in the same funky style. Grilled rhubarb arrives with sliced “cotton candy” grapes, a brunoise of strawberries and toasted homemade marshmallows. Yum! I loved the thick doughnut served with banana cream, coffee buttercream and cinnamon sugar. But the signature dessert, an apple pie with aged cheddar, hot maple syrup, pepper and a thick slab of foie gras is more suited to January than a steamy summer night. Might be an idea to keep that lumberjack on hold until the nights are cooler and apples are back in season.

Lili Co.’s wine list is just right: filled with interesting private imports, not too short or overly extensive, and priced to sell, with the majority of bottles under the $60 mark. And Draws is right there with some great suggestions to match the food. Nice.

I think it’s pretty obvious I loved Lili Co. It’s not the fanciest place, but there’s no denying the talent and devotion within these walls. Restaurants can make us cynical. Too expensive, impersonal, disappointing … there’s always something to criticize. But when you see this couple giving it their all — and delivering! — some heartfelt gushing is justified.

criticsnotebook@gmail.com

Twitter.com/LesleyChestrman

You can hear Lesley Chesterman on ICI Radio-Canada Première’s Médium Large (95.1 FM) Tuesdays at 10 a.m., and on CHOM (97.7 FM) Wednesdays at 7:10 a.m.

I’m standing next to a large trellis at the Reford Gardens beside chef Pierre-Olivier Ferry, who is crouched over a frail vine looking for something he tells me is quite special. Having visited this famous garden (known in French as the Jardins de Métis) in Grand-Métis on the south shore of the St. Lawrence before, I was used to admiring the magnificent perennial borders, the alpine garden, the art installations and the rare blue poppies, yet this was the first time I was lucky enough to see how many of these magnificent plants are edible.

Recently transferred from the greenhouse to this kitchen garden, the vine Ferry is scanning is Mexican in origin and has been struggling in the chilly early summer weather here in the Gaspé ever since. Ferry eventually plucks off what appears to be doll-sized watermelon. Known as a cucamelon or “mouse melon,” this fruit may have the markings of a watermelon, but when you crunch down, the taste is reminiscent of cucumber and lime. What fun!

Chef Pierre-Olivier Ferry’s Métis Bloom Spoon at the Reford Gardens restaurant in Grand-Métis.

I can’t imagine any chef in Quebec — or perhaps on the planet — has a greater arsenal of nature’s best ingredients to choose from than Pierre-Olivier Ferry. While guiding me through acres of gardens, he shows me dozens more of the 180-odd edible plants at his disposal, which include a wide array of sea plants from the shores of the St. Lawrence River along the property. Ferry also points out the garden’s 10 beehives from which they draw honey, as well as a newly acquired flock of sheep raised on site, destined for the dining room.

Gathering petals and leaves in a basket as he goes, Ferry hands me the purplish blue flower from a tufted vetch that grows rampant on the property. Considered a weed, the plant is from the pea family and when I bite down, it indeed tastes like peas.

As the walk continues, we nibble on marigold flowers and stems, and suck the sweet syrup from the tips of sage flowers, both purple and the rare black. There are more than 100 varieties of gentiana on site, and the ones we taste are the trumpet-shaped deep blue flowers. We rub fuzzy scented geranium leaves between our fingers, and revel in the various odours: rose, lemon, mint and spice. Ferry says they are often infused to make syrups for cocktails, as is the case with herbs like rosemary and verbena as well. We approach a bed of magnificent yellow day lilies, and Ferry picks off a petal and tells me to taste. It’s peppery and dissolves down my throat in an instant. I had tasted pickled day lily buds in the past, but day lily petals were a first for me.

“We don’t grow carrots, potatoes and onions here,” Ferry says. “We buy those. We prefer to concentrate on what you can’t find at the market.”

A selection of plants chef Pierre-Olivier Ferry uses to garnish his dishes, including begonia petals, allium leaves, lemon basil, mustard sprouts, sea rocket and oxalis.

At the garden’s restaurant located on the main floor of the epicentre of the garden, the Estevan Lodge, he puts all these leaves, flowers, stems and petals to good use. A recent lunch here began with a martini flavoured with a pickled day lily and a cocktail made with curaçao and rosemary. An appetizer of asparagus is enhanced with egg yolk confit, day lilies and chive flowers, and an entree featuring turbot is served with potatoes perfumed with sea algae, shoreline plants, pickled green onions, geranium and daisy tartar sauce. A dish of Arctic char with lobster consommé is garnished with not one, but four varieties of garlic flowers. Dessert choices include white chocolate and buffalo yogurt paired with eucalyptus meringue, apple and lemon basil.

Of course, there is nothing new about using herbs and flowers to embellish restaurant food. Quite the opposite. Yet when I see a pansy or nasturtium poised on, say, a slice of terrine, I tend to roll my eyes, thinking, “So ’90s.” Around the turn of the millennium, almost all high-end restaurants were adorning everything from the overwrought amuse-bouche to the powdered-sugar-dusted mignardises plate with some sort of edible flower. And when it wasn’t flowers, it was petals, or leaves, or even twigs whose purpose was not gastronomic but cosmetic. I’ll bet most of it ended up in the garbage.

The decade that followed the precious cuisine of the ’90s was dominated by comfort food, which in turn was flooded by he-man dishes, heavy on portion size and light on greens. Yet today we are seeing a more natural push on the plate, thanks no doubt to the popularity of French and Nordic cuisines that favour foraged ingredients. All this emphasis on farm-fresh, organic, local and seasonal has placed chefs directly in nature’s path to seek out new ingredients to enliven and embellish their dishes.

For Ferry, inspiration started with his father, who was a chef also, and evolved with chefs who worked closely with gardeners. He reels off names of star chefs like René Redzepi, Alain Passard, Marc Veyrat, Magnus Nilsson and Michel Bras, as well as Normand Laprise, saying, “You can’t be a cook in Quebec and not be influenced by Normand Laprise.”

It was Laprise who introduced Ferry to gardener Diane Duquet as well as Patrice Fortier of the Société des Plantes in Kamouraska — two people who have helped him and the gardens staff of 80 create a true edible Garden of Eden. Ferry also consults books like Marie-Victorin Frère’s Flore Laurentienne (Les presses de l’Université de Montréal, 1964), insisting older books must always be on hand for cross-referencing.

“You must chose wisely to harmonize the flavours,” Ferry says. “That’s the challenge. At first we would put a nasturtium on the plate just to make it pretty. Now we want to emphasize everything that flower has to offer.”

The epitome of this flower power would be the “Cuillère floraison” (a.k.a. the Métis Bloom Spoon), a sort of amuse-bouche featuring 15 different flower petals (day lily, sunflower, nasturtium, wild pea, hyssop, angelica flowers, begonia, etc.) placed atop a wild strawberry and sprinkled with a pinch of organic sugar and sea salt. Created originally by ex-Toqué! chef de cuisine Charles-Antoine Crête during a charity fundraiser at the garden, the spoonful of flower petals offers gentle hits of perfume, acid, sweet, acrid and spice, all enhanced with the fruit of the berry and a boost of salt. Wow! This spoonful of bright, summer flavours is sold at both Toqué! and the Estevan Lodge, and I can think of no better way in summer to begin a meal at either restaurant.

Two capelin paired with begonia petals, blanched allium leaves, lemon basil, mustard sprouts, sea rocket, oxalis flowers and heuchera, at the Reford Gardens restaurant in Grand-Métis.

Watching Ferry creating a dish featuring two capelin (a local fish from the smelt family) paired with begonia petals, blanched allium leaves, lemon basil, mustard sprouts, sea rocket, oxalis flowers and a plant that’s omnipresent in my garden, heuchera, I begin noting the recipe, but soon give up when he starts to describe the various steps in making the accompanying geranium mayonnaise (the oil is first infused with the geraniums and filtered before being emulsified). No doubt this is cheffy food, but made with ingredients so rare and seasonal that only those with access to such exquisite and delicate edibles could attempt. “It would be hard and expensive to cook this way at home,” Ferry admits with a sigh. For those interested in adding unusual plants and flowers to their cuisine, he suggests beginning with herbs, garlic flowers, pansies, angelica, dill flowers and hyssop, whose flavour is reminiscent of Thrills gum.

A veteran of the Métis garden’s restaurant for a decade, Ferry says it would be impossible for him now to omit these unique ingredients from his cuisine. The menu also highlights local products and producers, seafood and sustainable fish from the St. Lawrence and native plants foraged from the forests of the Lower St. Lawrence and Gaspésie regions. And his creations are as beautiful to admire as they are delicious, especially considering the truly magnificent surroundings. Asked if he would have a hard time cooking outside this cook’s paradise, he looks up from his beautiful plate, smiles and says, “I don’t think I could ever leave.”

Here are some recipes from Ferry for those game to cook from the garden at home.

The blue poppy cocktail at the Reford Gardens restaurant in Grand-Métis.

Cocktail: The blue poppy

Serves 1

This cocktail is named for the Himalayan blue poppy, the signature flower of the gardens and the first plant that Elsie Reford grew from seed in the 1930s.

Syrup:

• 1/2 cup water
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 2 tablespoons rosemary leaves, lightly bruised

1. Bring the water and sugar to a boil in a small pot. Add the rosemary leaves, then remove from heat and cover the pot. Let infuse for 24 hours, strain and reserve in a refrigerated bottle.

Cocktail:

• 1 oz. rosemary syrup
• 1 1/2 oz. gin
• 1/2 oz. Curaçao
• 100 mL tonic water
• 2 rosemary branches

1. In a cocktail shaker filled with ice, combine the syrup, gin and Curaçao along with a rosemary branch. Shake until chilled, then pour into a martini glass. Top with the tonic water and serve garnished with the other rosemary branch.

Arctic char with verbena butter, lobster consommé and garlic flowers at Reford Gardens restaurant in Grand-Métis.

Arctic char with verbena butter and lobster consommé

Serves 4

I enjoyed this dish at the Reford Gardens dining room at the end of June when all the garlic flowers were in bloom. If you can’t find garlic flowers, try to use chive flowers, day lily petals or any other small and colourful edible flowers you can track down.

• 4 cups water
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup salt
• 600 g (about 1 1/4 lbs.) Arctic char filet, skin on
• 1/4 cup verbena butter (recipe follows)

1. Dissolve the sugar and salt in the water. Cut the fish filet into four equal portions, then plunge into the water for 45 minutes.
2. In a large, non-stick pan, melt the butter over low heat, then add the Arctic char filets, skin side down.
3. Turn the heat up to medium and while the fish sears, spoon some of the hot butter over the filets. If the butter begins to darken, add a bit of the cold verbena butter to the pan. When the skin is crisp and the flesh is tender (about 6 minutes), flip over and cook for another minute.

To serve:

• 4 leaves from an allium plant (alternatively, you can use baby leek leaves)
• A handful of coloured cherry tomatoes, sliced in half
• An assortment of garlic flowers * (optional)
• About 3/4 cup lobster consommé (recipe follows)

1. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil and blanch the allium leaves or leek leaves for a minute, then plunge into ice water. Remove and pat dry.
2. Distribute the cherry tomatoes in four shallow serving bowls and place the fish filet in each bowl, skin side up. Add the allium leaves (or baby leek) as well as the flowers.
3. At the table, right before serving, pour the hot consommé into a small pitcher and then pour about three tablespoons of hot consommé over each portion.

Verbena butter

Makes 1 cup

• 1/2 lb. unsalted butter
• 10 verbena leaves OR a sachet of verbena herbal tea

1. Melt the butter until warm to the touch, spooning off some of the fat solids if possible. Add the verbena leaves or sachet. Allow to infuse 20 minutes, then filter into a clean jar. Chill until ready to use.

Lobster consommé

Makes about 4 cups

This recipe may look fussy, but if you have all the ingredients on hand, it’s simple to make. It can also be made ahead of time when you have any lobster shells on hand and frozen until ready to serve.

• 2 tablespoons butter
• About 1 lb. lobster carcasses (shells)
• 1 cup tomato trimmings (peels and seeds)
• 1 onion
• 2 small leeks
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1 branch thyme
• 1/2 cup white wine or dry honey wine
• 5 cups fish stock
• Handful of celery leaves
• Handful of parsley
• 1 teaspoon fennel seeds
• 2 egg whites
• Salt

1. In a large pot, melt the butter and add the lobster carcasses. Sauté for about 5 minutes on medium-high heat. Add the tomato trimmings and cook for a further 5 minutes. Add the onion, leeks, garlic and thyme, and fry about 2 minutes longer. Pour over the wine and then add the fish stock. Add the celery leaves, parsley and fennel seeds. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer for about 45 minutes to 1 hour, or until the liquid has reduced by about 1/3. Taste (the flavour should be full-bodied), and check seasonings. Strain the stock into a clean container and chill.
2. To make the consommé: Whisk the egg whites into the chilled lobster stock and then bring gradually to a boil, stirring slowly with a wooden spoon. Once the stock begins to boil, stop stirring and let the mixture simmer for 15 minutes. Strain the consommé carefully through a fine sieve or a coffee filter. Check seasonings, adding salt if needed. Reheat when ready to serve.

AT A GLANCE

The Estevan Lodge at the Reford Gardens is open for lunch and weekend brunch until the gardens close on Sept. 27. For more information about the dining room and upcoming themed dinners, visit refordgardens.com.

Damas

✮✮✮ 1/2 (three and a half)
$$$-$$$$
1201 Van Horne Ave. (corner Bloomfield Ave.)
Phone: 514-439-5435
Website: restaurant-damas.com
Open: Tuesday to Thursday 5:30 p.m. to 10 p.m.; Friday 5:30 p.m. to 11; Saturday and Sunday 4 p.m. to 11 p.m.
Wheelchair access: Step at the door
Reservations: Essential, call well in advance
Cards: All major
Vegetarian-friendly: Yes
Parking: Street with meters
Price range: Appetizers $7-$23; main courses $26-$45; desserts, $8-$12. Five-course tasting menu, $65.

On occasion when booking a table on, say, a Thursday, Friday or Saturday, if you don’t plan ahead, chances are you’ll either be eating at 5:30 p.m. or 9:30 p.m. or, in most instances, looking elsewhere. I suffer from a little of that last-minute-reservation-itis, so the first time I called Damas and got a “sorry, we’re full” reply, I understood. The second time, though, I was a little surprised, but the third and fourth times I was downright flummoxed. This is Montreal, not Paris, London, New York or even Toronto and I wasn’t calling Toqué!, Garde-Manger or even Gibby’s. Also, Damas had just opened — well reopened — in the original Van Horne Ave. location of the famous restaurant Les Chèvres, as the first Damas was hit by fire last February. It was now double in size and included a sprawling 40-seat terrasse. No reviews had appeared since it opened in late June, and when I wrote up the original establishment in December 2011, it was almost empty. But this excellent Syrian resto soon developed a loyal clientele, who obviously followed chef-owner Fuad Alnirabie to the new Outremont digs. His timing could not have been more ideal for now’s the season for not only dining al fresco, but eating Middle Eastern, a cuisine hard to beat in hot summer weather.

When I finally nabbed a Tuesday night booking, the first thing that struck me upon entering was the wow decor. I admired the red ceiling, the lanterns, the exquisite tiled floor, the glassed-in wine cellar. But what I liked most was the open kitchen where some 10 cooks were churning out the most beautiful multi-coloured plates. I fell hard for the last Damas, a restaurant that opened up my tastebuds to a new world of olfactory stimulation with pomegranate, pistachios, sumac, eggplant and pita. This flavour palate is all the rage in cooking these days, thanks especially to the books of Yotam Ottolenghi, an Israeli native who owns several restaurants in London. Ottolenghi’s cuisine is not specifically Syrian, yet his books feature many similar Middle Eastern dishes and ingredients that you’ll find at Damas.

The menu consists of hot and cold mezzes, Syrian grilled dishes and Syrian specialties. I had heard years ago from Remy Jahel (chef Racha Bassoul’s partner at the late and much-missed restaurant Anise) that Syrian markets, like the 13-km-long market in Alepo that dates back to the 13th century, were the best in the world. Considering the dire state that country is in today, I fear I will never see that for myself. How great, then, to have a window into this culture through a gorgeous restaurant in dishes like maqlouba (a layering of saffron-infused rice, aubergines and chicken), friki (braised lamb with smoked wheat, nuts and raisins) and bamia (lamb shank with okra, tomato, prunes and apricots). There’s a five-course $65 tasting menu that’s tempting. But instead we ordered up a feast and jumped right in.

The first plates to arrive were the fried kibbeh, hummus lahmé and cheese bureks, followed by fattoush and falafel. Made with bulgur and minced lamb, those egg-shaped kibbeh croquettes were flavoured with pine nuts and pomegranate. Dipped in a ramekin of thinned-out tahini, these crisp torpedoes of grains and meat were dense and delicious. I couldn’t eat many of them, but crunching my way through one or two was a pleasure.

The hummus arrived dusted with sumac and a filled with tender lamb meat and toasted pine nuts. The waiter arrived with fresh-out-of-the-oven pita, which provided the perfect base for piling on this sensual mix of velvety hummus and delectable lamb. Between bites of flatbread, I devoured the bureks, golden triangles of salty cheese that were sandwiched between mint leaves and served with a spiced tomato salad and sprinkling of nigella seeds.

The fattoush was a bit of a disappointment as the pita was soggy, the salting was heavy-handed, and the mix lacked crunch. But the falafel made up for a lot. Served with a side of homemade pickles, the falafels (five in all) were crisp, light and plated in the most elegant style, quite the step up from their usual street-food persona.

You could make a meal of Damas’s mezzes, and I yearn to taste more. But I couldn’t resist sampling the larger dishes, especially the fattet mozat. A favourite from the old Damas where I had enjoyed a version with eggplant, this fattet was served with a glorious lamb shank confit surrounded by rice, pine nuts, toasted pita, butter, parsley and yogurt sauce. Where do I start? With the luscious, falling-off-the-bone-tender meat? The creamy-crunchy play of textures? Or how about the way the flavours danced together (more of a waltz than a jitterbug) from the moment they passed my lips to the last swallow. I can’t think of any dish this year I loved more. That lamb … heaven!

A grilled rack of lamb, a dish that flopped in my previous Damas review, now triumphed. The rack was divided into two large pieces, flavoured with a seven-spice mix and seared on the restaurant’s live charcoal grill to the ideal medium-rare. Accompaniments included a tomato and onion salad, grilled pita and tahini sauce. Bite after delicious bite, I couldn’t think of anywhere I’d rather be eating that night. There is just so much love and care coming out of chef Alnirabie’s kitchen.

With all this loveliness we enjoyed two Greek wines, one white and one red (the stellar Domaine Thymiopoulos Terre et Ciel 2012) from the restaurant’s short but well-chosen wine list. If I have one complaint it would be that several of the bottles we ordered were not available, which meant we ended up in a pricier category than we were hoping for. And maybe now’s a good time to add a second complaint about the service, which lagged between the first and second courses. Our waiter was also a little curt with menu descriptions, which was a shame because this food merits much enthusiasm.

But, really, I’m being picky here because our meal was awesome and it didn’t end once the last pita was polished off. Even in the best restaurants, the fireworks tend to subside come dessert time. Not here. Though stuffed to the gills, that didn’t stop us from lapping up the scrumptious baklava ice cream, and even better, the kanafeh, a tender cake filled with fresh white cheese and flavoured with orange blossom water syrup and pistachios. Not only was it beautifully executed, but such a welcome change from the same ol’ same ol’ crème brûlée/profiteroles/tarte Tatin Montreal resto standbys. Yes!

I could finish this off by saying how great it is to eat upscale ethnic food, or how wonderful to enjoy this bit of culinary tourism, or even compare it to this restaurant or that. But I would be wrong. Without adding that caveat about this being a great “X” restaurant, what I enjoyed about Damas is that it’s a great restaurant period. I didn’t just like it, I loved it, as much as I enjoy the city’s best. And judging by the number of people trying to nab a table here, I know I’m not alone.

criticsnotebook@gmail.com

twitter.com/LesleyChestrman

You can hear Lesley Chesterman on ICI Radio-Canada Première’s Médium Large (95.1 FM) Tuesdays at 10 a.m. and on CHOM (97.7 FM) Wednesdays at 7:10 a.m.

Provisions

✮✮ 1/2 (two and a half)

$$$

1268 Van Horne Ave. (near Outremont Ave.)

Phone: 514-508-0828

Website: restaurantprovisions.ca

Open: Tuesday to Saturday, 5:30 p.m. to 11 p.m.

Licensed: Yes

Credit cards: All major

Wheelchair access: No

Parking: On the street with meters

Vegetarian-friendly: Yes

Reservations: Essential

Price range: Four-course tasting menu: $50.

I’m rarely happy to see a restaurant close, especially one that pushed so many of my buttons. In a way a restaurant closing reminds me of a couple of friends splitting up. You liked their energy. Had some good times together. Bonded. Then one day, you find out they’re over, and the next thing you know one of the friends shows up with a new squeeze. There’s that little awkward sensation in the beginning, a sort of longing for the old days. Then comes the getting-to-know-you back and forth, and finally the verdict: is this new person as likeable as the old? Will we forge a relationship? Might it even surpass the good times of the former?

Walking into the old Restaurant Van Horne location, I felt that pleasant familiarity from the space. I liked Van Horne a lot. It was a small restaurant with a lot of class that sadly never picked up the audience it deserved. Last spring it closed, as did the Paris-Beurre bistro a few doors away. The street’s restaurant scene was looking bleak. But then came three new restaurants to fill the void: the amazing Damas, the charming Les Fillettes, and now Provisions, the restaurant that took over the Van Horne locale. Two young chefs, Hakim Rahal and Pablo Rojas, are partners here along with Tina An, who manages front-of-house operations. Being a sucker for a chef-owned restaurant, I was eager to give it a go, and visited on a recent Wednesday night at about the one-month mark after opening.

The seared beef with fava beans was divine.

Now in that same way that you might not want to meet a freshly-minted couple because who knows whether the relationship will last beyond the initial crush, visiting a restaurant so soon after opening can be risky. The menu can change, the staff can change, the cocktails may need tweaking … it’s all in tryout mode. But I wanted to catch this restaurant early because the concept was original, and there was a sense of excitement in the air (which translates to: the foodies were raving about it on social media). The driving force is pure market cuisine in that Rahal and Rojas head to the market and scoop up any ingredients that inspire. The foodstuffs are then listed on a small blackboard and the chefs cook up a four-course, $50 menu, not in any set form, but simply based on what crosses their thoughts. The menu changes more or less weekly. The dishes are served by the chefs. Call it spur-of-the-moment cuisine.

Of course this kind of spontaneous cooking could only work in a small establishment, and at 25 seats, Provisions is just that. I’m not wild about the setup though, as the majority of the seats are at a long bar that runs along the east side of the room. There’s a table for eight up front and a few high tables for two along the other wall. Thing is, the bar is not a great choice for groups of three or more, and once that large table is booked, good luck dining face-to-face with friends. I’d say this restaurant is ideal for solo foodies or couples. So be warned: unless you nab the big table, this isn’t the best spot for an extended family gathering.

The pork dish: an example of intricate plates, unfamiliar ingredients.

We began with two cocktails, the bijou (gin, vermouth and chartreuse) and the cucumber (gin, cucumber and lime), chosen from the short but enticing list, and settled on wine later with the food. Though customers have an idea of the ingredients on offer, the meal is basically a big surprise. Our server, the exceptionally lovely and sharp An, asked whether we had any allergies, and then … game on! Problem is, when selecting a wine from the not-necessarily-long but certainly excellent wine list, you really don’t know which direction you’re headed. Will the dishes be red-wine-friendly? White-wine-friendly? Is a full-bodied wine in order or something more subtle? Impossible to tell. I cannot deny that the control-freak diner in me had a tough time with the “surprise-me” concept.

When the food was set on the table (we opted for larger sharing-plate portions over individual plates), I liked what I saw. And yet, after a quickie dish description by either Rahal or Rojas, we were faced with intricate plates filled with familiar and unfamiliar ingredients.

The first few compositions were straightforward, beginning with a gorgeous dish consisting of crab rolls, celery and a slow-cooked egg. The mix of textures was the key to this assembly, as well as the delicate mix of flavours highlighted with little hits of peppers, flavoured oil, pickled shallots and crunchy bits of panko. There was even more going on there, but that was the gist of it. These are crowded plates filled with all sorts of flavour enhancers. Looking for any culinary reference points (or anything familiar, really) would be futile. This is most definitely free-form cooking.

The next two dishes included a salad of halloumi cheese with tomatoes, and seared beef with fava beans. The salad was the least complicated dish of the night, and included fried chunks of salty halloumi mixed with tomatoes and basil leaves. Good stuff. The seared beef was divine as well. Topped with a brunoise of cucumber, split fava beans, sesame seeds and seared shallots, the red-rare meat melded beautiful with its accompaniments. Yes, there was a lot going on here, but the results were delicious.

Tomatoes with halloumi cheese: good stuff.

However, the following dishes pushed the multi-ingredient idea too far for my taste, especially as the room was dark and the chef descriptions came at too-rapid a pace. It is said that people lose their ability to differentiate tastes after too many ingredients are presented at once, and the next plate proved that finding correct. There were thin slices of tongue, caramelized cauliflower, lettuce, herbs, a purée, something red, a brunoise … basically we’re talking a tornado of ingredients. I picked through the plate, enjoying the tongue, munching on the cauliflower, detecting a note of curry in the purée. But there was little harmony in this dish.

The following plates carried on in this fashion. Cod cheeks were served with carrot slices, potatoes, dill, an herb jus. I loved that. But then a black cod fillet arrived on another plate with a smear of squid ink, corn salad, a mystery purée. It was good, but not having seen a menu description, I just wasn’t sure what I was eating. Plate after plate was the same. A piece of this, a dab of that, some herbs, a mushroom. It was a bit like spending the night with someone without ever knowing his or her name.

The final savoury dish featured delectable pork, with a long triangle of (what I’m guessing was) either seared potato or polenta, cippolini onions, greens, herbs, oyster mushrooms … Picking away at these plates, I remembered that great line in the film Amadeus when Emperor Joseph II tells Mozart his symphony has “ too many notes.” I’m not sure about Mozart, but with so many of these dishes, that jumble of ingredients and flavours never left much of a lasting impression.

Enjoyable desserts: brown butter ice cream with strawberries and caramelized nuts.

By contrast, I quite enjoyed the desserts: brown butter ice cream with strawberries and caramelized nuts, and the homemade Oreo ice cream with chocolate cookies and chocolate mousse. These were two of the simplest dishes of the evening and they worked.

I end this review with a thought: despite the effort, the technique, the plethora of ideas and the sharp service, Provisions just didn’t do it for me. With such a cacophony of flavours, ingredients and ideas, I walked away not so much satiated as confused. That said, every element on the plate was cooked with skill and one can only admire such unbridled enthusiasm. In the end, though, the wows were too few. But, perhaps more so than any restaurant I have reviewed, that may be a matter of personal taste. So allow me to end not with a slam but a suggestion: If you’re the kind of diner who likes a little chaos on the plate, give Provisions a try. I’m convinced many will love it.

To go back to my opening analogy of the friend bringing in a new love interest, let’s just say, this new squeeze had a lot of wild ideas and never stopped talking. But at least he (or she) had something to say.

criticsnotebook@gmail.com 

Twitter.com/LesleyChestrman

You can hear Lesley Chesterman on ICI Radio-Canada Première’s Médium Large (95.1 FM) Tuesdays at 10 a.m., and on CHOM (97.7 FM) Wednesdays at 7:10 a.m.

Villa Armando

* 1/2 (one and a half)

$$$

3201 Graham Blvd. (near Côte-de-Liesse Rd.), Town of Mount Royal

Phone: 514-504-1378

Website: www.villaarmando.ca

Open: Weekdays 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.; Tuesday to Saturday 5 p.m. to 10 p.m.

Licensed: Yes

Cards: All major

Wheelchair access: No

Parking: Lot on site

Vegetarian friendly: Yes

Price range: Appetizers $7.95-$18.95; pastas $16.95-$29.95; main courses $23.95-$42.95; desserts: $9-$10. Lunch table d’hôte $24.95.

There’s a definite rift occurring on the Montreal restaurant scene. This gastronomic parting of the seas might even be an international phenomenon.

On one side we have the new, hip, cool and innovative restaurants. On the other, we have the old-school, established and traditional restaurants.

The new restaurants tend to draw a crowd of young foodies looking for the latest thrill. On the other side we have an older clientele looking for a play-it-safe menu served by seasoned waiters.

The first style of restaurant is often located in an obscure part of town, serves wines as funky as the plate presentations, and offers seating as scarce as parking opportunities.

In the latter, the tables are plentiful and white-clothed, the wine list is pleasantly predictable, and as for parking, it’s either valet or a lot.

The antipasto included tomato/buffalo mozzarella, prosciutto/honey melon, preserved artichokes, olives, and a few slices of Swiss cheese all served on a bed of mesclun leaves. Nothing mind-blowing, but pleasant enough. Credit: Phil Carpenter / Montreal Gazette

The foodies’ restaurant doesn’t fall under any specific category as the cuisine is entirely focused on the chef’s loves and moods interpreted through local and seasonal ingredients. The old-school restaurant offers a menu set in stone regardless of seasons, fads and political correctness.

Of course, that’s not always the case. But the year-round omnipresence of asparagus, strawberries, balsamic zigzags and crème brûlée in such establishments speaks volumes.

Restaurant critics tend to shun the traditional restaurants as it’s always far more exciting to write about edgy cooking techniques, next-big-thing chefs, and wines that are not just red, white and pink, but orange. But the reality is that there is a certain category of diner who would never feel at ease in such establishments, who would rather be comfortably seated, surrounded by familiar faces and dishes while happily imbibing their favourite wine rather than make any discoveries. It’s a bit like the crowd at Cheers, where regulars flocked not for the wicked selection of craft beers but because “everybody knows your name.”

The veal cutlet was a simple pan-fried affair with a demi-glace sauce and sautéed Parisian mushrooms. Served with potatoes, carrots, fried red cabbage and green beans, the dish was simple (very 1984) but satisfying. Credit: Phil Carpenter / Montreal Gazette

Montreal’s old-school restaurants often fall into specific categories like French, Italian, Chinese and steak. Truth be told, I love a good old-school restaurant.

Take me to Le Mas des Oliviers, L’Orchidée de Chine, Moishes or Gibbys and I’m happy. Old-school Italian restaurants still abound on the Montreal scene, serving a cuisine that is more Italian-Canadian than regional Italian. These are the Italian menus I grew up with, where antipasto plates, prosciutto and melon, caprese salads, a long lineup of pastas, fish and meats (veal scallopini especially) dominated. Add a zabaglione or cassata for dessert and some Pavarotti arias in the background and that, my friends, was one fine Italian meal.

In the Italian category, I loved eating at the now defunct La Cantina, though now prefer restaurants like Impasto and Il Pagliaccio, which embrace a modern way of wining and dining while striving for authenticity on the plate.

Still, when the food is good, it’s good. A branché restaurant can come up short as much as an old-school restaurant can astound. With that in mind, as well as the need for restaurant recommendations for less adventurous diners, I headed to an old-school Italian restaurant tucked away in Town of Mount-Royal called Villa Armando.

Last reviewed in these pages in 2008, Villa Armando is one of T.M.R.’s few restaurants and only fine-dining option. As a T.M.R. resident resigned to the fact that Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, Verdun and possibly even the moon have far more interesting restaurant scenes than my neighbourhood does, it’s nice to know Villa Armando is there to scoop up a somewhat captive dining audience as well as gelato lovers at the ice cream shop next door.

Located in a in a 200-year-old house (T.M.R.’s oldest), the restaurant is made up of a series of small rooms creating a romantic and cozy space you would be hard-pressed to find outside of Old Montreal.

There’s also a cooking school run by chef Armando Risa, a native of Rome. The cuisine here is Roman-influenced, yet daily specials include Chilean sea bass and a salad with avocado and “seasonal fruit,” which on the night I dined there included strawberries and blackberries. Seasonal fruit in Chile perhaps…

The linguini was packed with seafood (nuggets of clams especially) and heavy on the sauce. But it was hot and rich, with a pleasantly potent seafood flavour. Credit: Phil Carpenter / Montreal Gazette

The menu is very long, as is the price range, which means you can limit your meal to a bowl of stracciatella and pasta, or opt for the $43 filet mignon. There is also a three-course lunch table d’hôte menu for $24.95. The wine list consists of a photo album filled with labels of Italian wines, with some pretty stiff markups (the $52 Tedeschi Capitel San Rocco Valpolicella is the deal on this list).  When I first reviewed Villa Armando seven years ago, the long menu was a concern. But everything that arrived was so fresh that it seemed petty to complain. This time around, I’m not so sure.

That said, the meal got off to a promising start, beginning with an antipasto plate and Caesar salad. I’m always up for a good antipasto plate, and this one included tomato/buffalo mozzarella, prosciutto/honey melon, preserved artichokes, olives, and a few slices of Swiss cheese all served on a bed of mesclun leaves. Nothing mind-blowing here, yet pleasant enough. The Caesar salad arrived in a pretty bowl, and though blanketed in dressing, the sauce was well-balanced and the romaine hearts were succulent. Nice.

The selection of main courses is pretty classic, as in carbonara, porcini risotto, gnocchi with truffle oil and the requisite $40 veal chop. I chose the lasagna because, really, how can you mess up lasagna? We also tried the linguini with seafood and red sauce, and a veal cutlet with mushrooms. The linguini was packed with seafood (nuggets of clams especially) and heavy on the sauce. But it was hot and rich, with a pleasantly potent seafood flavour. Good.

The veal was a simple pan-fried affair with a demi-glace sauce and sautéed Parisian mushrooms. Served with potatoes, carrots, fried red cabbage and green beans, the dish was simple (very 1984) but satisfying.

As for the lasagna? Disaster! The dish, rimmed in chopped parsley (all the dishes were garnished that way), included a generous slice of lasagna covered with about two ladlefuls of meat sauce. I shoved aside the sauce to uncover the lasagna, and what I found was an overcooked slab that tasted like leftovers. This lasagna was dead — so much so that I sent it back. The next version was worse. Sauce-free this time, the lasagna sat there alone, sad and lukewarm. I told the waiter I didn’t like his replacement, either, and he said that it was a Roman-style lasagna, and perhaps I wasn’t familiar with Roman-style lasagna. Overcooked pasta sheets and a lacklustre meat sauce with nary a smidgen of cheese in sight…if this is a lasagna Romans would endorse, I’m Sophia Loren.

To make up for the lousy lasagna, our waiter was kind enough to offer us a dessert on the house, and I ordered two more: a crème caramel that was rubbery, and a tiramisu that was pedestrian. The homemade cannoli, at least, were crisp and delicious.

Despite the friendly and efficient service and a pleasant atmosphere (the lineup of background tunes actually included “O Sole Mio”), the uneven food was the major downer at Villa Armando.

I’m all for old-school Italian, but old-school doesn’t mean stodgy or lazy, because when it does, despite the convenience of a parking lot and the luxury of a table cloth, I’ll be the first to line up for some ambitious young chef’s version of molecular spaghetti.

criticsnotebook@gmail.com

Twitter.com/LesleyChestrman

You can hear Lesley Chesterman on ICI Radio-Canada Première’s (95.1 FM) Médium Large  Tuesdays at 10 a.m., and on CHOM (97.7 FM) Wednesdays at 7:10 a.m.

In the 1990s a magazine called Pastry Arts & Design was the go-to reference for ambitious pastry chefs. Its specialty was glossy pictures of restaurant desserts (otherwise known as plated desserts) — the more complicated, the better. There were tuiles, there were chocolate towers, there were flowers made of spun sugar. Good luck finding the actual dessert amid all the bells and whistles. These sweets were about the wow factor.

If you were presented with one of these desserts in a fancy restaurant today, though, you would probably burst out laughing. Desserts now are sleek and simple, devoid of excess decor, pulled sugar or chocolate doodads. But today’s dessert shouldn’t be made with beets or celery either, because that’s just soooo 2013.

Love them or hate them, food trends are so ingrained in the restaurant scene that we aren’t even aware we are experiencing a trendy moment until it’s on the wane. Once that happens, that overly embellished dessert or excessively garnished starter is a sign of a restaurant in decline. Nothing says “tired” quite like the rim of a dinner plate sprinkled with chopped parsley. 

After 17 years of reviewing restaurants, I have compiled a list of previous trends I witnessed first-hand. If you’ve been dining out over the past 20 years, many will be familiar. 

But first, a quick word on what a food trend is and what it is not. I do not consider food trends to be progressive movements, such as sustainable seafood, striving for authenticity, a reduction in our consumption of meat, or the initiative toward better pay and conditions for restaurant workers. A push for reduced-sugar or gluten-free dishes should not be considered trends any more than vegetarian and vegan cuisine. These are life choices, though cynics may also see them as gimmicks used by restaurateurs to draw in foodies and fashionistas.

Also, you can’t describe dishes like prosciutto/melon, molten chocolate cake, sushi and tartares as trendy, because the truth is, when well executed, they will never be dated. And don’t tell me the tasting menu is gone, because, like those Star Wars movies, they still draw in the hordes. Why end a good thing?

Former New York Times restaurant critic Mimi Sheraton recently wrote on Twitter: “Trend is phony culinary complexity: intricate plate arrangements instead of real cooking innovation. Makes it look hard instead of easy.” I agree, and would add that a trend is basically an attempt by chefs and restaurateurs to stand out from the crowd.

The following list of passé trends proves all of that to be true. These are signs that the restaurant you’re eating in is stuck in the Stone Age.

There’s such a thing as too much parsley.

1. Excessive garnishes. Remember all those foods used solely as decoration? The parsley that was either minced into confetti and showered over that colourless dish, or used in its curly form to garnish everything from a shrimp cocktail to a slice of brie? Who can forget the plethora of starfruit slices and cape gooseberries used to gussy up breakfast and dessert plates? There were once so many thyme and rosemary sprigs protruding out of meats that I used to keep a piece of tin foil in my purse to wrap them up and bring them home. And a ’90s dessert just wasn’t a ’90s dessert without a serious dusting of icing sugar, cocoa powder and sprig of mint. 

Plenty of restaurants tried to squeeze some extra invention from balsamic vinegar and coulis.

2. The balsamic zigzag and the two-coulis swirl. I can’t imagine the quantities of cheap balsamic vinegar sold to chefs, who would boil it down to thicken it, fill up the ol’ squeeze bottle and use it to decorate plates with a zigzag design. And then there was the fruit coulis, often swirled into a pool of crème anglaise, providing the perfect accompaniment to that Day-Glo raspberry mousse cake.

Everything from salads to desserts used to be stacked high.

3. Moulded foods and stacked dishes. Good luck finding a chef 10 years ago who didn’t cart around a metal ring mould used to shape everything from salmon tartare to shepherd’s pie. That ring mould was put to good use to make stacked food, too. Popularized by Alfred Portale of New York’s Gotham Bar and Grill, stacked food was everything back in the ’90s. Salads were made into towers, meats were layered with vegetables, pastas were twirled into pyramids. And good luck finding a waiter who could get these edible sculptures from kitchen to table without the whole thing collapsing upon arrival.

Why have one crème brûlée when you could have three?

4. Things three ways. A trend that is finally biting the dust, this presentation featured, say, salmon, foie gras, beef or any ingredient “du moment” presented in three variations. The theme could be cooking style — as in seared, braised and raw. Or sometimes it revolved around flavours, such as the famous chocolate, lemongrass and vanilla crème brûlée trio. The problem with this way of cooking, though, is that once you tasted the best of the three, the others seemed irrelevant. 

Meat has been fanned out across many a plate.

5. Baby vegetables and intricately arranged meats. In the early 2000s, it was tough to find a high-end restaurant that wasn’t serving you fetal zucchini, loonie-sized pattypan squash, tiny blue potatoes or teensy carrots. I blame the exacting chef Charlie Trotter for this trend, which happily didn’t last long. But the sliced meats arranged Venetian-blind style sure did, with every filet of lamb, duck, beef or chicken meticulously sliced and fanned out on your plate. Ugh.

Maybe we should leave the salting to the experts.

6. The salt selection. Once upon a time, there was bread and butter on a restaurant table. Then came olive oil, followed by sea salt. Next thing you knew, a waiter arrived with a tray containing several varieties of salt, such as Guérande, Maldon, volcanic or Himalayan pink salt. All wonderful, until we realized the salting should really be done in the kitchen, not at the table.

The bottled-water options didn’t stop at Evian.

7. Mineral water lists. It’s crazy when you think about it, but back in 2004 many Montreal restaurants were offering a list of bottled waters modelled after a wine list. I can recall several bring-your-own-wine restaurants where diners had a choice of a dozen waters, ranging from Scottish Gleneagles to Corsican St-Georges, priced between $4 and $9. Today you’ll more likely see homemade carbonated water in restaurants than such a carbon-footprint-heavy selection.

Cupcakes would have been better left as a birthday-party staple.

8. Cupcakes and verrines. Desserts for the lazy. A good cupcake is a beautiful thing, but the Sex and the City endorsement took them from birthday-party stalwart to hip sweet treat. All that attention came at a time when French pastries were at their most finicky, with the humble cupcake winning out in the end. But then came the verrine, a form of dessert that made everything taste and look like leftovers crammed into a drinking glass. I’d rather eat my key lime pie and carrot cake in slices, thank you.

The Beaujolais Nouveau craze finally got old.

9. Nouveau wines. I reviewed 17 bottles of Nouveau wines (including Beaujolais Nouveau) for the Montreal Gazette in 2002. In 2015, only nine were listed at the SAQ. Often described as a marketing stroke of genius, or bubblegum-flavoured bug juice, Beaujolais Nouveau is about as “in” these days as leather pants and Nickelback. Beaujolais is wildly popular with wine snobs, however — but make it natural, make it from one of the cult producers, or make it a “cru” from a good vintage. Don’t bottle it a mere six to eight weeks after harvest.

Truffle oil can be put to clever use if the right chef has it in hand — but that has become a big “if.”

10. Truffle oil. Though in the right hands I’m convinced this artificially flavoured oil can still be used cleverly, the love affair between chefs and their cherished bottle of truffle oil appears to finally be on the wane. That said, just when you think it’s safe to dig into that salmon tartare … there it is!

Now that classic cocktails have returned, you can hold the martini.

11. Martini lists. The lychee martini (often referred to as the pee-pee martini), the appletini, the chocolate martini and the potent but pretty cosmopolitan have called it a day, thanks to the re-emergence of classic cocktails and the new wave of craft cocktails. A list of martinis in a restaurant these days is about as modern as a list of veal scallopinis. And those of you who may pine for the occasional appletini, take my advice: Don’t do it in a hipster bar. 

Foraged foods don’t always live up to the thrill of the hunt.

12. Foraged foods. In skilled hands (like those of chef Nancy Hinton), foraged ingredients can be interesting. But there’s nothing interesting about a pile of wilted greens dumped on a plate in an attempt to provide a wow factor. And telling diners they were foraged on Mont-Royal is not as appealing as you may think. Blech. 

Metal fryer baskets belong in hot oil.

13. Cutesy presentations. One can only admire a parent who takes the time to mould all their kid’s lunch items into animal shapes, and a well-made radish flower can still be a beautiful thing, but those metal fryer baskets for serving french fries have to go. In Montreal they’re pretty rare, but in Europe they’re everywhere.

Slate plates can grate on our nerves.

14. Slate plates, rectangular plates, empty plates. Call me crazy, but I like my plates round and porcelain, not made of wood slabs, marble, or especially slate. Like nails on a blackboard, running your knife along a slab of slate is about as appealing a restaurant moment as finding a hair in your Bloody Caesar. Rectangular plates are designed for those “salmon three ways” dishes (see Trend No. 4). And what’s with everyone lately using oversized plates but placing the food off to the side? Looks like the waiter lost a piece of meat en route.  

Tai Shan enjoyed a cake made with beets on his birthday in 2009. Our restaurant columnist doesn’t share his enthusiasm.

15. Vegetable-enhanced desserts. Just as I despise candied pecans in my salads (so Cheesecake Factory!), I certainly don’t want celery in my ice cream, beets in my cake, or basil or balsamic vinegar in my chocolates. When Parisian pastry chef Pierre Hermé started experimenting with herbs and vegetables in desserts, it was kind of fun. But in less skilled hands, it rarely flies.

Next week: Lesley Chesterman looks at recent restaurant trends worth championing.

Lawrence started out as the cool place where you might spot Arcade Fire members at the bar. It has become a restaurant that holds an important spot on Montreal’s gastronomic scene, Gazette restaurant critic Lesley Chesterman says. We have reached into the archives to bring you her review, which was originally published in November 2014.

Lawrence, 5201 St-Laurent Blvd. (at Fairmount Ave.), 514-503-1070
Three stars out of four
Price range: Lunch, appetizers $7-$16; mains $12-$19; desserts $9. Dinner, appetizers $12-$16; main courses $27-$29; desserts $8-$10
Licensed: Yes
Credit cards: All major cards
Wheelchair access: No
Reservations: Essential
Vegetarian-friendly: No
Parking: On the street with meters 
Open: Tues.-Fri. 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.; Tues.-Sat. 5:30 p.m. to 11 p.m., weekend brunch: 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. 

There is much talk in Quebec about the existence of an authentic Québécois cuisine, a style of cooking that can be traced from one end of the province to another, relying on local ingredients with a nod to traditional dishes. I believe, however, that the push to develop a provincial – or even national – cuisine has expired. Today, we’re no longer seeing a food movement based on location as much as personality. And the personality in question is the chef.

The dishes featured on chef-driven menus of late are not necessarily based on a code of cuisine, be it French, Italian or, say, Japanese. Now, we’re seeing dishes based on chefs’ backgrounds, their travels, their experiments and their personal taste.

A perfect example can be found at Lawrence, where British-native Marc Cohen is creating a style of food based simply on, as he told me years ago, “things that I like.” Basically, it’s the Marc Cohen Co. show, and his style continues to evolve, making Lawrence as compelling a dining destination today as it was when it opened in 2011.

Co-owned by Cohen, Sefi Amir and Ethan and Annika Wills, Lawrence has quickly become one of Mile End’s signature restaurants. At brunch, the lineup snakes past the door; at lunch, the 40-seat room is hopping. The scene is hipster heavy, but I have also sent my parents here with great success (that said, if noise is an issue, the earlier the better).

When Lawrence opened, menu prices were lower than today. But when you consider the length to which this team goes to acquire the most humanely raised meats, pristine produce and the finest morsels of Quebec and Canadian cheese, an increase is justified.

Lawrence restaurant in Montreal.

A short walk from their restaurant is the Boucherie Lawrence, where you can purchase the meat, charcuterie and more, served at the maison mere. At both the shop and restaurant, there is such a drive for purity, simplicity and goodness that you can’t help but be in awe of this team’s efforts.

In three short years, Lawrence has gone from being the cool place where you might spot Arcade Fire members at the bar, to a restaurant that holds an important spot on our gastronomic scene, perfectly epitomizing the wave of upscale casual dining that’s capsizing the high end.

I lunched at Lawrence a few times in the summer (it’s the ideal spot to bring visitors to give them a taste of Montreal along with Cohen’s charcuterie platter), but hadn’t dined there for years. Cohen’s menu is often heavy on meat and offal, meaning vegetarians would better be served elsewhere. Despite the protein push, I never feel like Cohen’s food is overly masculine. In fact, most dishes, many of which are served on pretty antique plates, are small in portion. Yet, as every morsel on these plates is full-flavoured, it all adds up to a verging-on-gluttonous experience.

A dinner last week kicked off with a stack of delicious homemade pain au levain served with copious amounts of fabulous butter. When most of that was polished off, we proceeded to devour three starters: brain agnolotti, pickled herring and bacon on rye, and a potato pancake topped with scallops.

Brains have the texture of bone marrow, and they work brilliantly wrapped in pasta pockets for those who are offal-challenged. Flavoured with morels and served in a deeply flavoured broth (I’m thinking veal), the agnolotti oozed brains when bitten, which sounds gruesome, but was delectable.

Bay scallops and potato cake.

I was less enthusiastic about the herring, which was richly flavoured and meaty, and topped with a thick slice of bacon and a fried egg. The problem was the bread, which was too dense to cut with ease, making it more like an open-faced sandwich than a restaurant starter. I far preferred the scallop dish, which consisted of a small potato pancake covered with sweet bay scallops, wilted greens and a dollop of crème fraîche. With a glass of Arbois chardonnay, it was a high point of the meal.

Main courses included a pork chop, lamb chops and a steak. Aged for five weeks, the grass-fed steak was tender, cooked to the ideal medium-rare and served with crisp potatoes, a handful of arugula and a pitcher of Béarnaise sauce. I’ll split hairs here and say I prefer a little more tarragon in my Béarnaise, but, otherwise, perfection.

Tri-tip, fried potatoes and bearnaise at Lawrence.

I was less taken with the pork chop. Paired with fried apples and a bowl of sautéed red cabbage, the chop was so fatty that by the time I had eaten all the meat, half the chop was still on the plate. I tried a few slices of the fat (yum!), but anything more would be pushing it.

As for the lamb chops, a bit of the same complaint about their fattiness, though the succulent meat amid the fat was fantastic. Accompaniments included a mix of root vegetables, including tender chunks of roasted rutabaga. Heaven!

Desserts at Lawrence are always homey and well done. Standouts included a lovely apple strudel studded with fat raisins and topped with ice cream, and a Manchester tart filled with jam, coconut and a whole lot of custard. The flourless chocolate cake tasted more like cocoa than chocolate, yet that sure didn’t stop us from lapping it up.

Manchester tart.

Service, provided by Amir, was razor sharp to the point that she knew the colour of the pig of my pork chop. Now, that’s a first! Lawrence also takes the wine part of the dining equation pretty seriously. Their original sommelier, the dynamic Etheliya Hananova, up and moved to Paris last year. Tough shoes to fill, yet her replacement Lainie Taillefer did a bang-up job with wine pairings by the glass followed by a fine merlot from the Rousillon.

At the end of the meal, Cohen offered us a taste of a special cheese he had been aging from La Fromagerie du Presbytère. It was deeply flavoured, nutty and lush, like a cross between an Époisse and brie. It was a first for me, a fabulous French-style cheese from Quebec presented by an English chef. The ideal end to a highly personalized meal.

Right on trend.

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Read more of Lesley Chesterman’s reviews and features here.

You can hear Lesley Chesterman on ICI Radio-Canada Première’s Médium Large (95.1 FM) Tuesdays at 10 a.m., and on CHOM (97.7 FM) Wednesdays at 7:10 a.m.

This is a Montreal Gazette smartphone app original. Download it here for your iPhone or here for your Android. Thoughts? We’re right here: smartphone@montrealgazette.com

Valentine’s Day has become a predictable way to say I love you to your sweetie, most often with a box of candies and some overpriced roses. But romance shouldn’t be limited to a specific present, or even a specific day. Here are ideas for either making the most out of the big V Day, or really any other day of the year you want to make extra special.  

Hotel Herman’s dining room is moody, romantic and very Montreal.

1. Find the most romantic restaurant

Restaurants tend to be more hip and noisy these days than quiet and romantic. But here are several that offer either the most passionate food, romantic ambience or simply the opportunity for sharing. 

Damas: Syrian cuisine is rich in grains, yogurt, spices, braised and grilled meats and vibrant greens – an exciting night of discovery for you and a loved one. Ideal for the adventurous couple. Damas, 1201 Van Horne Ave. 514-439-5435.

Le Mousso: The gourmet couples are sure to enjoy a deep analysis of each sip and bite of chef Antonin Mousseau-Rivard’s seven-course tasting menu. It’s the ideal dinner spot for a romantic evening because there is a set menu, which means you’ll both be eating the same dishes. The result? Not only lively debate but mutual oohs and aahs, too. And the food is just so exquisite as well. Le Mousso, 1023 Ontario St. 438-384-7410.

L’Orchidée de Chine: This old-school, fine-dining Chinese restaurant is a great choice for a special occasion because not only does the multi-level dining room offer several intimate nooks and crannies, the food is designed for sharing. I also love watching owner George Lau and his sister Eva working the tables – and the wine list is a serious step up from the usual Asian dining establishment. Great for couples but even better if you’re eating with the whole family. L’Orchidée de Chine, 2017 Peel St. 514-287-1878.

Hotel Herman: Another choice for the gourmets, Hotel Herman is also dark, moody and romantic and the food is just as beautiful as it is delicious. The style here is small-plate cuisine and the wine selection is as exciting as the food. Start with a cocktail and soak up this very Montreal scene hosted by the restaurant’s wonderfully friendly staff. Hotel Herman, 5171 St-Laurent Blvd. 514-278-7000.

La Chronique: Chefs Marc De Canck and Olivier de Montigny are behind the sophisticated French cuisine at this Outremont establishment which has been wowing food-lovers and oenophiles for the past 20 years. This is a restaurant for a serious romantic evening, Champagne drinking, question popping, the works. It’s also a restaurant that’s ideal for big spenders at night but for diners on a budget at lunch. La Chronique: 104 Laurier Ave. W. 514-271-3095. lachronique.qc.ca

Le Club Chasse et Pêche: Chef Claude Pelletier and partner Hubert Marsolais run several of the city’s top restaurant, but this is their finest and the one that started them all. The wine choices are wonderful, the food is superb, and the staff is flat-out fantastic. The dark room is oh-so romantic, providing quite the contrast to the colourful plates. Club Chasse et Pêche, 423 St-Claude St. 514-861-1112. leclubchasseetpeche.com

Laloux: No doubt, Laloux’s green and yellow dining room is the most romantic in the city. That alone would be reason to dine here but the food, produced by chef Jonathan Lapierre-Réhayem is sophisticated, playful and most especially wine-friendly as wine is another of Laloux’s strengths. Laloux: 250 Pine Ave. E. 514-287-9127. laloux.com

2. Chocolates! 

I’ll skip the roses for Valentine’s but not the chocolates, especially if they come from any of these Montreal chocolate masters:

Andrée Chocolats: Handmade chocolates filled with classic flavours like vanilla cream, praline, caramel, nougat and more. Homemade cherry blossoms are a favourite as are the heart-shaped boxes of assorted candies. Old-school and fabulous! 5328 Park Ave. 514-279-5923. chocolatsandree.com

Les Chocolats de Chloé: Chloé Gervais-Fredette produces her beautiful, square-shaped bonbons in her Duluth Ave. shop using flavours like fig and balsamic vinegar, basil, tea, passion fruit and fleur de sel. Gourmands can opt for a small ballotin or her multi-tier boxes, as well as chocolate bars and her delicious salted butter caramel spread. 546 Duluth Ave. E. 514-849-5550. leschocolatsdechloe.com

Chocolats Privilège: This somewhat corporate-looking chocolate shop offers everything chocolate you could dream of including chocolates, molded figurines, boxes, bars, cooking chocolate, cookies, cakes, the works …  For a list of their six locations, go to chocolatsprivilege.com

Melt your lover’s heart with cheese fondue.

3. For a little frisky forkplay, try fondue for dinner  

What could be more romantic than a hot bowl of melted cheese shared with your loved one on a chilly February night. Cheese fondue must be served in a heatproof pot that can be placed over a flame. It is best to use fondue sets with enamel or ceramic pots which are available in kitchen shops throughout the city. I’ve given a choice of two cheese mixes in this recipe as the Vacherin Fribourgeois cheese is really the best but not always easy to find. When you get to the bottom of the fondue pot, whisk in a beaten egg, dunk in the last few cubes of bread, and enjoy!

Classic Cheese Fondue

Serves 4 to 6

For the cheese:

12 ounces Vacherin Fribourgeois cheese

4 ounces Gruyère cheese

OR

8 ounces Emmental cheese

8 ounces Gruyère cheese

Plus:

1 tablespoon cornstarch

1 1/2 cups dry white wine

1 garlic clove, peeled and minced

1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

salt, freshly ground pepper and nutmeg to taste

3 tablespoons Kirsch, Poire Williams, Calvados or other eau de vie (optional)

2 French baguettes, cut into 1-inch (2.5 cm) cubes

Grate the cheeses and set aside. In a small bowl, dilute the cornstarch in a quarter cup of the wine. Pour the remaining wine into a fondue pot and bring to a boil over medium heat. Add the minced garlic and whisk in the diluted cornstarch mixture and the lemon juice. Bring back to a simmer and begin adding the cheese by the handful, stirring vigorously with a wooden spoon in a figure-eight movement until the mixture is well combined, the cheeses have melted and it begins to bubble.

Remove from heat and stir in the liqueur if desired, season with salt, pepper and a pinch of nutmeg, and transfer to the top of a lighted burner on a table top. Pierce the bread cubes with the long fondue forks, dip into the pot of fondue. Stir the cheese from time to time when it begins to thicken.

Takeout pizza with great wine: the perfect high-low mix.

4. Takeout pizza with a great bottle of wine

The big restaurant trend these days is high-end casual. Make your Valentine’s dinner relaxed and elegant by serving pizza (homemade or takeout) with a great bottle of Italian wine. Here are five of my favourites sure to transform your pizza feast from simple to sensational.

Brolio 2013, Chianti Classico ($14.45 – SAQ # 11067921)

Montepulciano d’Abruzzo 2013, Masciarelli ($16.80 – SAQ # 108633774)

Falesco 2013, Vitiano ($16.95 – SAQ # 466029)

Dolcetto 2013, Mascarello Giuseppe & Filio ($26.90 – SAQ # 11456476)

Brunello di Montalcino 2010, Val di Suga ($51.50 – SAQ # 897017)

Griffintown staycation: Dine at Industria Brasserie-Italienne, sleep at the Alt Hotel.

5. The great escape!

What could be more romantic than having your lover sweep you off your feet for a staycation in your own city or an out-of-town adventure? You can also book now and go later, which is good for last-minute gifting. Here are five hotels where the dining room is as lovely as the bedrooms:

Le Hatley at Hovey Manor: Hard to beat the sheer glamour factor at this Relais & Châteaux country inn. The hotel is all bucolic-chic and the dining room offers contemporary Québécois cuisine of the highest level. Always a treat to dine at Hovey. 575 Hovey St., North Hatley. 819-842-2421. manoirhovey.com

Laurie Raphaël at Le Germain: Montreal Le Germain is a hip boutique hotel known for its cool rooms complete with glassed-in showers. But the restaurant here is just as fabulous, with an array of dining options and menus, and sharp Québécois cuisine overseen by star chef Daniel Vézina and his son, Raphaël. 2050 Mansfield St. 514-985-6072. laurieraphael.com

Maison Boulud at The Ritz: Montreal’s poshest hotel is no doubt a dream getaway destination for a special occasion. But the icing on the sundae here is that the restaurant is equally luxurious, offering a modern mix of French and Italian cuisines prepared by chef Riccardo Bertolino. Be sure to start your night off with one of their beautiful cocktails (and save up, it’s expensive!). 1228 Sherbrooke St. W. 514-842-4224. ritzcarlton.com/en/Properties/Montreal/Dining/Maison_Boulud/Default.htm

Le Renoir at Le Sofitel: Located right in the heart of the downtown core, this swish hotel specializes in French savoir-faire, including, of course, their restaurant, which offers several Valentine-themed menus including an impressive selection of French desserts. Yum! 1155 Sherbrooke St. W. 514-285-9000. restaurant-renoir.com

Industria Brasserie-Italienne at the Alt Hotel: This minimalist chic — and budget — hotel is located in Griffintown, a neighbourhood filled with great restaurants. Yet look no further than the second floor of this hotel for an excellent Italian brasserie where the pasta and pizza are tops and the setting is ideal for diners who like a little action (and loud music) to accompany their meal. Not quite the most romantic ambience, but a great choice for those looking for a deal. 100 Peel St. (at Wellington St. in the Alt Hotel). 514-931-4545. industriabrasserie.com

Who can resist chocolate mousse? And the recipe is easy to make.

6. The chocolate dessert

Valentine’s Day dinner may consist of a family — or sweetheart’s — favourite, but who can resist a rich chocolate dessert? This mousse is easy to make and feeds a crowd. It can also be made into individual portions and kept frozen (well wrapped) for your next feast.

Chocolate Mousse

Serves 8 to 10 

The quality of chocolate is the key to an excellent chocolate mousse. When it is made correctly, it needs no more accompaniment than a dollop of sweetened whipped cream or a sprinkling of raspberries. 

12 ounces (320 grams) semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, chopped

3 cups 35-per-cent cream

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup water

6 egg yolks

Beat the cream to very soft peaks. Set aside but do not refrigerate.

Prepare a pot of simmering water over low heat. Place the chocolate in a large stainless steel bowl then place over the simmering water to melt the chocolate, stirring often, until warm to the touch. Set aside in a warm place.

In a medium-sized, stainless steel bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and sugar, followed by the water, until well-blended. Place this bowl over the simmering water and whisk the mixture by hand until it begins to thicken.

Remove from heat. With an electric mixer, beat on high speed until cool and doubled in volume.

Pour one-third of the whipped cream into the warm chocolate and whisk until thoroughly blended. Fold in the yolk mixture with a rubber spatula, followed by the remaining cream. Fold until just combined. Pour into a large decorative serving bowl and chill six hours before serving.

Can’t cook but would like to surprise your sweetheart with a delicious dinner? Try this bistro favourite: bavette à l’échalote.

7. Make the non-cook in the couple do the cooking

Can’t cook but would like to surprise your sweetheart with a delicious dinner? Try this bistro favourite. This recipe is by butcher Yves Baudry. You can buy the bavette directly from Baudry at the Boucherie de Tours at the Atwater Market, but any good butcher is sure to carry the cut.

Bavette à l’échalote

Serves 2

1 one-pound (about 500-gram) portion of bavette

1 French shallot, peeled and minced

1 teaspoon butter

2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

Salt and pepper

3 tablespoons finely-chopped flat leaf parsley

Prepare the bavette by slicing it into two equal steaks. Set aside at room temperature.

Prepare the shallots: in a small pot, heat the butter over medium heat and add the shallots. When they look transparent, add the vinegar to deglaze. Let the liquid reduce by half. Set aside in a warm place.

Cook the bavette over high heat on the barbecue or in a grill pan for four minutes on one side and two minutes on the other. Season with salt and pepper and serve immediately with the shallots and a sprinkling of parsley.

Simple but effective seduction: homemade brownies.

8. A Valentine’s treat from scratch 

Cinnamon hearts purchased from the pharmacy are always good fun, but how about homemade brownies instead? These ones could not be more simple.

Jane’s Brownies

Fills one 9-by-13-inch pan

1 cup butter

4 squares (4 ounces) Baker’s unsweetened chocolate

2 cups sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla

4 eggs

2 cups flour

Preheat oven to 400 F (200 C). Butter a 9-by-13-inch pan and line the base with parchment paper.

In a large saucepan, heat the butter along with the chocolate until just melted. Remove from heat, beat until smooth and allow to cool to lukewarm. Beat in the sugar, followed by the salt, vanilla and then the eggs one by one. Add the flour and stir just until it disappears. Pour the batter into the pan and smooth out evenly, getting right into the corners. Bake 18 minutes for fudgey brownies, or 20 minutes for more cakey brownies. Remove from oven and let cool before icing.

9. Can’t pull it together for V day?

Try the “I owe you.” A Valentine’s card with a restaurant gift certificate or handmade coupon shows you didn’t forget the occasion – you’re just taking a rain check!

Café Ferreira is among the establishments offering late-night menus after the early crowds have subsided.

10. After-hours dinner

And when you do honour that voucher, why not extend the evening – go to a show or movie first, then add dinner to the equation for a steal? These establishments offer menus after the early crowds have subsided for between $20 to $25. Sweet.

Café Ferreira, Monday to Saturday from 10 p.m. 1446 Peel St. 514-848-0988. ferreiracafe.com

Chez Lévêque, Monday to Sunday, 9 p.m. to closing. 1030 Laurier Ave. W. 514-279-7355. chezleveque.ca

Leméac, Monday to Sunday, 10 p.m. to midnight. 1045 Laurier Ave. W. 514-270-0999. restaurantlemeac.com

Milos, Thursday to Saturday, 10 p.m. to midnight. 5357 Park Ave. 514-272-3522. milos.ca

Moishes, Thursday to Saturday, 9 p.m. to midnight. 3961 St-Laurent Blvd. 514-845-3509. moishes.ca

Fiorellino

*** (three)

$$-$$$

470 de la Gauchetière St. (corner St-Alexandre St.)

Phone: 514-878-3666

Web site: www.fiorellino.ca

Open: Weekdays 7 a.m. to 11 p.m.; Sat. – Sun. 5 p.m. to 11 p.m.

Licensed: Yes

Credit cards: All major cards

Wheelchair access: Yes

Reservations: Essential

Vegetarian-friendly: Yes

Parking: On the street with meters

Price range: Appetizers: $11-$16; main courses $17-$26; desserts $7-$10.

You would be hard pressed to find a food trend story these days that doesn’t list the push toward casual dining as one of the most — if not the most — important changes on the dining landscape. Yes, tablecloths have disappeared. Yes, top chefs are now making chic hamburgers, and, yes the snack bar has been reinvented. But the idea that any of this is new is ridiculous.

This trend has been playing out in Montreal for 20 years now, pivotal moments for me being when the former restaurant Cube decided on bare tables, when the late/great chef Nicolas Jongleux opened the unpretentious Café Jongleux, and when more people were getting dressed up to eat on The Main than downtown. The last time I was informed jackets were required in a dining room was a decade ago.

Chef Erik Mandracchia prepares an Italian coffee. The restaurant opens early each weekday, at 7 a.m., for the morning business crowd.

In 2010, the opening of Toqué!’s bistro, Brasserie T!, ushered in a new wave of secondary chef restaurants (though let’s not forget even Les Halles had Le Petit Halle in the ’80s, so even Brasserie T!’s creation wasn’t as novel as one might think). Today, so many restaurant groups are opening casual restaurants that the idea that fine dining may be worth sticking a fork into is the topic of many food-lovers’ conversations. But now even the laid-back restaurants are opening even more casual restaurants.

A great example of that is the Buonanotte group’s latest endeavour: Fiorellino.

When you think Buonanotte, you think pasta, pizza, risotto, veal chop etc. The ambiance is fun-verging-on-decadent. It’s dark, it’s moody, it’s a scene right in the heart of the coolest ’hood in the city. Fiorellino, by contrast, is bright, cheery and rather removed from the action, located right behind St. Patrick’s Basilica on de la Gauchetière St. By day, this strip of the Quartier International may be hopping, but at night, it’s practically deserted — save for Fiorellino, which already, judging by the crowds, is raking ’em in. 

Enter the restaurant and the first thing you see is the café as well as a counter displaying Italian goodies ranging from biscotti to tiramisu.

The pizza here is excellent, but the owners don’t want the restaurant to be known as a pizza place. For good reason. The rest of the menu is strong, too.

Walking on the beautiful blue-and-white tiled floor, take a right past the high tables and you enter the main dining room, where there’s a bar, a communal table facing a meat slicer, and a wall of imported groceries (pastas, oils etc.), all for sale. Venture a little farther and you’re facing a Neapolitan pizza oven, and, just past that, the kitchen. The dining room, framed in white tiles, concrete walls and plywood paneling, counts about 80 seats, and on the two nights I dined there most every one was taken. 

Gorgeous setting aside, what counts most is the food, especially as the young-and-fun Italian genre is all the rage in our city. Five years ago, you could count the number of good pizza places in Montreal on one hand. Now, there are many, and you can add Fiorellino to that list.  

I’m told the owners don’t want the restaurant categorized as a pizza place, but when the pizza’s this good, why not? But come here only for pizza and you’ll be missing out.

The porchetta tonnato consists of whisper-thin slices of this famous roasted pork dish topped with dabs of tuna mayonnaise and a mound of frisée salad.

Appetizers are a must, especially the beet salad. Made with thick wedges of red and golden beets, creamy ricotta, arugula and pistachio pesto, this Italian version breathes new life into a tired standby. I also enjoyed the king eryngii mushroom salad with thick parmesan shards and olive-oil-rich gremolata, though the richness was eventually overwhelming (this salad makes a terrific pizza garnish).

The porchetta tonnato consists of whisper-thin slices of this famous roasted pork dish topped with dabs of tuna mayonnaise and a mound of frisée salad. Lovely. And even if I’m all butternut-squashed-out this time of year, the plate of butternut squash slices topped with chilies, walnuts, crème fraîche, greens and the most fantastic olive oil (the olive oil here is the secret to the success of many dishes) was an absolute hit.

The plate of butternut squash slices topped with chilies, walnuts, crème fraîche, greens and the most fantastic olive oil was an absolute hit.

As for pizza, think pouffy/crisp/blistered/slightly charred crust, spread with a spunky tomato sauce and topped with the likes of soppressata, roasted red peppers, mushrooms and fior di latte, or goat’s cheese. I inhaled the “Carciofi,” a pizza with mushrooms, olives, ham and artichoke, revelling in the superb mix of textures and flavours, then adding a few dribbles of spicy oil to give it extra kick.

Of the “bianco” (tomato-sauce-free) pizzas, I would recommend the “speck” pizza with stracchino, radicchio and smoked prosciutto over the “guanciale,” made with spinach and pork jowl, as well as a spice (cinnamon? nutmeg?) that overwhelmed.

The “speck” pizza with stracchino, radicchio and smoked prosciutto.

Of the pastas, the pappardelle with pork and cabbage ragu was swoonworthy, as was the classic tomato gnocchi. Chef Erik Mandracchia last worked at Impasto, and it shows. He knows his pasta. 

The pappardelle with pork and cabbage ragu was swoonworthy.

Though stuffed post pizza and pasta, there was no missing dessert. The house offered a dish of persimmons on a bed of sabayon with a sprinkling of pistachio, which was good but heavy in look and, after a few bites, taste. The bombolone toast consisted of two slices of toasted brioche with almonds, crème fraîche, cherries and a caramel sauce. Again scrumptious, but oh so rich. I far preferred the velvety pannacotta topped with preserved cherries and a couple of biscotti. Perfect! 

The four owners: from left, Angelo Leone, Lino Lozza, Massimo Lecas and Roberto Pesut.

Another plus at Fiorellino is a wine list that is well-chosen, well-priced and just the right length while smartly avoiding falling into the trap of overpriced or pretentious wines all too common in Italian restaurants. Service is also sharp and, in contrast to Buonanotte, known for its beautiful waitresses, at Fiorellino there are beautiful waitresses but mostly handsome waiters, who were up on their menu descriptions and wine choices.

Save for the kitchen’s tendency to produce some overly-rich dishes, I enjoyed dining at Fiorellino immensely. There is so much deliciousness going on inside these walls. And even if the setting is quite casual, I can imagine this restaurant is as well suited to a family dinner as a date night destination. That’s the beauty of the new casual restaurant: with reasonable prices and no scene to intimidate, it’s accessible to all.

criticsnotebook@gmail.com 

twitter.com/LesleyChestrman 

You can hear Lesley Chesterman on ICI Radio-Canada Première’s Médium Large (95.1 FM) Tuesdays at 10 a.m., and on CHOM (97.7 FM) Wednesdays at 7:10 a.m.

From the archives, here’s a visit to the Monkland Ave. restaurant that makes one of the best lobster rolls in Montreal. When Gazette restaurant critic Lesley Chesterman ate there in October 2104, Lucille’s had lived through a fire, closed for a year to renovate, and had reopened with some changes, all of them good.

Lucille’s Oyster Dive
5626 Monkland Ave. (at Marcil Ave.)
2½ stars out of four
Price range: Starters $13-$18 as well as oysters and seafood platters; main courses $17-$29 (steaks sold by the pound); desserts $8
Phone: 514-482-1471
Open: Open daily from 5 p.m. to midnight
Licensed: Yes
Credit cards: All major
Wheelchair access: Yes (call ahead)
Reservations: Not taken
Parking: Street with meters
Vegetarian friendly: Not especially 

There is no news that hits the restaurant world as hard as that of a fire. The worst of late occurred last July at the San Francisco restaurant Manresa, causing a quarter-million dollars worth of damage. Before that came the fire at Chez Panisse in 2013, which happened to be the second in its storied history. Many Montreal restaurants have been ravaged by fire over the years, including Le Continental, Sel Gris, Yangtze Chinese Restaurant on Van Horne, and who could forget the devastating fire at Auberge Hatley in 2006?

In March 2012, Monkland Ave. favourite, Lucille’s Oyster Dive was damaged by fire as well. The restaurant closed and reopened, fully renovated, a year later.

It also launched a catering company and a food truck to tide over fans of lobster rolls in need of a fix. Though fire is always tragic, restaurants that can be salvaged often end up with new and improved digs that often surpass the original. This seems to be just the case with Lucille’s.

Lucille’s food truck.

The restaurant, which had been open for five years before the fire, is a rather casual one whose prices place it in the upscale category. In the Golden Age of Montreal seafood restaurants (1960s to ’80s), when establishments like Desjardins, Chez Pauzé and the Atlantic Pavillion ruled, they were pricey.

Chef Mark Gaffney (left) with his staff.

Today, we expect seafood to come cheap, yet coast-side shacks aside, seafood restaurants should fall into a high price point to assure confidence. Lucille’s might seem like just a neighbourhood joint, but a lot of the best oysters — sold to 25 restaurants in the city — hail from their seafood importing company launched in 2009 (Lucille’s Seafood Co.).

I recall a local restaurant critic once slamming Lucille’s for jumping on the oyster bandwagon. Truth is, they aren’t jumping on the bandwagon, they are the oyster bandwagon.

The big surprise when I returned to Lucille’s is that they now serve a mean steak, too. Right by the door, you’ll see a small refrigerator containing ribs of beef, which just so happens to be dry-aged Black Angus. Steak and seafood go hand in hand (“le surf et le turf “), so it’s great to see yet another Montreal restaurant that’s offering dry-aged beef, this one aged 21 to 30 days. Otherwise, the room is as bustling as I remember, though now Lucille’s does not take reservations, so be warned: on busy nights, there might be a wait.

Since my last review three years ago, Lucille’s has evolved from a good restaurant to a very good restaurant. Almost every criticism I had of the old menu has been corrected, so credit goes to chef Mark Gaffney for upping the game. Some might enter Lucille’s grumpy about the wait at the door, dismissive of the attractive wait staff, unhappy with the noise and unimpressed with the simple menu.

Yet truth be told, the no-reservation policy is a smart move in a restaurant with high turnover, the attractive wait staff is sharp, and the noise is more buzzy than obnoxious. As for the menu, sure it’s simple, but simple food relies on great products to shine. The wine list is a draw, too. At my last visit it was short, and uninspired, with nary an oyster-friendly Muscadet in site. But now the list is extensive, inspired and well-priced. They even have a Muscadet, and it’s divine.

As tempted as I was to start off with a towering seafood platter or a dozen pristine oysters, I opted for more elaborate appetizers instead, including the fish tacos, the crab salad and the grilled shrimp lettuce wraps. The fish tacos were terrific. Served mounded high on grilled tortillas, the tacos contained red cabbage, tomatillos and succulent chunks of fried fish. I munched my way through that one, revelling in the slight sweetness of the mix, the crunch, the chew and the juiciness of it all.

The fish tacos.

Served in a light broth, the snow crab salad was mixed with cucumber salsa flavoured with cilantro and coconut milk. When you dug into the seafood it collapsed into the broth making every bite a cross between a soup and salad.

The crab salad.

Both delicate and exotic, this dish is a treat. I was less taken, though, with the shrimp and salad wraps. The grilled shrimp were overcooked and the flavours were more confused than bright and tingly. I wrapped them up with the accompanying green bean salad in the lettuce leaf, bit down and thought, “meh.”

But the “mehs” ended on the savoury side because our main courses were all pretty great. First up a surf and turf plate that featured a lobster roll, a side of ribs and fries. Lucille’s lobster roll is a thing of beauty. Built on the requisite hot dog bun, the roll was chock full of lobster meat held together with just enough mayo, celery and chives.

Lucille’s version elevates this oceanside fave to luxury status. I’m not convinced a three-Michelin-star restaurant could make me love lobster much more. We then pounced on the ribs. I recall Lucille’s ribs as dry and lifeless. Not anymore. Forktender, succulent and basted with just the right amount of well-balanced barbecue sauce, these ribs were some of the best I’ve ever tasted. As for the fries: superb. All that for $28.

Lucille’s ribs are served in a hefty portion, so bring your appetite or a friend.

The rib steak was another winner. Presented on a wooden platter with sides of cheesy mashed potatoes (irresistible), an avocado salsa (unctuous, if a little odd) and a side salad (dressed with a bracing ginger vinaigrette), the meat was tender, cooked to the requested mediumrare, and had that intense mineral flavour you expect from aged beef. It’s a hefty portion for one, so those with smaller appetites might be tempted to share.

Our third main, grilled seafood served in a spicy broth, also scored. Paired with a tomato, green bean and quinoa salad, the shrimp, octopus, and scallops were mixed with slices of chorizo sausage. Unlike the shrimp appetizer, this seafood was perfectly cooked, with each bite offering a different flavour and mouth feel, yet everything tinged with a welcome hit of spice. What’s not to like?

The dessert selection is limited to three verrines: a key lime pie cheesecake, a raspberry vanilla cheesecake and a deconstructed pumpkin pie. Why are so many desserts crammed into a glass these days? I liked the taste of the key lime, but the vanilla cheesecake lacked oomph and the pumpkin pie didn’t wow, either. Where was their terrific pecan pie? Desserts felt like a bit like an afterthought. They don’t have to be fancy, just get some of them out of that glass.

Stumbling out of Lucille’s after this feast, I felt happy and completely satiated. This isn’t a fancy restaurant, a snotty restaurant, or restaurant slavishly following the latest trends. Lucille’s Oyster Dive is a darn good restaurant that aims to please.

And soon they will be pleasing even more diners when they open a second location after Christmas in Westmount called Brasserie Lucille’s.

They also will be launching a flatbread delivery company starting mid-March, servicing the area of Hampstead, Westmount and N.D.G. If ever they need a name for the company, might I suggest Phoenix Flatbreads? It’s not every day you see a restaurant this determined to rise up out of the ashes.

criticsnotebook@gmail.com

twitter.com/LesleyChestrman

You can hear Lesley Chesterman on ICI Radio-Canada Première’s (95.1 FM) Médium Large Tuesdays at 10 a.m., and on CHOM (97.7 FM) Wednesdays at 7:10 a.m.

This is a Montreal Gazette smartphone app original. Download it here for your iPhone or here for your Android. Thoughts? We’re right here: smartphone@montrealgazette.com

The name harks back to a youth spent in Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil, where Antonio Park’s parents owned “lavanderias,” and they would acid-wash and stonewash jeans for Levis, Wrangler and Lee. When Gazette restaurant critic Lesley Chesterman visited last February, she was instantly transported to sunnier climes. We dip into the archives for this review, which originally ran Feb. 14, 2015.

La Lavanderia
374 Victoria Ave. (near Sherbrooke St.)
Three stars out of four
Price range: Starters $5-$16; mains $16-$29; desserts $9-$11. Three-course lunch menu $16-$20.
Phone: 514-303-4123
Open: Tues.-Fri. 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.; Sat.-Sun. 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.; Tues.-Wed and Sun., 5:30 p.m. to 10 p.m.; Thurs., Fri. and Sat., 5:30 p.m. to 11 p.m.
Licensed: Yes
Credit cards: All major
Wheelchair access: Yes
Parking: on the street with meters
Vegetarian-friendly: Not especially
Reservations: Essential

Childhood food memories tend to be the ones that stick most. Ask a French chef about his life-changing moments and chances are he’ll start offby describing afternoons cooking by his mother’s side. In the case of an Italian chef, childhood recollections often involve a grandmother making gnocchi and a grandfather in the backyard garden. British food writer Nigel Slater’s early memories are spelled out in his memoir Toast, where the person doing the cooking was his dreaded stepmother, Mrs. Potter.

In Kitchen Confidential, Anthony Bourdain recounts the gutsy moment he first sucked back an oyster in Arcachon as a kid. And who could forget Ruth Reichl’s memoir, Tender at the Bone, where her mother served food covered in mould.

So influential are chef Antonio Park’s childhood food memories that he built a restaurant around them. You know Antonio Park, the Montreal chef who made sushi sexy again and who welcomes hordes of admirers, including hockey stars and Hollywood celebs at his Victoria Ave. restaurant Park?

His Westmount eatery is a mecca for foodie fashionistas, toro fanatics and those willing to go out on a limb sushi-wise with the likes of aged beef or foie gras nigiri. Besides his food, what I like most about Park is his bottomless enthusiasm. I know of no other chef who uses social media to such great effect as Park, who punctuates his jaw-dropping Instagram images of sushi and sashimi platters with the catchphrase, “For the love of the game.”

Just before Christmas, Park opened his second restaurant, La Lavanderia, next door to his first. Sticklers will note that he opened Park Market in 2013, but that’s a shop, not a restaurant, and he’s also the brains behind the menu at the swish new Jatoba downtown.

Takeshi Horinoue, left, Antonio Park and Paul Maurice Posada. The three brains behind La Lavanderia.

But La Lavanderia is a complete change of pace. The menu is not so much Asian as Argentine this time around, which means the proteins are cooked and are more meat-centred than fish-centred. And for those who feel a bit light-in-the-wallet when departing Park’s sushi bar, good news: La Lavanderia is far more affordable, especially at lunch, when there’s a $16-$20, three-course special. Sweet.

The name is good fun as La Lavanderia harks back to Park’s youth in Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil, where his parents owned “lavanderias,” where they acid-washed and stonewashed jeans for companies like Levis, Wrangler, and Lee. Though Park’s home fare was strictly Korean, at the family lavanderia, the menu was South American.

“We’d have a staff meal together everyday,” states Park on the restaurant’s web page. “A hundred people at a time. We had a huge mango tree in the yard, and we’d always have a parrillada beneath it: the grill rested on the tree’s gnarled roots. We’d clean it with fat chunks of beef fat. We’d grill entire butterflied cows. We’d have loads of sweetbreads, ribs, kalbi, bone-in strip loins, white chorizo, spicy red chorizo, and blood sausage. All of it with huge bowls of salad and kimchee, and coca-cola on ice or maté. Everybody was dancing, tango, merengue, salsa.” Talk about your childhood food memories.

Recreating such a setting is no mean feat, especially in the deep winter months in Montreal. Yet, entering La Lavanderia last week I immediately felt transported. Not to the back streets of Buenos Aires, perhaps, but certainly to sunnier climes. There’s an open kitchen where chefs Takeshi Horinoue and Paul Maurice Posada (former sous chefs at Park) are busy behind a large live charcoal grill. There’s a small bar, beautiful flower prints on the walls and a large white birch tree right in the middle of the room that represents the beloved mango tree Park used to eat under as a kid. The customers that night were mostly male, save for a bachelorette party on my left. The room is noisy but exciting. Sipping not one but two of my favourite South American cocktails, a caipirinha and a pisco sour, I soaked it all up. How great to have a new restaurant on the scene that’s so … so … different!

Our excellent waitress described every dish in detail and, frankly, after hearing words like jicama, cilantro, mussels, tamale, and ceviche, I was tempted to say, “Bring the lot!” Instead, we settled on a half dozen starters and the house specialty, “parrillada completa” to follow.

Don’t miss the empanada plate, a selection of three different pastry pockets filled with ground beef, spinach and tomatoes. What a treat, especially as the dough was both tender and flaky.

Don’t miss the empanadas.

We opted for two ceviches, one with sea bass, the other with shrimp. I’d give the advantage to the zesty fish ceviche as the shrimp ceviche’s accompanying sauce lacked pizzazz.

The sea-bass ceviche.

And be sure to try the scrumptious tamale. Filled with the most melting braised pork and served with red beans and wilted greens, it’s the Lavanderia appetizer I’m still dreaming about.

The salad selection is vast and a smart option for those worried about the main-course meat onslaught to come. We tried two very different salads, the first being a tower of juicy jicama slices layered with frisé lettuce, red onions and pine nuts. Very nice. The second was a luscious rendition of the classic Caesar where a half head of romaine was presented smothered in a thick Caesar dressing, covered with stupendous bacon bits (how can such small bits of bacon pack so much flavour?) and plenty of grated Parmigiano-Reggiano. I think I’ll have to give up on regular Caesar salad after eating this one.

Before the parrilla arrived, a side plate of nibblies with guacamole, marinated peppers, coleslaw and salsa was placed next to each diner, along with three sauces: chimichurri, chimol (made with red radish) and chipotle.

A side plate of nibblies: chimichurri, chimol (made with red radish) and chipotle.

And then the grill, laden with lamb shanks, short ribs, chicken, a sea bream and a large head of cauliflower, broccoli and grilled lemons, was set on the table. What to say? It was all fabulous, with extra marks going to the succulent chicken and delectable fish. Oh, and I forgot to mention the side dish of homemade chorizo and chorizo verde sausages made — like everything — in-house. The vegetables were good fun, but frankly, this is the ultimate carnivore dream spread. Delicious.

The ultimate carnivore’s dream is the barbecue grill,

Desserts — caramelized bananas with coconut cake, a lemon tart with passion fruit ice cream, and an especially toothsome chocolate and peanut mousse cake with dulce de leche ice cream (heavy sigh) — rounded offt his South American feast. And if that weren’t enough, it was all washed down with a superb Chilean pinot noir from the Clos des Fous 2012, picked from La Lavanderia’s sharply chosen and well-priced wine list. I’m always thrilled to see a wine list that features bottles from the same region as the restaurant’s cuisine. Smart.

Chocolate and peanut mousse cake with dulce de leche ice cream. Heavy sigh.

And I’m also happy to see this great new restaurant sprucing up our somewhat downtrodden restaurant scene. There is just so much going on here, so many new flavours to try, so much pleasure to sink your teeth into. Thanks to chef Park for taking us on this trip into his childhood. I can’t wait to go back.

This is a Montreal Gazette smartphone app original. Download it here for your iPhone or here for your Android. Thoughts? We’re right here: smartphone@montrealgazette.com

M. Mme
Two and a half stars out of four
240 Laurier Ave. W. (near Jeanne-Mance St.) 
Price range: Back-room menu: three dishes: $60, four dishes: $75. Desserts: $13-$14.
Phone: 514-274-6663
Open: Daily 5 p.m. to 1 a.m. 
Licensed: Yes
Credit cards: All major cards
Wheelchair access: Yes
Reservations: Recommended
Vegetarian-friendly: Yes
Parking: On the street with meters

The words “wine bar” always have me picturing yuppies devouring cheese and charcuterie while sipping beaujolais and chardonnay. And when wine bars started to gain momentum in the ’90s, a lot of them were just that, with many relying on those Cruvinet machines designed to keep open bottles from oxidizing by pumping in nitrogen.

It took another decade, though, for the wine bar to come into its own. Part bar and part restaurant, wine bars were a great option for diners looking to enjoy some wine and nibbles for a lot less than you’d pay for a fancy dinner.

The pivotal wine bar moment for me was back in 2004 at a new wine bar called Bu, where you could enjoy wines served in flights of three, like Languedoc reds or German rieslings. Cool sommeliers would school you on the differences of say New World vs. Old World sauvignons, and surprise you with something little-known at the time like a Greek wine, an Austrian wine or — hold onto your hats, kids — an organic wine.

That same year the Parc Ave. wine bar Pullman opened, and year after year new wine bars popped up faster than Mini Cooper dealerships. Some are gone and some are still hopping, but there’s no doubt the wine bar is having a moment.

And the number of wine bars continues to climb at quite a clip. The team behind Lawrence recently opened Larry’s next door and Bouillon Bilk owners François Nadon and Mélanie Blanchette will open a wine bar called Cadet a few doors down from their restaurant in late April.

Conceived of by Sergio Dimarco and Nirmala Ferrao of the firm Dimarco Ferro, M. Mme’s design features wood panelling, stone walls, leather chairs and banquettes, as well as a magnificent glassed-in wine cellar making up the west wall of the space.

At new wine bars like Chez Lavigne and Bar Loïc in Saint-Henri, hip millennials imbibe rare and natural wines with charred octopus and braised pork belly. But the most ambitious wine bar to open this year is Laurier Ave.’s M. Mme. 

Open just under three months, M. Mme is owned by Aspid and Sevan Istanboulian, proprietors of the popular café Toi, Moi & Café next door. The chef is Stelio Perombelon, who made his name first at Les Caprices de Nicolas, then Les Chèvres, then Les Cons Servent and most recently at Sinclair. You can watch Perombelon in action in a bright open kitchen in this otherwise dark but stylish room.

Conceived of by Sergio Dimarco and Nirmala Ferrao of the firm Dimarco Ferro, M. Mme’s design features wood panelling, stone walls, leather chairs and banquettes, as well as a magnificent glassed-in wine cellar making up the west wall of the space. The wine list features 650 selections (I am told more than 100 more are on the way) with 40 available by the glass, including private imports from 14 agencies with an emphasis on small producers from around the world. Sommelier Francis Arkinson pulled together this monster list, and understand there are 10 sommeliers working the floor. Impressive. 

You could spend hours ogling all of the beautiful bottles, but my preference is always to ditch the list and allow the sommeliers to strut their stuff, because isn’t discovery what a wine bar is all about?

M. Mme’s menu is divided into two sections, the more casual offerings available in the front of the room, and the more complex, three-course or four-course menus in the dining room behind the bar, where I chose to dine.

There are 10 small plates on offer, and good luck choosing since everything’s so appealing. I settled on nine, asked our sharp waiter to select the wines, and sat there more or less drooling in anticipation. He came back immediately with a funky German sylvaner, but save for an amuse-bouche of squash croquettes (delicious!) we waited close to an hour for the first dishes to arrive. Hmm…

Happily, once they did, service was smooth sailing from there, though there wasn’t much left of that sylvaner for our first course. When the plates hit the table, my eyes lit up. Beautiful! Perombelon has cooked in some casual restaurants, but he’s at his best when fancy. And these plates aren’t wine-bar fancy, but really gastronomic-restaurant fancy.  

Of the nine, favourites included the Quebec buffalo mozzarella plate, where soft cubes of cheese were placed on a zigzag of tomato jam, and topped with pea shoots and oven-dried vegetable peels. Nice. I couldn’t get enough of the plate of raw hamachi slices topped with three kinds of radish, flavoured with curry oil, and garnished with popped wild rice. What a terrific mix of subtle flavours and diverse textures that was. And I’d highly recommend the steelhead trout with its spicy crust, soft carrots and bubbly green coulis made with mushrooms and lettuce. 

Raw hamachi topped with three kinds of radish, flavoured with curry oil, and garnished with popped wild rice. Terrific.

A dish of braised leeks with a bavarois enhanced with morels and a jus made with kale, apple and green onion failed because it was served too cold, thus muting all those fabulous flavours, especially the morels in the mousse. That same cold temperature problem marred a pretty gâteau of crêpes layered with with foie gras and puréed jerusalem artichokes. It also didn’t help that the crêpes were tough. I loved the old-school intricacy of this dish, yet it was bland. And another plate featuring seared squid with meyer-lemon purée, chili powder and a squid-ink sauce fell flat because everything was lukewarm.

But the kitchen redeemed itself with three excellent meat dishes. The first, grilled suckling pig belly with sesame paste, white carrots, mustard grains, cipollini onions and dried ham, tasted as beautiful as it looked, especially the luscious pork.

The grilled suckling pig belly with sesame paste, white carrots, mustard grains, cipollini onions and dried ham, tasted as beautiful as it looked.

Tender slices of duck magret arrived in a pool of puréed beets, garnished with roasted oignons and pholiota mushrooms. The accompanying spice “jus” was a pretty overwhelming, though, with a strong flavour of what tasted like tonka beans. But I quite enjoyed the last plate, seared chunks of beef brisket with a purée of ceps, dried spinach chips and potato croquettes served with a cherry and red-wine reduction. Yes, the beef was on the chewy side, but it was oh-so-flavourful.

Desserts were another high point. I lapped up the candy-cap mushroom profiteroles. Topped with bacon bits and served with a miso caramel and a quenelle of chantilly cream, these three little choux were a definite sweet-meets-savoury treat.

The candy-cap mushroom profiteroles were topped with bacon bits and served with a miso caramel and quenelle of chantilly cream: A definite sweet-meets-savoury treat.

And I also relished every bite (and rather sweet bite, I’d add) of the pear mille feuilles made with tuiles, pear cream, pain de gênes cake and a lush pear sorbet. Wine lovers might prefer to finish with a cheese plate. Mine starred two Quebec varieties: a semi-soft, washed-rind Pikauba and a soft, ash-rinded La Pleine Lune. Served with a unusual but delicious purée of popcorn, the cheese plate was just perfect. 

Along with my meal came several wines, of course, the standouts being a white burgundy and a Spanish red, both beautifully suited to the food.

Yet, there was no denying the price of the Burgundy ($19 a glass) caused some major tension come bill time. I’m all for a bit of discovery, but I would also like to know how much I’m paying for each glass before it’s poured. That’s something management must consider.

In the end, the food per person came to $75, but the wines came in between $10 and $19 each, so be warned. M. Mme may be a wine bar, but it’s also an expensive restaurant. I couldn’t help thinking the only thing missing in this swank dining room was some white tablecloths. 

criticsnotebook@gmail.com 

Twitter.com/LesleyChestrman 

You can hear Lesley Chesterman on ICI Radio-Canada Première’s Médium Large (95.1 FM) Tuesdays at 10 a.m., and on CHOM (97.7 FM) Wednesdays at 7:10 a.m.

When Gazette restaurant critic Lesley Chesterman visited Jatoba last April, she found a sophisticated four-month-old restaurant whose menu is sure to please anyone looking for food that’s both aesthetically pleasing and satisfying. We reach into the archives to bring you this review.

 Jatoba
2 1/2 stars out of four
1184 Place Phillips (near René Lévesque Blvd.)
Price range: Starters $6-$12; mains $12-$39; desserts $14-$18. Three-course lunch menu $28-$36.
Phone: 514-871-1184
Open: Weekdays 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.; 5:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. and Sat. 5:30 to 11 p.m.
Licensed: Yes
Credit cards: All major
Wheelchair access: No
Parking: On the street with meters
Vegetarian friendly: Yes
Reservations: Essential

Do you know the magazine Caribou? It’s quite new and quite hip. French-only and published here in Montreal, the magazine just launched its second issue, the theme being … restaurants! Don’t look for reviews or recipes in Caribou. The focus is on articles detailing everything from the influence of English cooks on the Quebec food scene to the challenges of living with a chef. Good stuff.

Among the articles (full disclosure, I contributed to this issue) is an especially interesting one where restaurant industry folks offer 10 suggestions for creating the perfect Québécois restaurant. The ideas include: think bistro, be trendy but not too trendy, place the emphasis on ambience without forgetting about the food, assemble a great team, provide friendly and caring service, and be sure to titillate the increasingly food-savvy customer. After dinner at the downtown restaurant Jatoba, I walked out thinking that list could have been based on this four-month-old establishment.

Jatoba’s chef is Olivier Vigneault, and the roster of partners includes several figures from the city’s casual restaurant/bar scene. Vigneault’s menu is Asian-influenced, which comes as little surprise considering he was co-owner of the Quebec City fusion restaurant Yuzu, and also worked as sous-chef for Montreal chef du moment, Antonio Park, who just happens to be a shareholder at Jatoba as well.

Olivier Vigneault is the chef.

The space, formerly the slick Phillips Lounge, now looks completely different with its wall of fig trees facing the street, minimalist Lambert et Fils Studio chandeliers, exposed brick and wall of shelves displaying all kinds of Asian objets. Tables are bare wood and there is a huge bar in the adjoining dining room. With its tall windows and intricate mouldings, Jatoba is a feast for the eyes.

But would that come through on the plate?

Dining with two well-seasoned foodies, we were immediately taken with some of the ambitious-sounding ingredient combinations. Yes, you’ll find pork and shrimp dumplings on Jatoba’s menu, but — hey — how about those roasted eggplant and corn dumplings with eel sauce? Though crispy tofu is ubiquitous, who is pairing it with smashed avocado and cucumber? And as for the classic fried rice, how about a version with duck confit?

The menu is long, so choices are difficult, but there are familiar offerings here along the lines of salmon tartare, black cod with miso, salmon teriyaki, shrimp tempura and so on. Reaching beyond the predictable, we opted for the ambitious-sounding dishes listed above, as well as several suggestions from our waitress.

Jatoba’s wine list is extensive and well-selected but pricey; you won’t find much under $50. Our waitress was a champ; if I had one complaint, it’s that she was a bottle emptier — as in, she managed to drain our entire bottle of wine among the three of us after the first of four courses was served. I reluctantly ordered a second bottle, which turned out to be oxidized.

Happily, the bottle was returned without hesitation, and on top of that we were offered three glasses on the house to make up for it. Nice touch, as was the small glass of dessert wine offered gratis at the end of the meal (chances are I was recognized, but I’d prefer to think they were simply being generous).

As for the food, plate presentations wowed before we even lifted a chopstick. The first dish to hit the table was the beef tataki. Paired with puffed quinoa, truffled baby peaches, enoki mushrooms and a sunomono sauce, the meat was lightly seared on the outside and raw on the inside, resulting in a series of melting mouthfuls. The truffled peaches worked well, adding just a hint of truffle, and the citrusy soy sauce added the ideal hit of acidity.

The beef tataki with puffed quinoa, truffled baby peaches, enoki mushrooms and a sunomono sauce.

Another tataki, made with slices of albacore tuna, was also fine, but hardly on a par with the beef. Adorned with sake-marinated cucumbers and lotus root chips, the tuna lacked pizzazz. An added smear of the accompanying Thai basil yogurt would have worked wonders.

In between bites of beef and tuna, we scarfed back a small bowl of shishito peppers doused in soy and sesame oil — good if a little dull (I kept hoping I might hit one of the rare hot ones, but it never happened).

The second course featured two plates of dumplings: the eggplant version and one made with shrimp. The eggplant and corn dumplings were fried to a crisp and drizzled with a syrupy-textured eel sauce. They were good, yet not enough to convince me eggplant and corn play well together. The shrimp dumplings were steamed and, like the previous ones, simply folded into triangles. The filling was simple: Napa cabbage and a whole shrimp, and their accompanying broth was tinged with sesame. Of the two, the shrimp dumplings were my favourite, though their turnover look could have been more soigné.

Next up came the duck fried rice. Served in a cone shape the size of a children’s party hat, the portion was chock full of delicious chunks of duck confit.

The duck fried rice is served in a cone shape the size of a children’s party hat.

With added flavour sparks provided by bird’s eye chilies and citrusy-sour Szechwan peppercorns, this French riff on the Asian classic was one of my favourites.

I also enjoyed the chicken karaage, six round nuggets of chicken meat, crusted with sea salt and Chinese spices, and served with a side bowl of ginger-spiked spinach. Though a bit tough, these morsels were just packed with flavour — and that spinach … yum! And to end off the savoury part of the feast, we were served the crispy tofu.

Presented on a rectangular dish, the presentation included cubes of golden tofu, spoonfuls of chunky avocado and twists of mizuna sprouts mixed with julienned cucumber. How great to begin the meal with the rich beef and end with such light bits of tofu. Smart.

cubes of golden tofu, spoonfuls of chunky avocado and twists of mizuna sprouts mixed with julienned cucumber.

Desserts are pricey and a bit fussy. Our first included a cup filled with “pocky” (bread sticks) dipped in white chocolate and rolled in pistachios served with faux maki rolls made of green tea sponge cake filled with puffed rice and raspberry yogurt mousse. Though pretty, the dessert was not only too big, but not all that exciting. I far preferred our second choice, a blondie cake sandwiched with a marshmallow and dulce de leche/pecan filling, the whole topped with vanilla ice cream. Add caramel sauce and you have one delicious sweet — though I question whether anyone older than a teenager can handle that much sugar.

Sophomoric sweets aside, Jatoba feels like a very grown-up restaurant. Pricing is a bit wonky in that the duck dish ($16) costs less than the caramel dessert ($18), but the room is elegant, the setting is sophisticated and the menu is sure to please those looking for food that’s both aesthetically pleasing and satisfying.

It all feels a bit trendy to me, a bit formulaic and a bit hesitant for now. Still, kudos to Jatoba: in the process of trying to check all the right boxes, it manages to feel refreshingly different.

criticsnotebook@gmail.com

twitter.com/LesleyChestrman

You can hear Lesley Chesterman on ICI Radio-Canada Première’s (95.1 FM) Médium Large Tuesdays at 10 a.m., and on CHOM (97.7 FM) Wednesdays at 7:10 a.m.

Montreal Gazette restaurant critic Lesley Chesterman visited Cirkus last May, and was pulling for the promising restaurant, which is run by chef Julien Joré, whose last post was sous-chef at the swish private club Le 357C. Joré’s better half is none other than Stéphanie Labelle, the ever-smiling pastry chef-owner of the wonderful Plateau pâtisserie Rhubarbe. We reach into the archives to bring you this review.

Cirkus 
Two and a half stars out of four
1481 Laurier Ave. E (at Fabre st.)
Price range: Starters $10-$12; main courses $27-$31; desserts $9-$10.
Phone: 514-303-9030
Open: Wed. – Thurs. 5:30 p.m. to 10 p.m.; Fri. 5:30 p.m. to 11 p.m., Sat. 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. (brunch) and 5:30 p.m. to 11 p.m.; Sun. 5:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
Wheelchair access: No
Licensed: Yes
Parking: On the street with meters
Vegetarian-friendly: Yes
Reservations: Recommended

Opening a restaurant in Montreal takes money, talent and patience — but most of all courage. Competition is always increasing, yet the number of Montrealers able to dine on gourmet fare in these times of austerity is no doubt decreasing. Taxes are astronomical, and the money collectors are constantly looking for new ways to pinch restaurateurs even harder.

Produce is costly, but customers complain about exorbitant prices, which means profit margins are low. The hours are endless, rents are high and if you scroll through chefs’ feeds on social media, it seems like everyone is looking for a sous-chef, a pastry chef or, most especially, a dishwasher. To face all these hurdles — and many more — takes courage, optimism and just a little madness. Pas façile.

All these grim realities come crashing through my head whenever I hear about a chef-owned establishment on the horizon, which was certainly the case when I set foot in the new Cirkus.

Opened in October in the former location of Pyrus Bistronomique, this promising restaurant is run by chef Julien Joré, whose last post was sous-chef at the swish private club Le 357C. Joré’s better half is none other than Stéphanie Labelle, the ever-smiling pastry chef-owner of the wonderful Plateau pâtisserie Rhubarbe.

Joré helped Labelle get her pastry shop up and running when she opened in 2011, and later contributed the savoury items to Rhubarbe’s brunch menu. Now it was time for Labelle to return the favour, providing desserts for Joré. Nice.

While open now for seven months, Cirkus has been under the radar. Walking past the restaurant’s street-facing windows during the brunch service one recent Saturday, I saw a few tables occupied, which depressed me no end considering the lineups at the many grungy brunch haunts in the neighbourhood.

Fish gnocchi with wild mushrooms and chives.

Despite the talent behind those windows, perhaps Cirkus was facing the same challenges as the former Pyrus, an excellent restaurant that somehow never fulfilled its potential?

I wasn’t wild about the restaurant’s rather meaningless name. The decor seemed even more pared down than in the Pyrus era (I still miss the fabulous Éric Sauvé broken-bottle chandelier that used to hang near the windows in the pre-Pyrus days when it was Bistro Truffert). But when I go out to eat, I’m not going to the theatre, I’m not going to an art gallery or a dance club. What matters is the food. I wasn’t eager to see what Joré was putting on the walls; I was interested in the contents of his plates.

The Cirkus menu counts five starters, five mains and three desserts, as well as a few daily specials. The wine list is short but heavy on the private imports and natural/bio-dynamic wines, with, alas, more than a few selections no longer available. Hmm.

Still, there are many by-the-glass options, and our waitress was great at pointing us to some excellent and affordable bottles. Before carrying on, a word about our waitress. Montreal is a city blessed with terrific wait staffs (don’t tell me about that one waiter who ruined your evening, I’m not listening. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been disappointed in service in this city), but our waitress at Cirkus, Bérangère was an absolute star.

Sharp, friendly, and confident, she knew her menu, made us feel welcome and worked the room more or less alone without ever looking rushed. What a treat to be served by someone who obviously loves food and making people happy. Big ups to her.

Now on to the food.

Joré’s cuisine is complex, sometimes veering toward fussy. You can watch him alongside a sous-chef working behind the counter in a sort of semi open kitchen, and are these boys ever concentrating. The style is vegetable heavy (the vegetarian at our table was thrilled) but meat and fish are strong players. Plate presentations are artistic, and flavour combinations are ambitious. Not everything flies, and the fanciness of the food seems at odds with the casual feel of the room and service. But I liked a lot of what we ate, and thankfully didn’t leave the table stuffed to the gills.

Our first three appetizers included a beet dish, a carrot dish and a gnocchi dish flavoured with cod. Made with slices of raw beet and chunks of vinegar-spiked cooked beets, the beet duo was paired with mascarpone-filled ravioli sprinkled with chopped pistachios. With so many textures at play, and great mix of flavours — acidic, sweet, earthy, creamy — it was all rather intriguing. I wasn’t doing backhand springs, mind you, but still, good stuff.

The carrot dish featured carrots presented in raw curls, cooked slices and puréed blobs interspaced with dabs of buckthorn berry coulis and Parmesan croutons. Again the interplay of textures won me over, but it was so austere, I kept fantasizing about a slab of hot foie gras in the middle of it all.

The gnocchi turned out to be the star starter. Drowned in an amazing buttery sauce filled with wild mushrooms and chives, the gnocchi were melting and just fishy enough to stand up to their luxuriously rich entourage. Yum!

The cabane-à-sucre style Guinea hen served on a bed of braised endive.

Main courses were even more intriguing. My vegetarian friend enjoyed a dish of roasted onions stuffed with feta surrounded by chopped eryngii mushrooms and pieces of beer-flavoured pain perdu. Crowned with thin radish slices and plenty of sprouts, this main was a magnificent mixture of vegetables that worked together as a dish instead of the usual blah vegetarian assortment of mismatched vegetables.

Another plate starred three fat slices of crimson duck magret paired with half a head of romaine lettuce topped with croutons à la grenobloise (brown butter, capers, parsley and lemon). Flavoured with a smear of chestnut cream, the duck was delicious, but I’m not convinced its accompaniments provided the most interesting support.

The dish that wowed most was the cabane-à-sucre style guinea hen. The breast was seared and served on a bed of braised endive. The whole is surrounded by swirls of celery root purée and maple syrup, and the crowning glory was a large slice of foie gras. Heaven! Not only were both the liver and hen perfectly cooked and drop-dead-delicious, the side dishes and sauces boosted their flavours tremendously. What a dish, and what a great example of the Cirkus kitchen at its best!

For dessert, we opted for all three of Labelle’s creations. The first was a chocolate, pear and tonka bean combo, with the chocolate in sauce form, the tonka bean in ice cream form, and the pear in flower shapes adorning the top.

Meringue atop strawberry ice-cream, elderberry marshmallow and rosettes made with ricotta and honey.

The second was a plate with meringue shards, ricotta cream and strawberry sorbet served with a drizzle of honey. And the third was a round of citrus fruit topped with yogurt cream and buckwheat crumble. The first two were surprisingly lacklustre, making the third my favourite thanks to the use of buckwheat in the crumble, whose bitterness popped alongside all that citrus. Still, I couldn’t help thinking how much more I prefer Labelle’s desserts sold at her shop. Frankly, it was all a little on the messy side.

Despite some disappointments on the plate, I had a good time at Cirkus. I worry that this restaurant might be going through a bit of an identity crisis, and yet I’m pulling for them because what’s good here is very good and the effort and talent in every morsel is undeniable.

Our waitress is a star, Labelle herself served us a few plates, and Joré only looked up from his work station when I walked out the door. And as I did, I couldn’t help thinking: Courage, Mr. Joré … courage!

criticsnotebook@gmail.com

twitter.com/LesleyChestrman

You can hear Lesley Chesterman on ICI Radio-Canada Première’s (95.1 FM) Médium Large Tuesdays at 10 a.m., and on CHOM (97.7 FM) Wednesdays at 7:10 a.m.

Zyara

Two and a half stars $$-$$$

9140, Leduc Blvd., #205, Quartier Dix30, Brossard

Tel: 450-812-0235

Website: zyara.ca

Open: Mondays to Thursdays, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Friday, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.; Saturday, 4 p.m. to 11 p.m.; Sunday, noon to 10 p.m. 

Licensed: Yes

Credit cards: All major cards

Wheelchair access: Yes

Reservations: Recommended

Vegetarian-friendly: Yes

Parking: lot on site

Price range: Cold mezzes: $8-$11; hot mezzes: $5-$16; main courses: $24-$38. Tasting menus: $38 and $40.

Dining in shopping malls is hardly what one would call exciting. No, the food snobs would not be caught dead eating in malls where the majority of restaurants are of the chain variety. However, I welcome an ambitious shopping mall restaurant, though not chain restaurants, which lean toward the bland and soulless. Considering the proliferation of mega malls on the horizon, the shopping mall restaurant isn’t going to disappear any time soon. And hey, anything’s better than those fast-food-filled food courts.  

At the monstrous Dix30 shopping mall in Brossard, there are many chain restaurants but also several standalone establishments, including the Lebanese restaurant Zyara. Middle Eastern cuisine is all the rage these days and in Montreal we are well served thanks to restaurants like the veteran Daou, the wine-driven Alep and the dramatic Damas. Yet South Shore residents no longer need to cross the bridge for their falafel fix because Zyara is a welcome addition to the 450 restaurant scene. 

The look at Zyara is soothing and pretty, with sherbet-coloured chairs, jewel-toned lanterns and floor-to-ceiling windows facing out onto mall land below. 

But before perusing a menu, one must first locate the restaurant in this commercial village that makes up the Quartier Dix30. If you have a GPS, use it because the restaurant is located on the second floor of a building situated between the HR2, Calvin Klein and Juliette et Chocolat shops. Look for the terrace on the corner of the building (which I’m sure will make this restaurant even more appealing come late spring), find the door, take the elevator up to the second floor, hang a sharp left and you’ll be facing Zyara’s entranceway where a friendly hostess will lead you into their vast dining room. That’s one thing I love about shopping mall restaurants – the sheer size of the space – and this one counts a lounge, a private dining room and that terrace as well. The colour scheme is basically ivory with a mirrored ceiling and sherbet-coloured chairs and banquettes. Jewel-toned lanterns hang from the ceiling and floor-to-ceiling windows face out onto mall land below. The look is sort of antisepticized Arabian Nights, but I liked it, and spent much of the night just gazing at this pretty and rather soothing ballroom of a restaurant. 

Chef Nabil El Khayal’s menu is Lebanese, with a few Armenian dishes as well. Anyone familiar with Middle Eastern cuisine will find all the usual suspects from baba ghanouj and hummus to fatteh and kébbé. But what I like about chef El Khayal’s approach is that he has personalized and modernized these favourites. Everything is served on bright white plates, colours are vibrant and flavours are too. What a great way to brighten up these grey end-of-winter days.

A refreshing way to start the meal: wrap the kébbé nayé’s raw ground beef and onion slivers in a mint leaf then pop it into your mouth. 

With some guidance from our wonderful waitress (in Middle Eastern restaurants guidance means someone telling you whether you’re ordering too much) we chose a bunch of cold mezzes, hot mezzes and salads, as well as a mixed grill as main course. You could easily just stick to the mezze portion of the menu to build your own feast but there’s also a tasting menu option for those new to this cuisine, and a lunch-time table d’hôte for diners on a budget. The wine list is well-chosen and affordable, with an impressive choice of Lebanese wines at a wide variety of prices, as well many other Old and New World bottles, wines by glass, classic cocktails and – of course – Arak. I would highly recommend the red we chose, a Lebanese Château Ksara, Réserve du Couvent 2010 from the Bekaa Valley sold for a reasonable $39. 

We began with a delicious kébbé nayé, following the traditional method of wrapping the raw ground beef and slivers of onion in a mint leaf before popping it into your mouth. Such a refreshing way to start a meal. We then dove into the hummus Zyara, a generous portion of creamy hummus topped with pine nuts, parsley and grenadine molasses. I ripped apart the accompanying homemade pita bread and scooped up bite after luscious bite. 

The fattoush: all crunchy ingredients zuzzed up with herbs, a hit of sumac and a bracing vinegar-heavy dressing.

There was no missing the classic salads, fattoush and tabbouleh. Both were textbook: the fattoush, all crunchy ingredients zuzzed up with herbs, a hit of sumac and a bracing vinegar-heavy dressing, and the tabbouleh with its contrasting soft texture and deep chlorophyll hit. Perfect.

Thick fried slices of salty halloumi cheese arrived with a highly scarffable salad made up of cherry tomatoes and scallions. And then there was the richest dish of the meal, the eggplant fatteh, a layering of pine nuts, grilled pita, sesame paste and chickpeas topped with yogurt and fried chunks of eggplant. I’m a big fan of fatteh, a dish with such a great mix of textures and flavour. With that first tang of yogurt, followed by the crunch of pita and nuts, and that final squish of the eggplant, this was the most sensual dish of the meal. 

The main course mixed grill, starring chicken, filet mignon and shish kebab, was tender and delicious but could have been more generous in size.

The one dish that didn’t grab me, though, was the main course mixed grill. Served as a large platter starring grilled chicken, filet mignon and shish kebab, the remaining portion was made up of french fries, grilled vegetables and pita triangles dressed with onions, herbs and pepper paste. But underneath all the fixings, the portion of meat was too small, especially considering the cost of the dish: $36. That said, what was there was tender and delicious, especially when dipped in “toum,” the accompanying potent garlic sauce. The quality of the meat was there, but — alas! — the quantity was not.  

For dessert, we enjoyed an orange Bavarian topped with orange supremes and pistachios, and a baklava assortment that was finished off the next morning for breakfast. Over sips of lovely mint tea, I looked around this pretty room one more time thinking, with all the perils of construction woes, downtown parking fees and imminent bridge construction, shopping mall dining might soon be coming into its own. Especially when it’s this exotic and inviting.   

criticsnotebook@gmail.com 

Twitter.com/LesleyChestrman 

You can hear Lesley Chesterman on ICI Radio-Canada Première’s Médium Large (95.1 FM) Tuesdays at 10 a.m., and on CHOM (97.7 FM) Wednesdays at 7:10 a.m. 

Le Filet is owned by an impressive foursome: Le Club Chasse et Pêche partners chef Claude Pelletier and Hubert Marsolais, sommelier Patrick St-Vincent and chef Yasu Okazaki. Gazette restaurant critic Lesley Chesterman visited the restaurant last May, and was thoroughly wowed by the kind of excellence that comes with time and experience. We bring you this review from the archives.  

Le Filet
219 Mont-Royal Ave. W. (at de l’Esplanade Ave.)
Three and a half stars out of four
Price range: Dishes: $13-$26. Desserts: $10.
Phone: 514-360-6060
Open: Tues.-Sat. 5:30 p.m. to 11:30 p.m.
Wheelchair access: No
Cards: All major
Vegetarian friendly: Yes
Parking: Difficult on surrounding streets, several lots in the area 

When judging a city’s restaurant scene, the new, the hot and the happening tend to hog the spotlight. I heard chef Martin Juneau complain recently that the local food media place too much emphasis on the new restaurants to the detriment of the old. I agree wholeheartedly.

In this time of limited attention spans, are we too easily bored with the tried and true? Is the year-and-a-half-old restaurant now “so 18 months ago”? Do our established chefs only stand a chance if they are constantly working on new projects? Are we really that fickle?

Such thoughts racked my brain last week as I scanned countless Montreal food blogs and websites in search of a new restaurant to review. Frankly, there was nothing that tempted enough to leave my home kitchen and drop big money on what looked like pretty amateurish cooking.

Hungry for inspiration, I turned back the clock and scanned a list of Montreal restaurants still going strong after their debut reviews. There were many, but one, Le Filet, was especially tempting. Why? Oddly enough, I wasn’t wowed by Le Filet when it opened in 2011.

Owned by an impressive foursome — Le Club Chasse et Pêche partners chef Claude Pelletier and Hubert Marsolais, sommelier Patrick St-Vincent and chef Yasu Okazaki — Le Filet looked great on paper. The menu was well-priced (dishes back then ranged from $4 to $19) and the style was small plates. With an emphasis on fish and seafood, Chef Okazaki’s cuisine was artistically-plated French/Asian fusion.

A a ball of vegetable ribbons set atop several succulent nuggets of hamachi sprinkled with sesame seeds and that amazing citrusy spice sumac. Delicious.

The wine list was fantastic, thanks not only to St-Vincent but the “sommelier éxécutif” at both Le Filet and Le Club Chasse et Pêche, Philippe Boisvert (who is now a partner at their latest restaurant, Le Serpent). The liquid portion of my meal included Chablis, Sancerre, Meursault, Beaujolais and Sauternes. Fun, fun, fun!

The setting was just as swell. The space was long and rectangular, with an open kitchen at the back and floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the tennis courts at Jeanne Mance Park across the street. The colour scheme is mainly black, but a huge section of the room was covered in a sort of brushed steel sheeting. Nicolas Baier and Geneviève Cadieux murals hung above the bar and at the back of the room. Providing quite the contrast to this otherwise glitzy space, the furniture was simple, wooden-bistro in style. So cool.

So, what didn’t work? Sadly, the food fell short of expectations heightened, no doubt, by the fact that there is such a powerhouse team involved.

Open only two months at the time, Le Filet had been overwhelmed with customers since Day One. I walked away convinced this new restaurant was suffering from new-kid-on-the-block-itis. But it’s rare for a new restaurant to come out of the starting blocks a winner. Now, four years later, I was eager to give this still popular restaurant another go.

On a recent Thursday (hockey) night, every seat was taken, yet the crazy buzz I recall from my last visit has died down considerably. The menu was shortened, and prices have increased. The wine list is even more impressive than I remember (this iconoclastic and well-priced “carte” gets my vote for one of the Top 10 in Montreal). Our smooth waiter recommended we start the night with their house cocktail, the “Piscine,” a mix of vodka and Campari on ice topped off à table with sparkling Bugey-Cerdon rosé. Wonderful.

A plate of Faroe-Island salmon with safran sauce and yuzu cream wowed because the salmon was delicate and delectable.

The menu is divided into three sections: First Set, Second Set, Third Set. The first is focused on cold dishes, the second on hot fish and seafood dishes, and the third on hot meat dishes. We ordered six savoury dishes and three desserts for three and shared, which is a great way to experience this menu.

Every dish we ripped through was an absolute winner.

First up, a cold dish featuring raw scallops, mashed avocados, julienne beets and orange supremes served in a pool of beet sauce. Rich in slippery textures, this mix was all about contrasting flavours — sea, green, earthy, sweet and acidic. So alive that dish.

The next plate consisted of a ball of vegetable ribbons (leek, beet and daikon, I’m guessing) set atop several succulent nuggets of hamachi sprinkled with sesame seeds and that amazing citrusy spice, sumac. I’m not sure the two elements worked well together. Nonetheless, every bite was delicious.

The next dishes were some of the best I’ve tasted in ages. A plate of Faroe-Island salmon with safran sauce and yuzu cream wowed because the salmon was delicate and delectable. The saffron sauce added sophistication and the yuzu made it lively.

By contrast came a risotto filled with scampi and shiitake mushrooms. Bathed in a crustacean jus and enriched with a quenelle of mascarpone, this textbook risotto was unctuous but not cloying, and so luscious paired with a glass of Chablis. I’m pretty sure I licked that plate clean.

A risotto filled with scampi and shiitake mushrooms: Bathed in a crustacean jus and enriched with a quenelle of mascarpone, this textbook risotto was unctuous but not cloying,

Or maybe it was the cavatelli? Served in a rich veal sauce with bits of braised veal cheeks and a topping of foie gras slivers, this dish was as blissfully decadent as the risotto and yet entirely different. Talk about your desert-island meals.

I relished every bite of that cavatelli between sips of a wondrous Marsannay, which I then polished off with our last savoury dish, a Boileau deer filet with gnocchi, blue cheese and almonds. Sorry, but I’m running out of adjectives here to describe all this insanely good food, so let’s just say that pink-fleshed deer paired with that lovely mound of blue cheese-flavoured gnocchi, toasted almonds and cherries — the whole surrounded by a gamey jus — was perfect. End of conversation.

A Boileau deer filet with gnocchi, blue cheese and almonds: Perfect.

Could the desserts live up to such excellence? Alas, not quite. My favourite was the velvety sugar pie served simply with whipped cream and candied pecans.

Second place goes to the pâte à choux swan with passion fruit and coconut ice cream, which was good but lacked spunk. The best-looking sweet was a praline and chocolate-layered affair with crème anglaise, which after a few bites left me reaching for my glass of water. I guess after the risotto and cavatelli, chocolate and praline were pushing it.

While enjoying my last few bites of candied nuts, I looked around and marvelled at it all. What a great restaurant, another winner in this city of ours that already counts so many. Gorgeous food, perfect service, terrific wines, great room is the equation for excellence in the restaurant business, and Le Filet has it down pat. Sometimes restaurants need time to find their rhythm.

Instead of piling into the new ones, look back on occasion and enjoy the older ones. Chances are, they’re even better.

criticsnotebook@gmail.com

twitter.com/LesleyChesterman

You can hear Lesley Chesterman on ICI Radio-Canada Première’s (95.1 FM) Médium Large Tuesdays at 10 a.m., and on CHOM (97.7 FM) Wednesdays at 7:10 a.m.

Carles Abellan is a Michelin-starred chef who is a partner in the Notre-Dame St. W. restaurant, which is modelled after his restaurant of the same name in Barcelona.

Abellan will be in Montreal April 4 to 9 to develop the restaurant’s new spring menu.

Tapas 24 does just fine when its big-name chef is not here — it has a three-star review from Gazette restaurant critic Lesley Chesterman — but this is a chance to eat plates prepared by the hands of the master himself. He’ll be working in the kitchen to help get the team familiar with the new dishes.

Chesterman visited just over a year ago, and wasn’t sure what to expect. But she came away a fan: “What really struck me at Tapas 24 was the sheer deliciousness of every bite that passed my lips,” she wrote. “We ordered a dozen dishes and I loved them all.”

Abellan has worked with famed Spanish restaurateur Ferran Adrià of El Bulli.

Tripes & Caviar

**1/2

$$-$$$

3725 Wellington St. (Near Regina St.)

Phone: 514-819-1791

Website: tripesandcaviar.com

Open: Tues.-Sat. 6 p.m. to 2 a.m.; Sat. and Sun. brunch 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. 

Licensed: Yes

Credit cards: All major cards

Wheelchair access: Yes

Reservations: Recommended

Vegetarian-friendly: You’ve got to be kidding

Parking: On the street with meters

Price range: Appetizers $11-$17; main courses $19-$28; desserts $6-$7. Five-course tasting menu $55 ($95 with cocktail pairings).

Fear is not an emotion I relish when sitting down for supper. And there are many kinds of fear one can experience when dining out: fear of overindulging, fear of being trapped in a five-hour tasting menu, fear of dining with boring people, fear of being served slop — or worse yet, expensive slop. Some restaurants instil a whole different kind of fear: fear of the unknown — or more specifically, fear of being served something I can’t bear the thought of putting in my mouth. We’re talking seal brains, pig rectums, veal penises and lamb lungs, and let’s throw some live insects in there for good measure. Eesh.

Now, I have tasted my share of duck testicles, lamb sweetbreads, beaver confit, pig’s blood ice cream and even moose snout, and actually enjoyed most of it. But as much as I relish a nice piece of offal, I prefer it not to be awful, or gruesome, or chosen by the chef solely for shock value. And as much as I love watching Anthony Bourdain eating snake and iguana, it’s not something I personally want to chow down on. That is why it took me so long to get to Verdun’s — no, make that Montreal’s —  most out-there restaurant, Tripes & Caviar, which boldly goes where few restaurants have gone before. 

The Tripes & Caviar restaurant in Verdun was established after the team’s pop-up dinners proved successful.

The Tripes & Caviar outfit began in 2011, planning pop-up dinners of its “offal and cocktail food club.” Alternating monthly between Quebec City and Montreal, the club relied on social networking sites and word of mouth to draw crowds, and events sold out quickly. I attended one in 2013 where founder and head chef Jean-Michel Leblond (nickname: John Mike) served up a meal that included tartare of three hearts (wild boar, elk, deer), a tobacco-smoked horse meat carpaccio, hare kidneys, pickled elk tongue and braised cod intestines.

Leblond’s background is not just in restaurants, but also in bars and beach clubs; he has created cocktail menus here and as far away as Turkey. After attending culinary school at the Institut de tourisme et d’hôtellerie du Québec, he focused on cooking, and worked at La Fabrique, Le Comptoir and Grumman 78. Interestingly, his pop-up menu was not paired with wine, but “artisanal” cocktails made with vegetables, fruit, homemade bitters, herbs, and booze ranging from gin to Jim Beam. Despite freezing up a bit when a deep-fried grasshopper was placed on my heart tartare, I liked a lot of what I ate. Those cocktail pairings were inspired, and who knew hare kidneys were so delicious?

Tripes & Caviar recently completed some renovations.

Soon after that event, Leblond opened a bricks-and-mortar Tripes & Caviar in Verdun. The menu carried on with the vision stated on their website: “We like to transform parts of the animal that are most of the time frowned upon and even thrown away. We cook them our way. With passion, tender love and care. As much as we like to ‘shock’ through certain culinary presentations, the club is determined to educate and feed … not provoke and disturb!” That said, much of the food on the early menus was appealing to, shall we say, the anti-filet mignon set.

For a pop-up experience, the audacious Tripes & Caviar feast made sense. Yet on your average weeknight, no matter how scrumptious, tails, cheeks and hearts may not be everyone’s cup of tea. I perused those early menus online and decided to hold back until they toned down the offerings a bit. After the restaurant completed some renovations in early March, the time seemed right, so I invited two adventurous friends and headed to Verdun.

The first menu item spotted was plain ol’ salmon gravlax, but roasted salmon head and General Tao brains were also listed as starters, so I opted for those two along with a tame-sounding Caesar salad “for adults.” Before the food arrived, we ordered two cocktails: a Bangerang made with gin, aloe, cucumber and bitter celery, and a Dundas and Dufferin, composed of Cynar, Bénédictine, Luxardo maraschino and sweet vermouth. Loved both. Those who prefer wine may find Tripes & Caviar’s list a bit short, but the prices are fair and what’s there is well chosen. We started with a Patrick Piuze 2014 Chablis, which pairs surprisingly well with innards.   

Tripes & Caviar’s Dundas and Dufferin cocktail is made with Cynar, Bénédictine, Luxardo maraschino and sweet vermouth.

The General Tao brains were less fluffy than expected and arrived on a bed of marinated cucumbers and kimchi. Their coating was sweet, crunchy and just a bit spicy. Good enough. The salad was excellent. Made with romaine hearts, croutons, a fried soft-boiled egg and the most flavourful bacon bits, it scored save for the fact that the blue cheese listed as a component was nowhere to be found. 

Tripes & Caviar’s curried salmon head is a triumph, and is given a festive presentation.

However, the best starter was that roasted salmon head. Doused in a coconut-based curry sauce and spiked with two sparklers, which were firing away madly as the platter hit the table, this fish head was a triumph. Our waiter suggested we explore all surfaces fully to find the meat, and reminded us not to forget the tongue and eyes. How generous of him! I left those to my friends, and turned my attention to popping out the succulent cheeks, which I swirled in the lightly spiced curry and cilantro sauce. Turns out that salmon head is meatier than expected, and locating every last flake of fish flesh turned out to be a highlight of the meal. 

Mains were less showy (granted, a flaming fish head is hard to beat), but two of the three we tasted were very good. I’d give a pass to the sweetbreads served on a cumin-heavy carrot purée with undercooked Brussels sprouts. But the porchetta is not to be missed. Placed atop a bed of herbed spaetzle with bits of oxtail, the crisp and melting pork was garnished with grilled fennel and radicchio. It’s not a big portion, but what’s there is just so delicious and comforting. 

I also adored a plate of braised pig’s cheeks paired with patatas bravas, tomatoes, cauliflower and chimichurri sauce. Usually served with octopus, this variation with cheeks is a hit because the meat is full-flavoured and the accompanying roast potatoes and herbed garlic sauce is a treat. If you think you don’t like offal, taste these delectable jowls and get back to me.

The Tripes & Caviar team includes sous-chef Mathieu Gagné, left, founder and head chef Jean-Michel (John Mike) Leblond and head bartender Loris Martineau.

There are two desserts listed. The first was fried dough nuggets (described as churros, but these babies are a far cry) with a perfect chocolate sauce. And then there was a chocolate ganache. Served with orange segments and dull strawberries, this stale-tasting chocolate blob ranks as one of the laziest desserts I’ve ever tasted. C’mon, kids — that’s not dessert, that’s leftovers.

Despite ending on a low note, my meal at Tripes & Caviar was enjoyable. Our waiter was a bit slow on the uptake, but warmed up as the night went on. Only one other table was occupied on the Tuesday night I dined there — which is a shame, because if you order well, you’ll get to taste some pretty fun and original dishes. Any old restaurant can serve you red wine and steak/frites. But to mix up a mean cocktail and make a fish head sing, it takes a crew with guts — pun absolutely intended. 

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You can hear Lesley Chesterman on ICI Radio-Canada Première’s Médium Large (95.1 FM) Tuesdays at 10 a.m., and on CHOM (97.7 FM) Wednesdays at 7:10 a.m.