Cadet

** 1/2 out of 4 stars 
$$-$$$
1431 St-Laurent Blvd. (Near Ontario St.)
Phone: 514-903-1631 
Website: restaurantcadet.com
Open: Daily 4:30 p.m. to 1 a.m.
Licensed: Yes
Credit cards: All major cards
Wheelchair access: One step at the door
Reservations: Essential
Vegetarian-friendly: Not especially
Parking: On the street with meters 
Price range: Small plates $8-$18

Montreal chefs come in all shapes and sizes, and by that I don’t mean physique as much as personality. You have your charmers, your visionaries, your foodie geeks, your artists and your worker bees. Some are bombastic, others are reserved. There are generous types and Scrooges, great people and nasty ones, toughies and pushovers. Actually, you could probably describe people in any profession the same way. But what’s interesting about chefs is seeing how those personality traits translate to the plate. 

Chef François Nadon is definitely a shy guy. Don’t wait for him to come greet customers at the table. He’s not leaving that kitchen. The chef at Bouillon Bilk since 2011, Nadon is known for his artistic plate presentations, use of fruit in his cooking and Asian accents. His co-owner at Bouillon Bilk is dining room manager Mélanie Blanchette, who is almost as reserved as her partner. Yet despite their introverted characters, this dynamic duo now run one of Montreal’s top tables, proving perhaps that the key to success in the restaurant business is discipline and hard work over tireless self-promotion. At Bouillon Bilk, the food does the talking.

So tight-lipped are Nadon and Blanchette that when the news came out in this column last fall about them opening a second restaurant, not much in the way of information was forthcoming, save that it would be located nearby in a former army surplus store and that it would be a wine bar. Eventually the name came out, Cadet, and then at the end of May — just in time for festival season — Cadet opened shop. Chef Antonio Ferreira, a former member of Bouillon Bilk’s team, would oversee the kitchen. The buzz came fast and was favourable, so I made my way through the crowds a few weeks back to have a look.

I have written the wine bar spiel a dozen times (including just last week about Larrys), so to save you from having to soak it up again, let’s just leave it at the fact that wine bars are all the rage in Montreal, many are excellent, and some of the best are attached to a larger restaurant, which is the case here. 

The interior of Cadet features a long, open kitchen at the back of the room, bare wood tables and chic black chairs.  

Cadet’s decor is simple and sophisticated. The room is large, with a long open kitchen extending down the back. There are sleek light fixtures, bare wood tables and chic black chairs. This is exactly the place to take that friend who moved away from Montreal, to give them a taste of the fabulous city they left behind.  

In true wine bar form, the dining style is small plates. Presentations are intricate (none of the usual charcuterie/cheese platters), making this a sort of baby Bouillon Bilk more than a wine bar where the vino gets top billing. In fact, I’d recommend drinkers begin with a cocktail. The Mai Tai Agricole I started with was as sunny and uplifting as a weekend in Nevis.

The wine list is excellent and, as is the case with most wine bars, places the emphasis on natural/organic/obscure private imports. Discovery is definitely in the cards and I was impressed that not only are prices reasonable, but our lovely waitress did a bang-up job of describing and recommending bottles. We settled on a Domaine Ferrer Ribière “Empreinte du Temps” grenache gris, and what a winning accompaniment to our meal this slightly oxidized orange wine turned out to be. Good stuff.

Cadet can act as a place to capture the overflow of Bouillon Bilk or those dining on a more restrained budget. The food is cheffy, but not egregiously so. Alas, there were a few misses, but the hits were major, and the plates arrived without delay despite the crowds on this busy Tuesday night.

Radishes, both raw and braised, are topped with dill and a chicken-skin crumble at Cadet. 

The first plate starred button mushrooms that were battered, fried, gussied up with smoked paprika and served with green beans and buttery croutons. Nothing earth-shattering, but pleasant nonetheless. Next up, radishes, both raw and braised, topped with dill and a chicken-skin crumble. I didn’t warm much to this dish at first, but once I got to the cooked radishes at the bottom, I couldn’t get enough of these slightly bitter, velvety-textured babies. 

One of Cadet’s best dishes is a combination of broccoli, labneh, pistachios and spätzle.  

The next two dishes were the best of the meal. One featured a combination of broccoli with labneh (Lebanese cream cheese), pistachios and spätzle. It didn’t look like much, but this mix of soft textures and strong flavours was fantastic. The sautéed spätzle was especially delicious, and the addition of Jerusalem artichoke slices added a hit of earthiness to all those green and caramelized flavours. I came pretty close to licking that plate clean. 

The second dish provided the ideal taste of early summer. Served in a shallow bowl, the mix included lightly cooked fresh peas with minced fried lardons, mint and curls of Asiago cheese. I relished every bite while imagining how good this would taste in a main course, served over pasta.

The next wave of plates was good, not great. A scallop ceviche with cherry peppers and cucumbers was a bit odd, as the slices of raw scallop and marinated cucumber had a similar slippery texture and the accompanying sauce was creamy, resulting in a rather off-putting mouth feel. The lobster with potatoes was fine, if rather rich, with a light mayonnaise sauce served alongside. But what was lacking on this plate was lobster, as the little that was there was overwhelmed with too much potato. And as much as I swooned over the luscious curried clams strewn with plenty of cilantro (yum!), the pieces of bread wedged between the shells were hard. What was that all about? 

The last savoury plates included soft tortillas filled with corn, lamb and poblano peppers. Sprinkled with feta and topped with a light pepper sauce, the dish was hearty but heavy going compared to the previous lineup. And finally, there were the pork and shrimp dumplings. Nadon makes a wicked dumpling dish at Bouillon Bilk, so my hopes were high for a new interpretation. As good as it sounded, the dumplings’ skins were awfully thick and the shrimp placed over them were doused in yet another creamy sauce. Again, I like the ideas here, but the execution and balance of ingredients were a bit off. 

Dessert choices at Cadet include a towering chocolate cake that is layered with cream and topped with puréed raspberries. 

The kitchen redeemed itself with dessert, my favourite being a rhubarb tart with Grey Owl goat cheese that managed to successfully fuse both the cheese and dessert courses. A sablé Breton topped with homemade pistachio ice cream was surrounded by sautéed strawberries. I liked this dessert very much, but I can never understand why anyone would cook a strawberry at this time of year. And finally, we were served a towering chocolate cake for two. Layered with cream and topped with puréed raspberries, the cake was surrounded by chunks of nougat, bubbly white chocolate (like an Aero bar) and cubes of transparent gelatin that were very bouncy and not all that tasty. I like the attempt to get a bit wild, but the resulting dessert didn’t taste as good as it looked. 

I’m told Cadet has been busy since the day it opened, which makes me wonder whether they had a chance to fine-tune the menu before the festivalgoers descended. No doubt it’s a great addition to this neighbourhood, yet Cadet’s not quite there yet. Considering the humble and talented duo behind this enterprise, though, I’m sure that when the tents come down and the crowds thin out, this cool new wine bar will eventually wow us as much as the mother ship a few doors away.

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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.

Le Diplomate

** out of four stars 
$$-$$$
Address: 129 Beaubien St. W. (near Waverly St.)
Phone: 514-303-9727
Website: restaurantlediplomate.com
Open: Tuesday to Friday: 4 p.m. to midnight, Saturday, 6 p.m. to midnight.
Wheelchair access: No
Reservations: Recommended
Cards: Major cards
Vegetarian friendly: Yes
Parking: On surrounding streets
Price range: Small plates, $10-$15. Desserts $7-$8. 

In the world of restaurants, there are many genres. You have your brasseries, your bistros, your French restaurants, your Italian. There are snack bars and diners, hot dog stands and cafés. And then you’ve got your sushi bars, noodle bars and wine bars. And though I have never been, apparently, in Hawaii, you can pick up a bowl of poké at a gas station.

But of all the restaurants the world over, the hardest to review are the chef-driven restaurants, because at the chef-driven restaurants you are not only evaluating cooking technique as you would in say a bistro, you are judging the chef’s taste. And when I say “taste” I refer not only to palate but aesthetic. Personal taste. Artistic eye. Vision. Get the picture? No easy task. 

This week’s restaurant, Le Diplomate, falls smack into the chef-driven category. The focus here is strictly on the plate as the decor is quite spartan. There’s a large open kitchen lined with peacock blue tiles and a dozen bar stools where foodies can enjoy watching chef Aaron Langille and co. cook up the 10 small-plate dishes featured on the menu.

As I dined with two other people, we opted for a table set for four on the other side of the space, which faced a wall cutting us off from the action in the rest of the room. Though I would have certainly missed Céline Dion had she decided to dine at Le Diplomate that night, being boxed in as I was, my full focus was on the plates, and as we ordered the entire menu, there were 11 in all.  

Chef Aaron Langille, left, Kyle Croutch and Vincent Belanger. Langille takes a lot of risks with his cooking, which is to be applauded.

Adding to the foodiness of the experience, dishes were delivered by the cooks, including the chef himself. The last time I ate Langille’s food he was working at Café Sardine at the space that now houses the wine bar Larry’s.

An Edmonton native, Langille’s first Montreal cooking job was as a commis at L’Express followed by stints at Club Chasse et Pêche and Le Filet. Add to that a stage at that mecca of nouvelle-Scandinavian cuisine, Noma, in Copenhagen, and a run as chef at the eclectic Chinese restaurant Orange Rouge post-Sardine, and you have a chef with some interesting mentors under his belt. 

No doubt Langille likes his wines, too, as Diplomate’s list is filled with private imports priced between $41 and $81, most of which are either organic, biodynamic or the purest of the pure, “nature.” There are a few cocktails on offer also (the towering Gin Fizz is magnificent) and craft beer, but the emphasis is definitely on the vino.

Heirloom tomatoes, chioggia beet slices and a brunoise of kohlrabi.

Already this extensive and eclectic wine list points to Langille’s experimental approach. Now if only that sensibility extended to the playlist, which featured blaring B-list ’80s tunes that clashed with the all-round approach. I don’t need Philippe Glass, but the soundtrack to this experience definitely needs work.

Now on to the food. The first two plates listed on the menu, bread and a solo oyster, set the tone for the meal to come. The first was dense homemade bread served with two dipping sauces: sunflower oil (that actually tasted like sunflower seeds) and a red-pepper “water” that offered the most glorious taste of summer. Then came Arctic King oysters, served on the shell, bathed in hot butter spiked with Laphroaig single malt whisky. I’ve always liked the oyster and whisky combination, and this version worked well at enhancing without obliterating the oyster flavour.

Vincent Belanger, left, and Kyle Croutch in the large open kitchen, where a dozen bar stools let foodies watch dinner being prepared

Up next was a lovely late summer dish featuring heirloom tomatoes, chioggia beet slices and a brunoise of kohlrabi. The colour scheme was all deep reds, pale greens and plums, and happily the vinaigrette was kept subtle, resulting in a dish where the ingredients did all the talking. Then there was a plate with duck “ham,” whole duck that was cured, smoked, sliced and served with a garnish of plums and peppers on a bed of celery leaves. I loved the intense flavour of the duck, and the celery added a bitterness that matched that heady duck. Not for the faint of palate!

Equally intense was a dish starring clams, chorizo sausage and purslane. This one didn’t grab me as much as the bitter greens all but wiped out the clams, with the chorizo adding sparks of spiciness along the way. Good, but there was too much chlorophyl in that mix.

There are a few cocktails on offer (the towering Gin Fizz is magnificent) and craft beer, but the emphasis is definitely on the vino.

The next dish was more of a palate soother with its layering of silken tofu, lump fish roe, lobster mushrooms and green onions. There was a lot going on here, but the resulting flavour lacked oomph as the dominant tofu was all lush texture and little flavour. Alas, another dish built around a fried duck egg also lacked pizzazz. The accompaniments were zucchini slices as well as green and yellow beans, not exactly the most flavourful of vegetables, which meant the egg yolk, arugula leaves and garlic scapes were left to do all the heavy lifting. 

By mid meal I was scratching my head, hoping the next round of dishes would deliver — if not some major — at least some minor fireworks. I quite liked the calamari served with borlotti beans, black currant and black cabbage. Marinated in buttermilk then slow-cooked, the squid was wonderfully tender and the pool of jus beneath the dish was infused with the herbal taste of that black cabbage. Good stuff.

The fish dish on the menu was built around a cod filet served with peaches, fennel and Meyer lemon. Nice, but again the flavour register was here definitely mild.

Finally a dish with some hair on its chest (granted, perhaps not the best food analogy) arrived with the lamb. Served with charred broccoli spears, yogurt chips, and an herb by the name of papalo (think arugula meets cilantro meets oregano), the lamb loin was as rosy and tender as you’d wish, though the papalo rather overwhelmed the taste. But this was my favourite dish of the evening (those yogurt chips were good fun) so I’ll end the criticisms there. 

As for dessert, there was a dense cheesecake moulded into golf-ball-sized spheres served with a smear of carrot coulis and a crumble made with rye flour. Good, but I gotta wonder why go for carrots at the height of summer fruit season? The second dessert, a delicate corn mousse topped with preserved cherries and a jalapeño granité, was more seasonal and I loved the variety of textures, temperatures and flavours going at play. Big thumbs up.

For dessert, a delicate corn mousse topped with preserved cherries and a jalapeño granité. Big thumbs up.

After a few hours at the table, I exited Le Diplomate torn. Service throughout the night was certainly friendly but also a bit cold, save for Langille himself, who cracked more than a few smiles unlike his somewhat tense colleagues. But what bothered me most swings back to what I said in the opening of this review: the chef’s taste.

Creativity is what it’s all about for the majority of young chefs today, and I commend Langille for taking risks with his cooking. That said, to my taste, too many of his dishes were played in an overly austere manor. I like a little more decadence on my plates, more fun, stronger flavours. But, hey, I can imagine that many diners out there might enjoy his subtlety and emphasis on vegetables.

So allow me to end this review with an attempt to be diplomatic about Le Diplomate. It’s not really to my taste, but perhaps it will be yours.

Ryù

Two and a half stars out of four
$$$
Address: 288 Laurier Ave. W. (near Park Ave.) 
Phone: 514-439-6559
Website: ryumtl.com
Open: Mon. 7 p.m. to 1 a.m.; Tues.-Thurs. 5 p.m. to 11 p.m.; Fri.-Sat. 5 p.m. to midnight; Sun. 5 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Wheelchair access: No
Reservations: Recommended
Cards: Major cards
Vegetarian-friendly: Yes
Parking: On the street with meters (difficult on busy nights) 
Price range: Starters $6-$17; mains $25-$31; makis $6-$22; nigiri and sashimi $7-$12.

Restaurant-goers certainly don’t need to survive solely on steak and Caesar salad, but on the high end of late, why do menus feature so many dishes with meek flavours, obscure ingredients and colour schemes reminiscent of the Arctic tundra? I’m all for a little experimentation but I’m starting to think I would rather be served a guinea pig than treated like one.   

Meanwhile, there’s a plethora of more playful food being dished up around the city in more casual establishments including food trucks, noodle shops, tacorias and izakayas. Of course, sushi remains wildly popular. Enter restaurants like Maiko sushi, Mikado and Sho-Dan and you’ll see sake-sipping crowds happily chowing down on raw fish and rice. But for foodies, trendy sushi restaurants are now seen as better suited to bachelorette parties and office gatherings than cutting-edge dining. Yes, you have your nec-plus-ultra sushi spots (Park, Shinji, Jun-i etc.) but most sushi restaurants are garnering more in the way of popular — rather than critical —  attention. 

This week’s restaurant, Ryù, is a definite casualty of the sushi ennui demonstrated by food snobs of late. Good luck finding much in the way of reviews beyond TripAdvisor and Yelp. Open already three years, Ryù (which means dragon in Japanese) has, sadly, fallen under the restaurant critic-buzz radar. I have considered dining there many times, but have heard it described as a sushi bar with a nightlife ambiance complete with tapas-inspired Japanese dishes and lounge music.

Ryù has been described as a sushi bar with a nightlife ambiance complete with tapas-inspired Japanese dishes and lounge music. Humà Design created the space, which is more cozy than cool.

The word “sexy” has come up somewhere along the way also. Ugh. I could picture it all too well: martinis, makis, a scantily clad wait staff and techno tunes wafting in the background. Non merci — been there, done that in the ’90s. But then a friend I trust told me Ryù is one of her go-to restaurants for good times and even better sushi. Intrigued, I called three of my hipper friends and headed over to Laurier Ave. to investigate.

The first thing to catch my attention at Ryù were two children seated by the door. Kids in a hip sushi restaurant? This was obviously less of a sushi supper club than I had imagined. I arrived early, and the children were with their parents, who all together were plowing through quite the platter of maki rolls. There was also a large group at the back, and several foursomes of young women up front. I settled into my seat and admired this chic black and purple room conceived by Humà Design. With its white chairs, black leather banquettes and neon-lit bar, this space is definitely trendy, but more cozy than cold. As for the wait staff, I was served by two young men, both well-dressed and extremely friendly. 

Sushi chef Haruo Ogura has a menu that’s not long, but it’s a mix of traditional and creative.

The menu features a mix of traditional and innovative dishes. You have your sushi and sashimi, dumplings, soups and salads as well as a separate list of designer maki rolls. It’s not very long or especially exciting, but everything reads appealing. 

We began with a simple dish of halibut sashimi served doused in warm sesame oil and lemon, and sprinkled with almonds. We’re far from Jiro Dreams of Sushi territory here, but the fish was luscious and the almonds added a welcome crunch without overwhelming the fish.

A poké bowl made with tuna was also wolfed down in seconds. The fish was sliced into fat cubes, topped with a julienne of nori and served on a bed of marinated cucumbers and rice. Add a sprinkling of black and golden sesame seeds overtop and you have a delicious alternative to sushi.

The poké bowl with fat chunks of tuna.

But if it’s sushi you desire, I’d recommend the nigiri platter. We opted for the smaller of the two and ended up with six pieces including salmon (raw and cooked), red tuna, yellowtail, shrimp and red snapper. The fish was fresh and the rice offered the ideal seasoning between sweet and tangy. For an added kick, though, I would have preferred a bit more wasabi between fish and rice.

As for the makis we tasted, the best included the classic kamikaze and the spicy salmon roll. Made with organic salmon, avocado, cucumber, tempura and spicy mayonnaise, the kamikaze was a good size (I hate when makis are oversized and too large to eat in one bite) and both the version wrapped in rice paper and the one made with nori were beautiful and all-too-easy to devour.

The “dream'” maki roll.

The spicy-salmon roll featured a mix of raw salmon, salmon-infused mayonnaise and a wrapping of torched salmon sashimi, with each slice topped with a sliver of lime. That may sound like salmon overkill but the proportions were perfect, the textures were sublime and that last hit of lime cut through all those rich flavours. Wow. 

The next three dishes were a little uneven. A steamed bun with fried chicken was fantastic, with the crispy meat melding right into that cushy white bun. Bliss!

The steamed bun with fried chicken was bliss.

I was a little less taken with the lobster tostada, though, which included a generous portion of succulent lobster meat, plenty of mashed avocado, a few crisp tortilla rounds, a pile of greens and not much else. An acidic element was needed here to bring it all to life. The pork and shrimp dumplings sounded promising, but the flavour was overwhelmed by the seaweed placed atop each one and in the broth. Only nori lovers need apply. 

With this fish-laden feast we enjoyed a bottle of Château Tour des Gendres, a food-friendly white wine from Bergerac sold for a reasonable $41. The wine list at Ryù is both well priced and well chosen. As my wine-writer dining companion said, “I’d happily drink anything on this list.” Agreed.

We finished the night with three custard-filled beignets. I’d have gone for more sweets, but we were told the dessert menu is getting a makeover, so for now the doughnuts are it, and they’re scrumptious. 

There was nothing especially mind-blowing about the food at Ryù, but I enjoyed most every bite. How great to get away for one night from the same ol’ bistro/chef-driven fare so popular around the city these days, and eat some fine sushi in a groovy room surrounded by happy people.

On my way out, I held the door for a group of ladies in high heels and short skirts exiting a stretch limo, convinced they were sure to enjoy this under-appreciated restaurant as much as I did. Nice one, Ryù. 

Le Boating Club
** 1/2 out of four stars
$$-$$$$

30 Curé-Labelle Blvd., St-Rose, Laval 
Phone: 450-937-3353
Website: leboatingclub.com
Open: Tues.- Sun. 5 p.m. to 11 p.m.; Sun. brunch 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.
Wheelchair access: Yes
Reservations: Essential
Cards: major cards
Vegetarian friendly: yes
Parking: Lot on site and free valet parking
Price range: Plates $14-$62 (many for two or more diners). Desserts $11-$13.

There are places where we all dream of dining. Just imagine that beach barbecue shack in Jamaica with spicy jerk chicken and waves lapping over your toes underneath the table. Then there’s that cliff-side trattoria in Positano, where you can sip limoncello while gazing at the Amalfi Coast.

And who can resist the marina-side bistro in Antibes on the French Riviera, where the bouillabaisse slurping is done while ogling the yachts moored at the Port Vauban? What all these primo resto locations have in common is water. Be it beaches, marinas, peninsulas or simply a beautiful view of the deep blue sea, the ultimate dining destinations are sea-side, ocean-side, lake-side or river-side. Heck, I’d even take a good table pool-side. 

So you can imagine my excitement when making a reservation at a restaurant called Le Boating Club. Located just over a half hour from downtown Montreal (double that time, dear readers, if you are travelling at peak traffic hours), Le Boating Club recently celebrated its second anniversary.

Driving north along autoroute 15 before taking the turn off to Curé-Labelle Blvd. in St-Rose, Laval, I had visions of rolling green lawns, bobbing boats, and me sipping a Pimm’s Cup on the veranda.

Today, 125 years after the club was founded, a group of friends including the co-owners of bar Philémon, in Old Montreal, and restaurant designer du moment Zébulon Perron, have brought this two-level beautiful edifice back to life.

In reality, however, I was looking at countless car dealerships, strip malls and chain restaurant outlets within minutes of my destination. Could I have taken a wrong turn? Alas, no: Le Boating Club is located at the tip of this commercial stretch, just before the bridge over the Rivière des Mille Isles. One can only imagine the scene when this primarily anglo institution was founded back in 1889, when balls, regattas and social gatherings were held in this beautiful old house, once the most famous boating club in the area. Still, with its large terrasse, dormer windows and shiny metal roof, the restaurant is a site for sore eyes.  

Today, 125 years after the club was founded, a group of friends including the co-owners of bar Philémon, in Old Montreal, and restaurant designer du moment Zébulon Perron, have brought this beautiful edifice back to life.

The boats and docks pictured in the vintage photos around the dining room are long gone, yet how great to see this landmark given a makeover. The interior design, more New England than Québécois, features pale-blue wainscotting, a central bar, bistro seating, mirrors and blackboards as well as canoe paddles and vintage photos all around the room. Look up and you’ll see stuffed Canada geese and a fairy-light-lit canoe hanging from the second-floor ceiling. Fun!

Judging by the number of luxury cars in the parking lot, I’d say this is an affluent crowd, yet prices are more than fair and the ambiance is definitely relaxed. The restaurant is filled with young couples as well as families. Background tunes are catchy and, thankfully, played at just the right volume.

The upper-level dining room in the space, which is has a design that’s more New England than Québécois.

As for the menu, well, that’s definitely a head scratcher. Instead of the usual starter/main-course format or even the trendy small-plate format, the dishes are all mixed together. The idea is to promote sharing, 

But faced with a $14 gnocchi dish listed between a $22 halibut gravlax and a $19 lobster cavatelli, I tried to use price to gauge the size of the plates. That didn’t work. When I ordered three of the smaller plates and three of the larger, my waitress warned it could be too much.

What the … ?

It’s also a shame to see so many cold-weather dishes featured. Roasted and braised meats, creamy pastas and deep-fried frogs’ legs are not exactly what I want to be eating in late summer, when vegetables are at their peak and grilled meats and fish are the way to go. There is a lot of appealing food on this menu, but I’m sure I would have enjoyed it more after a long day of skiing than swimming.

The mushroom gnocchi: caramelized and glorious.

That said, the first three dishes to hit the table were terrific. The aforementioned mushroom gnocchi were caramelized on one side, oh-so light, and really tasted of potato. Bathed in a cream sauce, they were mixed with plenty of mushrooms, resulting in a dish that disappeared in seconds. Yum! 

Up next was a spicy beef tartare with good-sized chunks of beef mixed with a generous handful of capers and parsley and served with a smear of homemade mayonnaise. Steak tartare has become a bit of a boring menu standby in Montreal, but this version brought this all-too-often cloying dish to life.

And then came the autumn salad, a layering of iceberg lettuce, arugula, ribbons of coloured parsnip and pumpkin seeds. Good enough, but the bonus here was the vinaigrette. Flavoured with miso, this bold little dressing made the greens sing without stealing the show, resulting in one heck of a salad. I can’t remember the last time I got this excited about salad. 

The autumn salad is a layering of iceberg lettuce, arugula, ribbons of coloured parsnip and pumpkin seeds. The vinaigrette is killer.

The next round of dishes maintained the high level of the first. There was a melting beef brisket served with mashed potatoes laced with cheddar and gruyère. I didn’t expect to be eating something like this until at least jacket weather, but it was seriously delicious nonetheless.

A generous portion of Icelandic cod was expertly cooked, ideally falling into thick, creamy chunks. The accompanying caponata and lemon zest worked wonders at zuzzing up the big white fish, which, granted, was a bit salty, but when everything was tasted all together, was very good.

I also enjoyed the roast chicken “samba rico.” Seasoned with sambal oelek (southeast Asian hot sauce), maple syrup and beer, the half chicken (also served whole) was spicy and succulent. Between bites of the chicken, I all but inhaled the accompanying roast potatoes and the al-dente green beans. Heaven.

Roast chicken “samba rico” gets a kick with sambal oelek (southeast Asian hot sauce), maple syrup and beer.

Chef Joshua Patry finishes plating the roast chicken.

Alas, all was not perfect at our Boating Club feast. How surprising that the french fries were overcooked and dreary. Desserts also need fine tuning. Served with two sauces, salted caramel and chocolate, stacked golden churros were raw inside.

Then there was a plate featuring a homemade version of Whippet cookies that were inferior to the commercial variety. If you can’t do better, why bother? As for a key-lime pie verrine, though heavy on the blackberry coulis and whipped cream, the mix didn’t taste a bit of lime. Hmm…

But my criticisms end there because this restaurant is a winner, where the portions are large, and the dishes are hearty.

Besides the welcoming staff and cool room, the wine list is another asset. Filled with organic bottles sold at fair prices, this list is backed by a sommelier on site who convinced us to try a fine Alsatian riesling that worked with most everything on the table. So wine lovers will not be disappointed and neither will the foodies.

The dress balls and regattas may be ancient history at Le Boating Club, but fine dinner and an even better time are yours for the taking — despite the lack of a water view. 

Parm
** 1/2 (two and a half) out of four
$$$-$$$$

4922 Sherbrooke St. W. (corner Prince Albert Ave.)
Phone: 514-487-7276
Website: restaurantparm.com
Open: Daily, 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. 
Licensed: Yes 
Credit cards: All major cards
Wheelchair access: No
Reservations: Essential
Vegetarian-friendly: Not especially
Parking: On street with meters
Price range: Raw-bar items: $18-$150 (large seafood platter); small plates $16-$34; pastas $24-$32; salads $17-$23; main courses $32-$52; desserts: $7-$8.

A few years back, I dined at the bar of the open kitchen at a swish Italian restaurant in Toronto called Campagnolo.

Chatting to the friendly cooks while watching them create all kinds of enticing pasta dishes, I mentioned in passing that I sometimes made spaghetti alla carbonara with milk. Suddenly the chefs’ faces froze in a look somewhere between disgust, disbelief and dismay.

Had I said I preferred Domino’s pizza to the artisanal variety, I might have actually had a debate going. But saying you add milk or cream to carbonara is like saying you use pre-cut garlic, lemon juice from concentrate, or that you enjoy your meat well done. Sacrilege!

But I stuck by my guns and told them to give it a try, which they did, whipping up quite the gorgeous twirl of carbonara, which we sampled one after another. The idea is that the milk prevents the egg yolks from becoming claggy, thus coating the pasta strands (bucatini if you want to be super authentic) with this sort of salty, creamy and custardy loveliness.

I felt a small sense of victory when one of the chefs described it as “pretty good.” But for purists, the idea of introducing a dairy element into that Italian classic will always be a no-can-do. And as someone who has seen Salade Niçoise made with salmon, tarte Tatin topped with pineapples, and risotto prepared with Uncle Ben’s converted rice, I understand the need for preserving authenticity.

But we also need to give a little leeway for creativity. And sometimes a cuisine can simply be used as inspiration, a base from which to set off in all directions. No doubt, that’s the case with this week’s restaurant, Parm.

Chef Fred Phavorachith plates the chicken parmesan.

There was a time not so long ago that Italian restaurant food in Montreal meant Caesar salad, veal scallopini and red-sauce-pasta. In other words, North American Italian cuisine.

Then came an influx of new Italian restaurants that focused on authenticity, and suddenly we were seeing less spaghetti and meat balls and some serious ragu bolognese. Today you’ll find excellent authentic Italian cuisine at restaurants that include Impasto, Nora Gray, Hostaria, Graziella, Da Emma, Il Paglliaccio and more, which perhaps makes it all the easier for a less authentically driven establishment to make a go of it. 

Or maybe harder, as cries of  “cultural appropriation” bellow out constantly on the food scene these days over the heresy of making dishes like carbonara with milk. Yet I’ll take a delicious carbonara made with milk over a poorly executed one made without any day. So when entering a restaurant called “Parm,” my intention was not really to eat authentically; I just hoped I would eat well. And for the most part I did.

The upper floor at Parm, which took over the space that used to house the restaurant called Lea.

Owned by the Lucille’s group, which is behind the popular Lucille’s Oyster Dive on Monkland Ave. and Brasserie Lucille’s on Ste-Catherine St. (they have a food truck and oyster wholesale business as well), Parm opened mid-summer on the Sherbrooke stretch of Westmount in the location that last housed Lea, a pretty good restaurant that served a mean kale salad. The multi-level space, conceived of by resto designer extraordinaire Zébulon Perron, has changed little. I’m told fixes were few save for a kitchen overhaul, and there’s a chic terrasse out front. 

Like all the Lucille’s operations, prices at Parm are steep, yet many of the costliest dishes are based in fish, seafood or steak, so that’s understandable. But just be warned that a meal here is sure to be a wallet buster, and that includes wines, which are sold at quite a markup.

Marie-Ève Lemieux shucks oysters.

The San Valentino Scabi 2013 Sangiovese we ordered for $60 retails for $19.10 at the SAQ. Ouch. Portions are generous, though, so this is the right place to perhaps order less and opt for sharing.    

Of the starters sampled I quite liked the calamari served with panzanella. The thick pieces of squid were expertly charred, tender, and the accompanying salad featured multicoloured tomatoes, peppers, croutons, butter-lettuce hearts, red onion, bits of olive and Parmesan shards. Good. 

I also lapped up a dish of “carne crudo.” Remember when we were all discovering beef carpaccio 20 years ago? Well, that classic is rare in Italian restaurants today, but I relished Parm’s version, made up of whisper-thin slices of filet mignon topped with arugula and flavoured with horseradish and hot sauce. I’m not sure what your stickler Italian cook would say about the added condiments, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

The carne crudo has whisper-thin slices of filet mignon topped with arugula and flavoured with horseradish and hot sauce.

And how great to see that Parm held on to Lea’s corn and kale salad (smart, as I’m told it was their best seller), though this one is served showered with grated Parmesan and has a sweeter dressing than the one I recall at Lea. The three of us at the table wolfed back that salad as if it were our last. If ever you know someone who doesn’t like kale, I suggest you serve him or her this salad and watch how quickly he or she changes camps.

Parm has held on to Lea’s excellent corn and kale salad.

Regarding the main courses, I’m sure few will be able to resist the chicken parmesan. The dish stars a plate-sized chicken paillard, pan-fried to a golden crisp and topped with two rounds of fresh mozzarella, with a twirl of spaghettini and deep-red tomato sauce in the supporting roles. Yum! I couldn’t manage to get through the whole thing, mind you, but what I did eat, I adored. 

The branzino (sea bass) filet, is another good choice because the fish is expertly cooked and delicious. The mixed salad served beneath the fish was also fine, if a bit heavy on the vinaigrette. Alas, our last dish, cellentani with sausage, rapini and tomato, was a bust, mainly because the rapini wasn’t rapini, but either broccoli or broccolini. Ouf. On top of that, the sausage was scarce and the sauce had pooled at the bottom of the bowl instead of melding with the swirly cellentani as is the ideal with pasta preparations. When it comes to authenticity of this kind of technique in Italian cuisine, there I side with the purists.

Happily, dessert ended the meal on a high note. Served with a pizzelle cookie, the vanilla-bean gelato was scarfed back in seconds. The panna cotta topped with figs and raspberries was good but over gelatinized. Panna cotta’s texture should be creamy, not bouncy, and this version was like a Nerf ball. But then came a classic tiramisu, and all was forgiven. Creamy and moist, this cake’s only fault was about five times too much cocoa sifted overtop. Otherwise, magnifico!

The tiramisu is creamy and moist.

Service, provided by two almost identical young waitresses was a bit hesitant, but certainly friendly and swift. I dined at Parm early, but by 7 p.m. the restaurant filled, becoming pretty noisy, though in more of a buzzy than annoying way.

I can imagine this has already become a dinner destination for Westmount diners out perhaps for a casual Italian-style dinner with friends or family. For the price, I would prefer the food be not more authentically Italian, but just that much better. As the restaurant is open but three months, though, here’s hoping they can soon pull that off. 

Les Enfants Terribles PVM

No stars

$$$-$$$$

1 Place Ville Marie, 44th floor

Phone: 514-544-8884

Website: jesuisunenfantterrible.com 

Open: Mon. to Wed. 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Thurs. and Fri. 11:30 a.m. to 11 p.m.; Sat. 10 a.m. to 11 p.m.; Sun. 10 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. 

Licensed: Yes

Credit cards: All major cards

Wheelchair access: Yes

Reservations: Not taken for groups under 6

Vegetarian-friendly: Not especially

Parking: Difficult on the street; parking lot on site with a credit available for patrons of the restaurant

Price range: Appetizers $7-$20; main courses $17-$60; desserts $5-$8.

It all started with a phone call. “I’d like to book a table for three,” I said. “We don’t take reservations for groups under six,” replied the woman on the other end of the line. Maybe I should have ended it right there. 

Instead, I asked her how long a wait it would be if I came early. “We only have one group of 20 booked for tonight so it shouldn’t be that long. But it would be best to come after 8:30 or at around 5.” OK, let’s be serious here: eating at either of those times on a weeknight is far from ideal. At 5 in the downtown core, you’ll face gridlock traffic. Eating late might be an option on weekends, but not for many on weekdays. But I had read there were hundreds of seats in this restaurant, so I figured if I arrived before 7, my chances for nabbing a table were good. 

Why bother? Well this was the latest outlet of the Les Enfants Terribles empire. With three other restaurants in the environs (Outremont and Nuns’ Island, which I reviewed in 2013, and Laval), this group’s latest brasserie was located on the top floor of Place Ville Marie, a space with arguably the best views in the city. The last time I was up there, it was Altitude 737, a semi-swanky restaurant that closed in 2013. When news came last year that the three top floors of PVM would be given an overhaul, I was intrigued.

Known as the “Au Sommet Project,” the makeover of PVM’s top floors includes an exposition space on the 45th floor and an observation deck on the 46th. Names tied to the project include companies like Ivanhoé Cambridge (owners of Place Ville Marie), Claridge and Sid Lee/Cirque du Soleil. Run by restaurateurs Francine Brûlé and Serge Bruneau, Les Enfants Terribles PVM opened in late June. I waited three months before heading up there two weeks ago, giving the restaurant time to peel the stickers off the new stoves, train the staff and settle in. My dining companions included my 19-year-old niece and my 79-year-old mother. Being 49 myself, I figured we had all the age bases covered. 

Before even setting foot in the restaurant, things were looking precarious. As we all know too well, parking downtown these days is a nightmare, so I opted for the underground garage. The voyage up to the restaurant included several escalator trips (with one out of order) and two elevator runs. After eventually reaching the hostess station, I came face to face with three young women. I’d like to say “I was greeted by three young women,” but there was no greeting. I asked for a table for three. “That will be a 45-minute wait,” said one. At 6:45 (I actually arrived at 6:30, but it took 15 minutes to climb to the heavens) all the tables were taken? “Really?” I asked. “Yes,” she said. “And it could be longer.” Ha! 

Hungry, tired and with my car finally parked after circling the construction-clogged streets of downtown Montreal, I decided to give it a wait. I’ve waited for tables before and lived to see the day. The hostess recommended we have a drink on the terrasse outside. Always one to have considered the “have a drink while you wait for a table” line a ploy for restaurants to make a few bucks on the booze, I wasn’t wild about the idea. But the terrasse was beautiful, the sun was setting, and the city views from here are hard to beat. Unfortunately, it was about 12 degrees outside and we weren’t dressed for chilly weather. But hey, we could manage 45 minutes, right? I gave them my cellphone number, ordered a vodka tonic, and tried to relax. 

The shepherd’s pie, with its soft braised beef, truffle-spiked mashed potatoes and gooey cream corn sauce, was enjoyable. It’s a house classic and it’s good.

At the 40-minute mark, we enquired about our table, and were told nothing was available yet. My heart sank. By now we were shivering, it was dark outside and many of the people arriving right off the elevators headed straight into the dining room. What the? At the 55-minute mark and $37 poorer after drinks, I marched to the hostess desk. “Is our table coming soon?” I asked between clenched teeth. “No,” said the hostess in a voice completely devoid of emotion, adding: “There are five groups of three ahead of you.”

That, dear readers, is when I lost it. I started by telling them their no-reservation policy was a joke, and that treating people like this was wasting their time. Barely a shrug. I think one of them rolled their eyes. So then I did it: I told them why I was there. They called the manager. 

Enter the manager, a lovely lady, the first to actually make any effort to be hospitable (“Why didn’t you ask for me before?” she said) who promised to find us a table right away. “Because I told you who I am?” I said defensively. “No,” she said, “because of your  mother.” Oh boy …

Among the disappointing desserts: a brownie-like cake called the “Snickers” covered in thick chocolate icing, peanuts and a half-melted scoop of ice cream.

At about 8:10 p.m., an hour and a half after arriving, we entered the dining room. It was dark, noisy and packed with the business crowd. I figured the group of revellers at the table next to us must have just landed — or lost — a big contract as they were all standing up doing shots. 

The manager arrived with three glasses, placed them in front of us and poured an inch of red wine into each. “This is for making you wait,” she said. “No, thank you,” I answered. But she insisted we take her complimentary inch of wine, while patting me on the shoulder. By now it was getting comical.

As for the food, well, anyone who has been to the Enfants Terribles establishments will be familiar with this menu, which is identical to the others. It’s a mix of French brasserie classics (oysters, tartares, steak/frites), comfort food (mac and cheese, fish and chips, burgers) and signature dishes (Caesar salad, blood pudding). The wine list is extensive, and markups are fair (about 2.5 retail). The manager told us she would be taking care of our table before decanting our wine with great flourish. But by mid-meal she was nowhere to be found and we were pouring from that decanter ourselves.

Starters included a sad salmon tartare prepared without an ounce of love. There was a beet and goat cheese salad that tasted fine, but with about the equivalent of one beet in there, hardly worth its $12 price. With their potent mustard dipping sauce, chorizo pogos demonstrate the kind of retooled comfort food this kitchen does best. But, you know, when you’re praising the chorizo pogos …

Another miss: the feeble pouding chômeur.

For the next course, the shepherd’s pie – with its soft braised beef, truffle-spiked mashed potatoes and gooey cream corn sauce – was enjoyable. It’s a house classic and it’s good. The AAA filet mignon had fine flavour and was cooked to the ideal medium rare. Alongside came a Hasselback potato blanketed in a faint-tasting blue cheese cream with slices of utterly tasteless bacon, and an endive salad drowned in vinaigrette. I chose the lamb burger, which at first bite, tasted like beef so I enquired whether they had sent me a beef burger instead. I was told, no, it was, indeed, made with lamb. Hmm … I guess when you overcook meat this drastically it all tastes the same. I squeezed it time and again, but not one drop of juice sputtered out.

Desserts included a feeble pouding chômeur, a pineapple and lime granité filled with chunks of icy fruit, and a brownie-like cake called the “Snickers” covered in thick chocolate icing, peanuts and a half-melted scoop of ice cream. The only good I can say about the desserts is they didn’t make it to the bill.

Ultimately, the point of a restaurant review is simply to advise people where to eat. Even when the food isn’t great, you can sometimes exit optimistic, thinking ‘I’m sure they will improve’ or ‘well … at least they gave it their all.’ But as pivotal as food is to a restaurant experience, a night like this shows us that in the end, it’s not about the food, it’s about how you, as a customer, are treated. There are several words I can drum up to describe the treatment I received at Les Enfants Terribles PVM, but let me limit it one: shoddy. No, wait, remembering the manager patting our shoulders time and again, I would add: patronizing.

Stars are attributed in restaurant reviews to evaluate the experience. But in the end, how can you stamp a review like this with even one star if customers are treated as though it’s a privilege NOT for a restaurant to welcome their business, but for them to be given the chance to eat there? 

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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.

Emiliano’s

** 1/2 (two and a half)
$$-$$$
260 Notre-Dame St. W. (corner St-Jean St.)
Phone: 514-316-8017
Open: Lunch weekdays 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.; Mon.-Wed. 5 p.m. to 11 p.m.; Thurs.-Sat. 5 p.m. to midnight.
Website: restaurantemilianos.com
Licensed: Yes
Credit cards: All major 
Wheelchair access: No 
Vegetarian friendly: Yes
Reservations: Essential
Parking: On surrounding streets with meters, several lots in the neighbourhood
Price range: Starters $10-$18; street food: $11.50-$21; main courses $21-$27; desserts $9.

There is a brilliant series on Netflix by the name of Chef’s Table that has many a food lover hooked. Now on its second season (with a third that will focus on chefs from France), the show’s recent highlight was an episode devoted to Enrique Olvera, chef/owner of several restaurants including Pujol in Mexico City and Cosme in New York.

Not only is this chef a modest and endearing character, his food looks sublime, with takes on such classics as mole and tacos, as well as more personal creations like smoked corn with coffee mayonnaise and ant powder, and a meringue and corn cream dessert so enticing that I was soon on Expedia searching for flights to Mexico. 

In chef Olvera’s hands, Mexican cuisine is reaching new gastronomic heights — excellent, because like so many cuisines branded “ethnic,” Mexican food has been relegated to the cheap-eats beat for far too long. With chefs like Olvera making waves, Mexican cuisine is finally coming into the international spotlight. Yeah!

That said, in this part of the world, it still has a ways to go. Having reviewed but a handful of lacklustre Mexican restaurants over the years in Montreal, I have yearned to see Mexican restaurants fully exploit the potential of this cuisine. Instead, I have eaten a lot of salsa, nachos and quesadillas, and watched many a waiter mix guacamole table-side with about as much enthusiasm as a meter maid sliding tickets onto windshields. 

But lately I have a feeling Montreal Mexican may be turning a corner. You can eat tacos at dozens of places around town, and a lot of them are seriously delicious. But beyond the cool taquerías, we’re finally seeing Mexican restaurants taking this cuisine in all sorts of fun directions (like the excellent Escondite, reviewed this summer) or emphasizing authenticity, like this week’s restaurant, Emiliano’s. 

Chef Carlos Flores.

The new Old Montreal eatery opened in mid-June with its goal spelled out right on the menu: “Show Montrealers and the world what real authentic Mexican cuisine looks like.”

Sounds good to me.

I dined at Emiliano’s twice, and on both occasions the restaurant was close to capacity while many of the surrounding restaurants were close to empty. Has bistro ennuie set in? Perhaps. Emiliano’s happens to be a pretty hopping place with a large bar, high tables, an added second-floor dining room, an open kitchen in the back and Mexican music playing at a loud-but-still tolerable volume.

The dining room.

Our firecracker of a waitress, Patricia, welcomed us with a smile and went over the menu in some detail. Mexican food lovers will find such favourites as tacos, ceviches, tamales, quesadillas and enchiladas, but there’s also a good selection of dishes beyond the Mexican faves served at Cancun all-inclusives. 

I suggest beginning with Emiliano’s guacamole, served with either homemade tortilla chips or “chicharron,” curls of fried pork fat. Like hummus, guacamole has become the go-to snack a lot of us are making and munching on at home, but this one stands out because of its chunky texture and because the chips aren’t overly salted, therefore not overwhelming this subtle avocado condiment/dip. Paired with a not-too-jolting “perfect margarita,” as it was called on the menu, this duo provided the ideal entrée to the evening.  

The chunky guacamole is a winner.

After reading the description of the first soup on the menu, the “sopa Azteca,” I ordered it straight away. Good move as this lusty mix of roasted tomatoes, pasilla peppers, panela cheese and crème fraiche, garnished with slices of avocado and strips of crispy tortilla, was one of the best soups I’ve tasted in ages.

I’d also highly recommend the grilled queso fresco plate, which features a stack of pan-fried queso fresco cheese, a slice of chorizo sausage, avocado and julienned mango. Plated alongside are three warm tortillas used to wrap up a bit of everything in that stack, top with a squeeze of lime, fold over and devour. So, so good.

The grilled queso fresco with mango, avocado, chorizo and cilantro.

After the entrées, the next part of the menu comes under the category of “street food.” From there we sampled tacos and quesadillas. Served in threes, the tacos I tried were the tacos “carnitas” filled with pulled pork, onion, cilantro and radish as well as the fish tacos garnished with jalapeño, avocado, grilled cipollini onions, lettuce and lime (tell me you’re not drooling after reading that list of ingredients). 

The pork taco was good because the meat was so tender, but the fish taco was the one to beat. The fish was crisp, the tortilla was soft, the lettuce provided crunch and the jalapeño, a welcome spicy kick. Terrific!

Tacos with white crispy fish, jalapeño, avocado, cilantro, mayo, roasted cipollini, lettuce and lime.

As for the quesadilla, not my fave, alas, as the pork pieces inside the folds were tough, and taken as a whole the quesadilla seemed to be missing that extra element to take it into “wow” territory. Instead, try the enchiladas, especially the green enchiladas. Filled with shredded chicken and flavoured with cilantro and onion, the tortillas are topped with a fantastic tomatillo salsa that was so good that I spooned some onto the pork tacos. 

Mole with stuffed chicken breast, onion cilantro, pineapple, corn, pistachio and rice.

After an abundance of tortillas, it was a bit of a relief to try a dish served without a wrapper. We opted for the chicken with mole, paired with coconut rice and stuffed with cheese and chunky mushrooms.

Though I wished the chicken breast wasn’t so dry and stringy (overcooked as it was), the stuffing was moist and scarffable, and the mole offered layers of spice and fruit flavours with tingly heat and a less chocolatey taste than one anticipates in a mole (chocolate is the standout ingredient in mole, but truth is there are far more nuts, garlic, chilies and fruit in its makeup).  

For dessert, there’s a silky classic flan served with a coffee and tequila caramel. Yum! The “tres leches,” the famous Latin American cake made with evaporated, condensed and regular milk, was nice and moist and topped with plenty of coconut shavings. Thumbs-up.

Chef Carlos Flores.

We limited our beverage intake to cocktails, beer or water but there’s a better selection of wines here than expected, though I wished there were more South American  — or especially Mexican — wines available to offer even more in the way of discovery. The cocktail list could be beefed up, and the beer selection needs work as three listed were not available. The Mexican brand that was is about as exciting as a Molson Canadian. 

Though no gastronomic event, my night at Emiliano’s was a success because the food was delicious, the service was excellent, and the people could not have been more  friendly. I’d come back here in a heartbeat, not only for the many dishes I have yet to try (the cactus salad … the chile … the tamales) but simply to sit back, relax and have a bit of fun. What a welcome addition to the scene. 

Manitoba
*** (three stars)
$$$

271 St-Zotique St. W. (near Jeanne-Mance St.)
Phone: 514-270-8000
Website: restaurantmanitoba.com
Open: Lunch, Tues. -Fri. 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.; dinner, Mon.-Sat. 6 p.m. to midnight.
Licensed: Yes
Credit cards: All major
Wheelchair access: No
Parking: On the street
Vegetarian friendly: Yes
Reservations: Essential
Price range: Starters $10-$16; main courses $22-$30; desserts $9.

There is a telling first half hour when dining out where some sort of deep primal instinct picks up on how comfortable you feel within the walls of the restaurant, be it your local bistro, a pub in Ireland, a café in Vienna or a bouchon in Lyon.

Pardon me for using the term “good vibes,” but some restaurants just have them. I think it has a lot to do with the design of the place and the all-round the mood, but most of all it’s that first contact with staff members that makes you want to hang out until closing or head to the bathroom, climb out the window and make a run for it. 

Friendly is a winning element of the restaurant experience in everyone’s books, and a night at Manitoba reminded me of just how much. Arriving at the restaurant before my dining companions, I was greeted by two smiling gentlemen at the door.

Five minutes later, another came to my table to ask if I’d like a cocktail. Their list was intriguing, so I opted for a mix of gin, curaçao, pepper and elderberry jam called the Gin & Jam Sauvage. The jam arrives on a teaspoon balanced over the glass, and as the waiter instructed me, the idea is to stir it into the drink right before sipping away. It’s a delicious cocktail, ideally balanced between sweet, sour and bitter. But it was the care with which it was presented that impressed most. 

An example of careful presentation: the Gin & Jam Sauvage is a mix of gin, curaçao, pepper and elderberry jam. The jam arrives on a teaspoon balanced over the glass.

The last time I reviewed Manitoba was right after it opened in the summer of 2014. I relished the friendly vibes back then, too. The chef, Chris Parasiuk, had a bit of a free-form style — nothing fussy — based on local ingredients with an emphasis on foraged and wild foods.

Owners Elisabeth Cardin and Simon Cantin (partners in the design firm La Firme) created a unique space in this long room, complete with a bar up front and an open kitchen in the dining room farther along. There’s a garage door in the back overlooking small yard, and paper-topped tables are surrounded by the sort of barebones wooden chairs we all sat on at assemblies in high school. It’s all très rustic chic.

Since then a few things have changed. Parasiuk left in 2015, and was replaced by chef Michael Dalla Libera, who then departed last May to open the new artisanal ice cream shop Dalla Rose, which as of mid-October doubles as a ramen shop called Ramen 9000. Last December, the chef role was taken on by Cedric Nolet, whose last cheffing duties were at the now closed BYOB resto L’Atelier. Oh, and there was also a fire at Manitoba last winter, but despite a brief moment of social-media panic, damage was minimal. So Manitoba has seen its fair share of challenges. When a few readers wrote asking if I would still recommend it, I wasn’t sure. Thus, my return visit last week.

Cedric Nolet took over chef duties in December.

Everything still feels very much the same, though more relaxed than I remember. Yet as the night wore on and the room filled up, the ambiance picked up along with the nice buzzy levels. The crowd here is eclectic, part hipster, part fashionista, with quite a few older folks (tourists by the sound of it) seated at the bar. The kitchen has been expanded and the backyard is now decorated with pumpkins. 

The restaurant’s mission statement, as spelled out on its website, reads: “We wanted a taste of the forest in our plates, a taste of nature in our glasses, wood, rock, wind. But over all, we wanted to share in the simplicity of eating well, drinking well and having a good laugh together.”

I’d say mission accompli. The menu is definitely of the locavore bent as is the cocktail selection. As is the case with this style of restaurant, natural wines are de rigeur. Yet whereas many locavore restaurants have a habit of veering into austere territory (especially as our growing season peters out), Manitoba maintains a solid level of deliciousness. The food here is as good as I recall, with some dishes falling into the inspired category. 

The smoked marrow bone.

I was told their menu is changing soon, so I focused on a few house classics, starting with the smoked marrow bone. Topped with bread crumbs as well as red and yellow cherry tomatoes, the marrow is flavoured with black garlic and sage. I liked the ideas here, and the bits I tasted were good, but, alas, the amount of marrow was minimal. 

The cauliflower salad.

I far preferred the salad of the day, which featured cauliflower two ways — blanched and charred —as well as puréed, with tobiko and a few sprouts. What a great mix of textures and terre et mer flavours. A dish of bison tatami wasn’t as big a hit, but I liked the way the lightly charred meat was enhanced by the accompanying pickled vegetables and dabs of sea buckthorn cream and potent pine aioli. My only question was: Where were the nordic shrimp listed on the menu?

The big winner in the appetizer category, though, was the mousse de foie de volaille. Served with blueberries, pecans and a few shards of toasted baguette, the liver mousse scored because it was so perfectly seasoned, as in just salty enough, gorgeously smooth and in no way bitter. I practically licked that plate clean.

The deer filet is flavoured with cedar and served with preserved fiddleheads, roasted potatoes and a porcini crumble.

For mains, the standout dish was definitely the guinea hen, whose flesh was just so succulent under a crisp sheet of golden skin. Wow! Accompaniments included corn, caramelized plums, and kale — all delicious. A dish of deer filet flavoured with cedar and served with preserved fiddleheads, roasted potatoes and a porcini crumble, was also very good though the meat was a bit tough and the all-round flavours lacked that extra oomph. 

As for fish, an entrée built around a generous walleye filet impressed because the fish was moist and perfectly cooked. I wasn’t wild, though, about the sides including millet with lobster mushrooms, shrimp, Labrador tea and a peach purée only because millet is such a fine grain, which clumps together when cooked. A larger grain would make a world of difference in this dish.    

With wine left in our glasses, I asked our terrific waiter if they had anything in the way of cheese on offer and was sad to hear not one was available. As much as I like the whole locavaore concept, I always wonder why these chefs are so big on things like pine and cedar and not the hundreds of wonderful cheeses fabricated in our fine province. Food for thought.

The chocolate ganache is flavoured with gin and ginger, and served with bits of chocolate cake, berries and a small tangle of lichen.

As for dessert, there are but two, and the first starred a mound of chocolate ganache flavoured with gin and ginger. Served with bits of chocolate cake, berries and a small tangle of lichen, the ganache was delectable but I wasn’t likin’ the pretty tasteless lichen (okay, I know, but who could resist?).

The second dessert included balsam-fir-flavoured whipped cream, plum purée, fresh plums, coffee meringue and a coffee crumble. Nice flavour combo going on there, but something was missing (a flan? a slice of cake?) to take it from a plate of garnishes to a solid dessert.  

Post-dessert, I lingered, chatting with friends, reluctant to leave this appealing space with chefs cooking in the open kitchen in front of me, waiters shaking cocktails in the distance, and great people-watching. How I enjoy restaurants like this, with plenty to discover on the plate in an environment that’s so cool without being in any way cold, proving that, as much as I love Quebec, it’s always a pleasure to escape to Manitoba.

Naomi Duguid is Canada’s foremost cookbook writer and no doubt its most daring. Co-author of six cookbooks with her ex-husband, Jeffrey Alford, and now two cookbooks written solo, Duguid’s latest — and possibly greatest — took her halfway across the planet to discover Persian cuisine, or more specifically the food of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kurdistan, and one of the last places people are clamouring to visit these days, Iran. 

Coming from a world traveller whose last book focused on the cuisine of Burma, it’s not surprising. And it’s not a matter of choosing destinations better suited to Homeland plots than recipe inspiration. Duguid has been fascinated by the region since her first trip to the former Soviet republic of Georgia in 1989, but her goal with this book is more than just continuing a personal journey. “In the summer of 2012, I was thinking about the way the mainstream media causes people to demonize countries and situations ruled by totalitarian regimes,” writes Duguid in her book. “I realized that it was time I wrote about Persian culinary tradition, to try to put a human face on the people of Iran, and show the connection and contribution of Persian food culture to other cuisines and peoples in the region.” 

Naomi Duguid travelled alone to do her research.

Taste of Persia is the result of that commitment, and the book has already been named one of the best in a year of terrific cookbooks. The 125 recipes featured in the book were compiled over three years of travels, where Duguid tasted, talked, observed and then recreated the recipes back at home, searching for the correct English words — and sometimes substitutes — for ingredients, and cross-referencing cooks books (when possible) to make sure she wasn’t on the wrong track.

Meeting with Duguid during her recent trip to Montreal to promote the book, I asked how the author, better known for her focus on Asian cuisines, ended up in the Middle East. “When I worked on my first book (Flatbreads & Flavors: A Baker’s Atlas, Morrow 1995), we featured flatbreads from Iran and Central Asia, and in my second, Seductions of Rice (Random House, 1998), there was a recipe for Persian rice. With my last book (Burma: Rivers of Flavour, Artisan 2012), I felt it was the end of my East and Southeast Asian thing. So I started moving west. It’s a natural continuum, and it has been very interesting.”

Never one to jump on the bandwagon of trendy cuisine (“Other people can write about steak/frites,” she once told me, “I write about things I don’t know.”), Duguid is renowned for promoting recipes from parts of the world that have a rich food culture as well as linguistic, cultural and religious diversity yet are often neglected.

“Nobody talks about East Armenian food,” says an exasperated Duguid. “These regions are under-appreciated. And these are places you can come at in many ways. Just look at Georgian cuisine. Georgia is a small country with many different regions and several different ways of doing the same dish. There is enormous creativity. Georgia is a country that has the diversity of France squeezed into a country the size of Ireland with mountains, a sea coast and lush fields. But now it is slowly emerging into the light of Western attention.” 

Spices from the region, as photographed in the book.

As illustrated by the photographs taken on the road and by the essays featured throughout the book, Duguid’s investment in her topic is fierce. Not only is she travelling alone to parts of the world we see on the news yet tend to avoid when planning our next vacation, costly and complicated visas are required to visit countries like Azerbaijan and Iran, where contact with the outside world can be a challenge for a foreigner.

Phoning out is not an option, and as for credit cards, forget it, as sanctions prohibit North American credit card companies from operating in Iran. Duguid travels with cash. With only a rudimentary grasp of the language, she relies on head nods and hand gestures. And unlike many food journalists, who reach out to government officials for help, Duguid would never dream of it. “That would be the worst,” she says.

“I would never learn about the cuisine had they presented it to me in some sort of official or regal way. I want to learn the way people cook at home: What’s in their fridge, what spice is in the front of the spice cupboard, where do they shop at the market?”

Duguid stayed in people’s homes, reached out to strangers in the streets, shops or markets, or planned for meetings with friends and relatives through contacts in her native Toronto and elsewhere. “It was a person-to-person connection in every situation.”

Was she afraid travelling around countries like Iran? “Never,” she says without hesitation. 

The result of Duguid’s adventures are detailed in this brilliant and beautiful book, where ingredients such as saffron, pomegranate, yogurt, mint (preferably dried), beans, rice, tart fruit and nuts (walnuts galore!), as well as traditional foodstuffs like flatbreads, cheese, kebabs and herb-loaded soups transport many of us to a world far removed from our own. The food shots were taken in a New York studio, but all the pictures of landscapes, children, gardens, bakeries, markets, pantries and cell-phone-toting shepherds are Duguid’s.

This appealing mix of fruit, spice, bread and meat, as well as vegetarian dishes are sure to seduce adventurous palates. The Persian dishes called borani are especially enticing with their mix of cooked vegetables like beets or spinach, served with yogurt, fried onions and toasted walnuts.

Says Duguid: “Frugality has been a major part of the way these cultures cook. They are closed off, so they made do with what they have. There is no sense of depravation, for example, through lack of meat. I have a recipe in the book for vegetarian cabbage roots, and they are lush and fabulous. ”

Meat lovers are well-served, too, though, with pork-filled dumplings with sour-plum sauce, lamb stews, chicken stews and kebabs galore. The chapter on flatbreads is sure to inspire bakers eager to try the recipes for Kurdish hand pies, Kurdistan kerchief flatbreads and Persian pebble breads from Iran that are indeed baked atop trays of stones, pebbles or gravel. And there are sweets, too, be they apricot-studded baklava, Armenian puff-pastry cake, cookies made with cardamom or rose water, and thick jams that go by the name moraba. When we say “Persian cuisine” we tend to focus on Iran, but the appeal of this book is the connections Duguid has made between all the featured countries.  

Taste of Persia includes travel notes for intrepid foodies willing to head out to investigate for themselves. Duguid also includes information on the wines of the Caucasus region, especially Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, whose wines originated about 8,000 years ago and are widely sought out by “natural” (additive-free) wine lovers today. 

Duguid is one of the few Western cookbook authors to focus on this region, yet Persian flavours have become the hot topic in the food world thanks to authors like Yotam Ottolenghi, while more and more Persian restaurants are opening in North America. But before we begin seeing Georgian eggplant roll-ups or topknot dumplings go mainstream, the bigger fear could be that as these countries open up to the West (or more specifically, Western investment), the traditional dishes will be swallowed up in this bottomless pit of generic North American/European cuisine, or as Duguid says, “I fear those dishes may eventually become the set piece at a Georgian tourist restaurant. These countries have been closed off with few influences from the outside. If that changes, these traditions may be lost.”

But what a wonderful opportunity she had to catch all of this food still rooted in its past.  “It’s a bit like the 1930s when you go to these countries,” says Duguid. “It felt like a lucky time to be there. We have to appreciate these things while we can.”

***

Three recipes from the book: pâté, kababs and roll-ups 

Here are three recipes excerpted with permission from Naomi Duguid’s Taste of Persia (Artisan Books, 2016), each with helpful, substantial descriptions from the author:

Walnut and Bean Pâté

Makes about 4 cups 

This lobahashu, a dish from the Lori region of Armenia, which borders on southeastern Georgia, blends finely ground walnuts into cooked mashed kidney beans. The result is a creamy, garlicky pâté tinted pale pink by the beans. If you can, make it a day or even two days before you wish to serve it (and keep it in the refrigerator). The flavours deepen and blend remarkably over time.

I like spreading this on bread or scooping it up with crackers. Guests love it and can’t get enough of it. Serve as an appetizer or a snack. I also like to put this out as part of a meal, another hit of flavour available on the table. 

Walnut and bean pâté.

2 cups walnuts or walnut pieces 

3 garlic cloves, minced 

4 cups cooked kidney beans

2 tablespoons sunflower or olive oil

1½ teaspoons sea salt

Generous grinding of black pepper 

About ½ cup chopped fresh dill, tarragon, or coriander, or 1½ teaspoons dried mint

1. Place the walnuts in a wide, heavy skillet over medium heat and toast them, stirring them frequently so they don’t scorch, until aromatic, about 5 minutes. (The recipe I learned in Armenia did not include this toasting, but it assumed locally grown superb walnuts; the toasting helps bring out the flavour of the nuts.) Let cool for 10 minutes, then transfer them to a food processor and process to a fine texture. Add the garlic and beans and process to a smooth purée. Stop occasionally and scrape down the sides of the bowl to ensure that all the beans are incorporated. 

2. Turn the mixture out into a bowl, add the oil, salt and pepper, and stir thoroughly. Stir in the herbs.

3. Serve at room temperature. Refrigerate any leftover pâté in a well-sealed container for up to five days (though it is unlikely to last that long). 

***

Turkey Kebabs

shislik hinduska 

Until I went to Azerbaijan, I had never eaten, or even seen, turkey kebabs. They’re a big thing in Azerbaijan. Now that I’ve made them at home for friends, we all agree that it’s our favourite way to eat turkey. Use boneless leg or breast meat, whichever you prefer, or a mixture. You might take the opportunity to put some eggplants on to grill.

Marinated turkey kebabs.

Serves 8

3 pounds boneless turkey (see headnote), cut into 1½-inch chunks

2 medium onions, grated 

¼ cup verjuice, cider vinegar, rice vinegar or white wine vinegar

About 3 teaspoons ground sumac

About ¼ cup sunflower or extra-virgin olive oil

About 2 teaspoons sea salt 

At least three hours before you want to grill, rinse the turkey pieces, pat dry, and put in a large bowl. Add the grated onion, verjuice or vinegar, and 1 teaspoon of the sumac and stir and turn to expose all surfaces of the meat to the marinade. Cover and refrigerate to marinate for at least two hours, and as long as five hours; bring back to room temperature before grilling.

Preheat a charcoal or gas grill; you want moderate heat. 

Slide the turkey pieces onto skewers, leaving a small space between each piece (discard the marinade). Brush lightly with oil and sprinkle on a little salt. Place the skewers on the grill and cook, turning them frequently, until the meat is touched with colour and cooked through, about 15 minutes. Partway through cooking, sprinkle on about 2 more teaspoons sumac and 2 teaspoons salt.

When the meat is cooked, remove from the grill and slide off the skewers, heaping it on a platter. Serve with the salad, chopped fresh herbs, sauce of your choice, and rice.

***

Fried eggplant roll-ups.

Fried Eggplant Roll-Ups 

badrigiani

These succulent roll-ups are one of the treasures of the Georgian table. Strips of fried eggplant are coated with spiced walnut paste and rolled up. They’re best if made an hour or more ahead of time and slightly chilled, so that the filling firms up and the flavours have time to blend. Badrigiani make a great appetizer, though in Georgia they are usually served as part of a wide selection of dishes at a meal.

Serves 6 to 8

5 narrow Asian eggplants, about 12 inches long; or 10 Asian eggplants, about 8 inches long; or 2 pounds Mediterranean eggplant

Sea salt

About 3 tablespoons sunflower or extra-virgin olive oil

Filling

¾ cup walnuts or walnut pieces

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 teaspoon ground coriander (see Note) 

1 teaspoon ground blue fenugreek, or 

¾ teaspoon powdered dried fenugreek plus ½ teaspoon ground fenugreek leaves (see Note)

½ teaspoon sea salt

Scant ¼ teaspoon powdered dried red chilies (optional; see Note)

½ cup minced fresh coriander

½ cup minced fresh mint 

3 scallions, trimmed and finely chopped

1 tablespoon white wine vinegar or fresh lemon juice

Trim the stems off the eggplants and discard. Slice the eggplants lengthwise into 1⁄4-inch-thick strips; if the eggplants are very long or very wide, cut the slices in half crosswise or lengthwise to yield strips 4 to 6 inches long and 1 1⁄2 to 2 inches wide. Lay the slices on a parchment-lined baking sheet and sprinkle with salt generously. Set another baking sheet on top and weight it down with a heavy cast-iron pan (or set up an equivalent arrangement) and set the eggplant aside for an hour or so to drain and compress.

Meanwhile, make the filling: Combine the walnuts, garlic, ground spices, salt, and chilies in a food processor or a mortar and process or pound to blend thoroughly. 

Transfer to a bowl and stir in the herbs, scallions, and vinegar or lemon juice.

Rinse the eggplant strips thoroughly in a colander and squeeze dry. Place a wide, heavy skillet over medium-high heat, add 2 tablespoons oil, and heat until hot. Slide some eggplant strips into the oil, without crowding, lower the heat to medium, and fry, turning once, until cooked through, about 10 minutes. Lift out onto a paper towel–lined plate or baking sheet and set aside until cool enough to handle. Repeat with the remaining eggplant, adding more oil as necessary and heating it until hot before adding more eggplant.

Spread some filling on each eggplant strip, roll up, and set seam side down on a platter. Serve at room temperature.

NOTE: If you have Georgian spice blend, either homemade or store-bought, use 1 tablespoon of the blend instead of the coriander, fenugreek, and chilies.

Accords le Bistro
*** (three stars)
$$$

22 Ste-Catherine St. E. (near St-Laurent Blvd.)
Phone: 514-508-2122 
Website: www.accords.ca/le-bistro/
Open: Monday 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.;  Tues.-Wed. 11:30 to 10 p.m.; Thurs. and Fri. 11:30 a.m. to 11 p.m.; Sat. 5 p.m. to 11 p.m.
Licensed: Yes
Credit cards: All major
Wheelchair access: Yes
Parking: On the street with meters (difficult on show nights)
Vegetarian friendly: Not especially
Reservations: Recommended 
Price range: Starters: $10-$25; main courses $23-$30; desserts: $7-$8. Discovery menu $45, with wine $75.

Many restaurants latch on to a tried-and-true formula — clichéd French bistro or egg-centred breakfast eatery — and run with it. Some place the emphasis on turning tables, with low prices and low-quality ingredients to match. You get your uber-trendy restos, where the attitude of the staff outweighs the deliciousness of the food. And let’s not forget those countless places where half of the dishes show promise, but the rest are as disappointing as the second season of Narcos. 

Many of those restaurants end up with two-star reviews: not excellent, not terrible. Somewhere in the middle. But what restaurant-goers relish most are the extreme reviews — the star-studded raves with food descriptions so orgasmic that you end up drooling into your coffee, and, even more so, the bad reviews, where a critic not only takes the mickey out of a restaurant, but rips it apart — gladiator style — limb by limb. 

Having heard from readers over the years after hard-hitting reviews, these are the ones that grab readers particularly, the idea being, we appreciate that kind of honesty, no matter how brutal.

Truth is, though, it’s never fun to go medieval on a restaurant. Yet sometimes things are just plain bad. And I’m not talking off night here (a popular excuse rather than a common occurrence), I’m talking about lack of skill, be it in cooking or service.

One such example would be my review back in February of 2015 of Accords le Bistro. It was close to two years ago but I remember my experience clearly. As it’s located right next to several show venues like Place des Arts, Club Soda, Metropolis and the Maison symphonique, I so wanted it to be good. Alas…the service staff was friendly but the food was a mess, and when I asked for help choosing a wine, they actually called the sommelier at home. Oh boy…

And yet the beauty of the restaurant industry is how quickly an establishment can turn things around if, of course, the owners are willing. In this case the owners are as much of a draw as the restaurant’s great location as the partners include two big Québécois vedettes: Tout le Monde en Parle host Guy A. Lepage and TV presenter Chantal Fontaine. The third partner, Jean-Pierre Des Rosiers, is an organic-food importer. 

The restaurant’s wall of celebrities, including its owners.

This threesome also happens to own the Accords restaurant in Old Montreal, which received a glowing three-star review in these pages last December not long after news came that a new chef, Simon Mathys, was hired to oversee both restaurants. That hire paid off at the Old Montreal restaurant big time, and I’m thrilled to report the Quartier des Spectacles Accords le Bistro has gone from verging-on-disaster to one of my coups de coeur of 2016. 

Mathys’s style is modern, with chic plate presentations and smart flavour combinations, using colour and texture to great effect. Without exception, everything I tasted was delicious.

The menu follows the appetizer/main course format (though you can order several small plates for sharing), as well as a tasting menu for a reasonable $45, with the option of adding three glasses of wine for an extra $30. The wine selection is excellent, a bit pricey but smartly chosen, with an emphasis on privately imported organic and natural bottles.

Sous-chef Étienne Demers, co-owner Chantal Fontaine and chef Simon Mathys.

Our superb waiter recommended a fine Italian white in our price range (under $60) that paired beautifully with our food. Unless you’re a seasoned wine drinker, feel free to ask for suggestions from this rather lengthy list.

Cocktail lovers are well served also as the selection includes some absolute winners including a fizzy Pimm’s cup flavoured with orange, and my absolute favourite made with a homemade blueberry and lapsang souchong tea syrup mixed with tequila.

When the plates began to arrive, we jumped right in beginning with a dish starring pickled quail eggs. Served on a large slice of tomato set atop a tomato and pepper coulis and sprinkled with salted herbs, the tiny eggs were a treat, which you could down solo or pile up on the accompanying crackers.

Quail eggs on a tomato slice: A treat.

Equally scrumptious was the Ontario burrata with beef tongue, mostarda and hazelnuts. The tongue was a gutsy choice — that worked! — and the burrata was as milky and oozy as you could want. But that mostarda (spicy mustard and fruit preserve) stole the show with its light spicing and chunky texture.

We also lapped up the tuna with pickled vegetables. Cut into fat chunks and flavoured with miso, the soft and silky fish was further enhanced with a generous sprinkling of a sort of grain granola and topped with a few curls of pickled carrot, cucumber and radish. So seemingly simple, and yet this dish brilliantly combined diverse textures and flavours. Smart. 

Ontario burrata with beef tongue, mostarda and hazelnuts.

Main courses were all excellent, but for some reason arrived lukewarm. Argh! Still, we enjoyed the creamy pappardelle topped with slivers of matsutake mushroom and filled with duck confit. Ouf! Then there was a spectacular dish featuring slices of sirloin steak paired with charred leeks, sliced carrots and a few dabs of mustard and carrot foam. The presentation was classic Mathys, with those carrot coins, the foam, the dramatic plating of it all.

Sirloin steak paired with charred leeks, sliced carrots and a few dabs of mustard and carrot foam.

Rounding out the savoury course, we all raved about the duck with blueberry and sorrel. Served in two fat slices, the duck magret was grilled on the skin, rosy inside, and perfectly enhanced with a light blueberry sauce. But what wowed most were the yellow beets served alongside. Yellow beets can have muddy flavour, but these babies were just fabulous, tasting of beet instead of just sweet.

The duck with blueberry and sorrel.

The real sweets followed with dessert, all highly recommendable. There was great crumble-topped creamy chocolate cake, a sublime savarin cake paired with a spicy Chantilly cream and fruit compote, and a crisp mega cream puff filled with a light praline cream set atop a pool of strawberry sauce.

A crisp mega cream puff filled with a light praline cream.

As I sat there scarfing back all of this, I couldn’t help but recall the awful desserts I ate in this room once. Talk about your 180-degree turns!

Because of its location I would recommend Accords le Bistro to anyone looking for a pre- or post- show meal. But more than that, I would recommend this restaurant to anyone for any occasion because it’s just terrific. And I’ll end with one last word to the owners and the chef of this monumentally improved establishment: Bravo!   

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.

Chasse-Galerie
** 1/2 (two and a half)
$$$

4110 St-Denis St. (near Rachel St.)
Phone: 514-419-9601
Website: www.lechassegalerie.com
Open: Thursday to Monday, 5:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. 
Licensed: Yes
Credit cards: All major
Wheelchair access: No
Parking: On the street with meters 
Vegetarian friendly: Not especially
Reservations: Essential
Price range: Menus $49, $69, $109. With wine pairings add $59 or $69.

You know what’s great in a restaurant? Enthusiasm. There’s nothing quite like walking into a new restaurant staffed by a bunch of keeners to brighten your spirits. Tables are set just so, smiles abound, and the energy level in the kitchen is off the charts. All this unbridled enthusiasm permeates the air, resulting in an atmosphere so appealing that even if you enter disgruntled, within minutes you’re questioning why you don’t dine out more often.

The root of the word “restaurant” is the French “restaurer,” and a good restaurant does indeed restore our faith in maybe not humanity (a challenge these days) but simply ending the day well fed and looked after. 

Arriving at the new Chasse-Galerie restaurant on a recent Sunday night, I entered a world much like the one described above. The 50-seat room is in a sub-basement, with low ceilings and brick walls adding to the coziness of the setting.

There’s an open kitchen where three cooks are busy at work including chef Claude Le Bayon. The owners include Vianney Godbout, Christian David and Carl Gauthier, two of whom I recognize from their Facebook page, working the room along with two sharp waitresses.

Chef Claude Le Bayon works in an open kitchen, and the format is menus, which start at $49 for three courses and rise up to $109.

Service is flawless at this establishment, which manages to be both casual and fancy depending on how you want to play it. I can imagine coming here as much for a few small plates with a glass of wine as a celebratory supper.   

The restaurant’s name refers to the legend of “La Chasse Galerie” or “Bewitched Canoe,” which tells the tale of French-Canadian voyageurs who made a deal with the devil and are condemned to fly for eternity through the night skies chased by galloping horses and howling wolves — not exactly the most soothing of images.

The local legend idea is a bit at odds with this establishment, though, as the accents of the staff are more French than French-Canadian and so is the the cuisine. Instead of the habitant style I expected, the food is sophisticated in a nouvelle-French way. Ingredients are Québécois, however, and seasonal, as displayed by the fact that the kitchen is on its second menu since opening two months ago. Impressive.

Dishes are limited to three starters, four mains and three desserts, and the format is menus, which start at $49 for three courses and rise up to $109 if you’re up for a 10-course gourmet blow-out.

Prices are a bit steep, but the quality of cooking and ingredients are excellent. The wine list isn’t long, but the selections are interesting, with fair markups to match. You can also opt for by-the-glass wine pairings if you want to play matchy-matchy with your food. A selection of cocktails is also on offer and though I didn’t like the first gin-based drink I tasted called “Le Forêt,” I was happy to switch with a friend whose whisky-based cocktail was wonderful.

To begin, the kitchen sent out an amuse-bouche consisting of a foamy sea urchin soup enhanced with fish roe and served with a tiny éclair. I’m not a usual sea urchin lover but this soup perfectly captured its beautiful rich brininess. Nice.

The two caramelized scallops were served in a poultry jus covered with a smoky foam and decorated with tiny marigolds.

For the first course, we opted for scallops and foie gras. The scallops were divine. Served in a chic ceramic bowl, the two caramelized scallops were served in a poultry jus covered with a smoky foam and decorated with tiny marigolds. I liked everything about this dish including the perfect cooking of the seafood, the deep flavour of the broth and that funky sour hit from the flowers. Superb. 

The foie gras wasn’t quite what I had expected as it was whipped into a mousse and served with chunks of maple meringue and dribbles of yuzu syrup. As much as I enjoyed the silky mousse, the meringue and citrus syrup were far too sweet. Frankly, I would have been less surprised had this dish been served for dessert. 

Our next appetizer featured sautéed wild mushrooms served in a large, deep bowl smothered with potato purée and a brown-butter emulsion. Every bite was as soothing as an electric blanket in the heart of winter, with some meaty chanterelles stealing the show. An ideal choice for vegetarians as is, this dish would also be terrific gussied with shreds of braised pork or duck, or — why not? — a few cubes of seared foie gras?   

Halibut with squash (puréed and cubed), chopped chestnuts and a sauce tinged with smoky bacon.

Main courses came next, one with pigeon, the other with halibut. A rarity on Montreal menus, the pigeon was incredibly succulent, and well matched with a chervil root purée, sautéed mushrooms and a scattering of monarda petals.

All great, but what I didn’t like were the quenelles of hay ice cream served alongside. First of all, ice cream with no sweetness is dull, especially when made with hay, which isn’t know for its bold flavour. Second, everything that ice cream touched was too cold, and the mix of hot and cold just didn’t work — a shame as the hot elements were delicious.

Happily, the halibut fared better. Served with squash (puréed and cubed), chopped chestnuts and a sauce tinged with smoky bacon, the fish was fork-tender and melting. What a treat.

Before jumping on dessert, I asked whether they had any cheese for us to enjoy while finishing the wine.

No, I was told, which is a shame because this sort of formal French cuisine lends itself to a cheese course (and ever since the recent free-trade accord was signed, I’m all for more Quebec cheese in our restaurants). As for dessert, we tasted two, the first a chocolate-mousse dome layered with caramel and panna-cotta flavoured with pine.

Oh, how I loved it, especially the little “branch” of chocolate overtop dusted with pine powder. Even better, perhaps, was an apple dessert made with caramelized apple cubes sandwiched with flaky shards of gingerbread pastry and a lemony cream. Ouf! I had trouble sharing that one. So good. 

An apple dessert made with caramelized apple cubes sandwiched with flaky shards of gingerbread pastry with a lemony cream.

So much about my dinner at Chasse-Galerie was just that: so good. Yet there are elements here that need retooling, starting with the sweetness in some dishes, that hot/cold issue, and bread that tasted like yesterday’s. The background music needs a rethink, too. As much as I like classic rap (as in Ice T), two hours of it non-stop even at a low volume is a bit much. Restaurateurs should remember that what the chefs like to listen to in the kitchen isn’t always what we diners want to talk over during our meal.  

That said, I have high hopes for this new restaurant. There are a lot of ideas between these walls and plenty of good intentions to match. Chasse-Galerie is already generating a nice bit of buzz that, despite any galloping horses and howling wolves, is sure to snowball in the months to come.  

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.

La Habanera
* (one star)
$$-$$$

1216 Union Ave. (corner Cathcart St.)
Phone: 514-375-5355
Website: www.lahabanera.ca
Open: Tues. – Thurs. 5:30 p.m. to 10 p.m.; Fri. and Sat. 5:30 to 11 p.m.
Licensed: Yes
Credit cards: All major cards
Wheelchair access: No
Reservations: Essential
Vegetarian-friendly: Not especially
Parking: On the street with meters, several lots nearby
Price range: Small plates: $5-$15. 

This week’s restaurant is Cuban, a first in this column because here in Montreal, Cuban restaurants are limited to a handful of casual eateries. As for Cuban food as a whole, having been to Cuba, there is no doubt it is a challenge to explore the potential of this cuisine.

By definition, Cuban cuisine is a mix of native American Taino food with Spanish, African, and Caribbean influences. Cooking techniques and spices from the Spanish, African and Caribbean canon can be found in Cuban food, and in Havana, you may even stumble upon some Chinese-style dishes.

Some make joke that Cuban cuisine today consists of all-inclusive hotel buffets (not great) and a plethora of rice and beans dishes (not especially compelling), but the sad truth is Cubans have such a limited range of ingredients available to them that there is little opportunity to express their culture through food. 

So instead of serving what could be considered authentic Cuban cuisine, restaurants like this week’s La Habanera have concocted a sort of fantasy, Cuban-inspired cuisine. Its menu features dishes with creole sauces and tamarind marinades, along with salads and ceviches.

The bar at La Habanera, which has just 25 seats in total.

There are rum-soaked shrimp, tacos and a Cuban sandwich made with pork, ham, smoked mustard and Swiss cheese. There’s also a large selection of cocktails including classics like the mojito and Cuba libre as well as newfangled concoctions like a Bloody Mary with lychee and a guava-flavoured piña colada. Everything on this menu reads fun, fruity and festive.

With just 25 seats, La Habanera is a small restaurant, but the buzz around its opening in late June was considerable as it’s the newest restaurant from the group behind Biiru izakaya and one of my favourites of 2016, the fabulous Mexican resto Escondite.

Located just a few doors from Escondite, La Habanera is equally ambiance-driven, and the decor alone is worth a trip. With its patterned tile floor, photo-laden dusty pink walls, teal-coloured banquettes and neon signs (one that reads, “All you need is love & mojitos”), this room is like a movie set. I spent half my time admiring the colour and lighting schemes. All that’s missing is Papa Hemingway sucking back a daiquiri at the jewel box of a bar.

I myself enjoyed a mojito while perusing the menu on a recent Tuesday night. La Habanera has been hopping since it opened, so I waited a while before heading over, and when I arrived the room was half full. Yeah!

The mojito.

The mojito was fine, not the best I’ve ever had (which was in Cuba) but hardly the worst (which was also in Cuba). The classic Cuba libre is given a makeover here. Instead of rum and coke, the “Cuba libre 2.0” is made with spiced rum, coke, coffee and blackcurrant syrup, resulting in a sort of birthday-cake-like flavour.

The Cuba libre 2.0.

And then there was the “Hemingway daiquiri.” Made with white rum, pink grapefruit juice, lime and Luxardo Maraschino liqueur, the drink sounded promising but turned out to be a little dull. Not sure old Hemingway would be happy to be named after such a lacklustre libation. 

Turning to the food, the menu has definitely been built to please. The style is small plates, and portions are indeed small so you’ll want to order several per person. As with Escondite next door, everything reads so tempting. Yet unlike the fab dishes at Escondite, the food at La Habanera falls short.

The first dish to hit the table was “aguacate” (a.k.a. avocado), which was topped with bits of nougat, papaya, sorel leaves, cucumber and mojito vinaigrette. As interesting as it may sound, the majority of flavours were subtle, resulting in big mix of blah. 

The pizza empanada didn’t fare much better. Served with a dipping sauce on the side, this close-to-empty empanada was about as exciting as a McCain’s pizza pocket. My spirits soared a little when the ceviche hit the table. Made with snapper (according to our waitress) the dish included orange segments, jalapeño peppers and melon balls (cantaloupe and honey). I liked the mix of ingredients and, boy, the presentation was pretty. But the whole thing lacked pizzazz — especially those off-season melons.  

With the next round of dishes, we ordered another round of cocktails, this time from the “house” selection. There was that guava piña colada, which turned out to be candy sweet, and a mojito made with buckthorn berries that didn’t taste much of anything.

Then there was a third cocktail called the “Tout Inclu” (all included). Served in a glass rimmed with sesame seeds and coconut flakes, the “Tout Inclu” was made with coconut vodka, aloe vera, cucumber juice and lime. Crafting a killer cocktail is an art, but this drink tasted like something teenagers mix up with all the ends of the booze bottles ripped off from their parents’ liquor cabinet. I managed a whole two sips. Ugh.

The “piña’ribs,” pork ribs flavoured with adobo and coated with a maple/basil/pineapple glaze.

As for the food, the misses continued with tamarind-marinated beef brochettes salty enough to make my eyes water. Then there were the “piña’ribs,” pork ribs flavoured with adobo and coated with a maple/basil/pineapple glaze whose cloying sweetness trounced any pork flavour. 

By now you might be wondering, was anything good? Yes! Just when I was giving up on the place along came two seriously delicious plates, the first featuring those rum-soaked shrimp. Placed in small cups made out of plantains, the succulent shrimp were flavoured with coconut milk and a garlic-flavoured caramel. Garlic-flavoured caramel? OK. Wonderful!

Placed in small cups made out of plantains, the succulent shrimp were flavoured with coconut milk and a garlic-flavoured caramel.

And then there were the chicken tacos, filled with juicy shredded chicken, coleslaw, salsa verde and queso fresco cheese. Though I kept thinking this was a dish that belonged at Escondite next door, who cares? This was the last savoury dish of our meal, and, boy, did it end on a high note. 

The chicken tacos are filled with juicy shredded chicken, coleslaw, salsa verde and queso fresco cheese.

Unfortunately, I’d suggest you stop there because the two desserts on offer were a bust. First came an overcooked Nutella flan topped with a sheet of caramel as thick as a windshield, followed by a Tres Leches that tasted like stale cake soaked in a glass of milk. 

By the end of the meal, it was pretty obvious that even though the restaurant has been open for five months, it still lacks confidence, not only from the kitchen, but the bar and service staff as well. However, considering how well things are going at the neighbouring Escondite, the owners will hopefully turn things around. 

But I left La Habanera with much the same sentiment as when I departed Cuba on my last trip: What a terrific place! Too bad about the food.  

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.

Stella Pizzeria
** 1/2 (two and a half stars) 
$$-$$$

1327 Laurier Ave. E (near Chambord St.)

Phone: 514-903-9448
Website: www.stellapizzeria.ca
Open: Sun.-Wed. 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Thurs.-Sat. 11:30 a.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: $5.50-$18; pizzas $13-$18; desserts: $6.

The past two years have seen a definite surge in one category of restaurant: the pizzeria.

If I were to open a restaurant, I would consider this genre seriously because an excellent pizzeria checks off so many elements people want in a restaurant.

The appetizer list would all but write itself with the usual suspects — Caesar salad, caprese salad, carpaccio, calamari and possibly a minestrone or prosciutto/melon.

A pizza-friendly, but not necessarily complex, wine list would be a pleasure to pull together, and dessert could be limited to those Italian faves like tiramisu, cannoli and gelato.

The real challenge would be finding a gifted pizzaiolo (pizza chef), but eager pizza beavers are always keen to learn. And if you hire the right staff and find the winning formula, you can even venture out into low-rent neighbourhoods for a locale because people will travel for something special.

On top of that, pizza’s not an expensive menu item, so food cost would be reasonable.

So you see, this pizza surge isn’t so much surprising as give-the-people-what-they-want smart. Looking at the crowds at Montreal’s pizza restaurants these days, it seems we were all clamouring for good pizza.

Stella Pizzeria opened on Sept. 1 and has already generated quite the foodie buzz. It’s located on Laurier Ave. E. on a stretch known for its food shops — chief among them the fabulous bakery Le Fromentier, and terrific ice cream parlour Bo-Bec. Stella will be familiar to some as a former Starbucks café. This is deep Plateau territory, and I am told the Starbucks went belly up because of a lack of patronage from the locals.

Stella co-owner Nathalie Côté, a longtime resident of the area, had her eye on the locale and swept in with partners Sara Belley and chef Alessandro Bleve. Having shunned the corporate coffee shop, residents now have a super, 50-seat pizzeria to call their own. Seriously, how cool is that? 

The wine list is short but well-crafted and affordable, while cocktail lovers will enjoy the Stella — a refreshing mix of Aperol, gin, lemon, pink grapefruit and basil.

Côté is also a co-owner of the swank Brasserie Bernard and, obviously, knows a thing or two about creating a winning dining space. Stella’s decor is vastly appealing in that laid-back, table-cloth-free, blondey-wood sort of way. As with so many new restaurants, the lighting scheme is a key player in the design and the open kitchen and bar seating give it that cozy neighbourhood restaurant feel.

I dined at Stella twice over the past few weeks and on both occasions was left wishing, as many of us do after frequenting a great neighbourhood restaurant, that it was in my own backyard.  

Beyond the warm ambience, the service is wonderful. My first visit was on the day after a certain, shall we say, controversial election south of the border, so a little cheering up was in order. Somehow, without hovering or being overly friendly, Belley did just that.

With a smile and a calm demeanour in a busy room, she offered menu descriptions and kept the service going at just the right pace. I have a weakness for great service staff, and Belley is a real pro who also knows her wines, recommending a fine Tuscan red from a short, but well crafted and affordable list.

Cocktail lovers will also be happy, especially with the Stella cocktail, a refreshing mix of Aperol, gin, lemon, pink grapefruit and basil. Yum!

Not your usual tuna salad. This appetizer features red tuna cubes mixed with apples, red onion, cherry tomatoes, black olives, capers and pine nuts. 

As for the food, appetizers started out strong. I enjoyed their take on Caesar salad, starring kale instead of the usual romaine. Now before you kale haters roll your eyes, give this one a try, as the leaves weren’t bitter or tough, and the caper dressing was potent without being overwhelming. Add some croutons, grated Crotonese cheese (made with Italian sheep’s milk) and fried pancetta to the mix and you have a great take to this all-to-often ill-crafted classic.

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The roasted beet salad is a little less impressive as the already-sweet beets are topped with caramelized orange zest and a pomegranate reduction, making the whole thing a little cloying. Thank heavens for the feta cheese to add a salty contrast. 

The beef carpaccio is a better bet. Yeah, we all know the drill here — a plate covered with thin slices of raw beef, with an arugula salad plunked in the middle and Parmesan curls overtop. Bo-ring. But not so this dish, as the meat had a nice fresh flavour (carpaccio can sometimes taste stale and, um, bloody), well-enhanced with a subtle truffle vinaigrette as well as caper berries and slivers of sun dried tomato. We scarfed it back in seconds.

However, the best appetizer was yet to come. Described simply as a tuna salad on the menu, what arrived was a glistening round of red (sustainable) tuna cubes, mixed with apples, red onion, cherry tomatoes, black olives, capers and pine nuts. One bite and — wow! — I’m in love. What a perfect salad, with the ingredients bouncing off each other and a fine vinaigrette to boost the flavours. I’m yearning for the recipe.

Porchetta pizza. At Stella, the crust is more crisp than the pouffy Neapolitan-style pie popular around town.

Of course, the main event at Stella is the pizza, and there, alas, I’m divided. Of the 11 on offer, I sampled four, loved one, enjoyed two, and found the fourth forgettable.

The crust on these pizzas is more crisp than the pouffy and blister-crusted Neapolitan-style pie we’re seeing more of around town. The colour is on the light side rather than deep golden. Chef Bleve, who hails for a family of pizza makers, obviously has his style, but I prefer my pizza crust a little softer and less pallid.

Crust aside, the toppings are nicely varied, from classic margherita to the “Italian” enhanced with sausage, mushrooms and a truffled tapenade. My top pick was a nightly special, garnished with porchetta, tomato, arugula and smoked provolone. I loved the saltiness of the pork, which boosted the all-around taste of the pie, and the provolone was delicious.

But that same night a vegetarian pizza — the “Laurier” — fell flat because the flavours were bland, especially the canned artichokes and soggy spinach. But you can’t go wrong with the “Coquine,” a pizza featuring spiced pancetta, caramelized onions, olives and mozzarella on a tomato-sauce base. A bit sweeter, but also very nice, is the “Montagnarde” topped with prosciutto, goat’s cheese, caramelized figs, fresh mozzarella and tomato.

And yet, as much as I enjoyed the best of these pies, that crust never won me over. There’s no denying, though, it could be a matter of personal taste.

For dessert, there’s a perfectly acceptable tiramisu, which would benefit from a lighter dusting of cocoa and a generous shot of booze (this is a family restaurant, though, so maybe they prefer to omit the alcohol). There was a simple bowl of strawberries and vanilla ice cream, too, and a saffron crème brûlée with just the right silky texture. 

Nabbing a same-day reservation was not a problem either time. Yet remembering how quickly the room filled up during both my meals, I would recommend booking a table in advance. Though open just close to three months, this neighbourhood restaurant is already packing ’em in. Just imagine if all the city’s chain coffee houses were replaced with dynamic local businesses like this.

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.

Related

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Le Millen
★★ out of ★★★★
$$$

1185 Fleury St. E. (near Chambord St.)

Phone: 514-903-0636
Website: lemillen.com
Open: Thurs.-Fri. 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.; Tues.-Wed. 5:30 p.m. to 10 p.m.; Fri.-Sat. 5 p.m. to 11 p.m.; Sun. 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Licensed: No, BYOW
Credit cards: All major cards
Wheelchair access: No
Reservations: Recommended
Vegetarian-friendly: Not especially
Parking: on the street, some meters
Price range: Appetizers $12-$20; main courses $24-$34. Five-course dinner menu $54. Three-course lunch menu $19.

Most of the reader mail I receive are requests for restaurant recommendations. You know, best casual Italian, best resto to take Mom for her birthday, best place for showing off the city to the in-laws.

I used to dole them out quite enthusiastically until I realized many people ask for restaurant recommendations simply to see whether I suggest a place they already had in mind.

It’s a bit like when you ask a friend whether you look better in outfit A or B, and you hope he or she will pick the one you prefer. What the asker is after is not so much a recommendation as reassurance.

In the end, I’ve found, people tend not to take the advice, anyway. If you ask for a steakhouse recommendation and I say Moishes, chances are you’ll go to Gibbys if that’s what you had in mind in the first place. Human nature, I guess.

The exception is bring-your-own-wine establishments. If I had a dollar for every time people asked me to recommend a BYOW restaurant — and then they followed through and actually went there — well, I’d have a lot of dollars.

People like the BYOW genre because they like to save money. That’s understandable considering that in restaurants, wines are marked up on average 2.4 times their retail value. The drawback, though, is many of these places are mediocre.

Le Millen has an understated decor with an open kitchen and Eames-style chairs.

I recently heard from various sources about a new BYOW resto called Le Millen in Ahuntsic. It’s owned by Marc-André Paradis, the restaurateur behind some of Montreal’s best BYOB restos, like Ô Thym, Les Canailles, Les Héritiers and Monsieur B.

His partner here and at Monsieur B in Plateau-Mont-Royal is Georges Blais, and the chef is Jérémie Gélinas-Roy, a former sous-chef at Monsieur B. It all sounded promising.

Le Millen is on a commercial stretch of Fleury St. that on the west side includes the excellent Le St-Urbain restaurant, and on the east side boasts La Petite Boulangerie, home of one Montreal’s best baguettes. Along with some top-notch butchers, bakers and chocolate-makers, this foodie stretch is on a par with the best in the city. 

Squeezed in among all this, Le Millen is a small restaurant with a rather plain decor that includes an open kitchen and multicoloured Eames-style chairs. The food is far more formal than the room, and the menu includes posh ingredients like foie gras, sweetbreads, and a pistachio crème brûlée.

Pepper sauce is poured on a contre-filet dish. You can order a $54 five-course menu, or à la carte.

You can order a five-course, $54 menu, which includes an amuse-bouche, a trou Normand and the occasional extra. You can also go à la carte. Prices are quite steep, but the food is more special-occasion than casual in style, and portions are generous. 

Once the plates hit the table, it’s obvious chef Gélinas-Roy favours fancy-verging-on-fussy presentations. After a rather insignificant salmon amuse-bouche came three appetizers featuring quail, scallops and bison.

The quail was served with a side of seared foie gras set on a purée of shiitake mushrooms. Sadly, the golden half-bird was woefully overcooked and the foie had a mushy texture, a sign it had either been frozen or was sliced from a poor-quality lobe. As much as I liked the flavour combinations, the so-so cooking techniques killed this dish.

Scallop starter. It’s obvious chef Jérémie Gélinas-Roy favours fancy-verging-on-fussy presentations.

Served in small shells over cauliflower purée, the scallops were better, though I think the pancetta used as a flavour enhancer made the added bits of octopus de trop — call it octopus overkill.

My favourite of the three starters was the bison carpaccio. Served with pickled and sautéed mushrooms, the curls of bison flesh were interspaced with a few cipollini onions, set over a streak of spinach emulsion and decorated with dabs of violet mustard. With bright colours and assorted shapes, the whole thing worked as a sort of fashionista charcuterie plate.   

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Main courses were bigger and generally better. My favourite was a sirloin steak served with marvellous roasted potatoes and a pepper sauce topped with sliced red chilies and an abundance of chives. Yum!

Equally piggy was a dish of pork belly with chorizo that kind of went overboard with garnishes, including pickled melon, hazelnuts, orange supremes, and again, a handful of chopped chives. The chef had me with the tender pork, the caramelized apple cider sauce and the fine mashed potatoes underneath it all, so why distract with all the doodads?

And that same tendency to gild the lily marred a dish of sweetbreads. Served in a bowl, the crisp nuggets of fried ris de veau were blanketed with an enormous cloud of foam flavoured with smoked lard. I liked the foam, but why so much of it?

Underneath we uncovered a couple of langoustine brochettes, a red cabbage purée and a roasted garlic meat jus. There’s potential in this dish, but that smokey foam was as dominant on that plate as the name “Trump” on my Twitter feed.

Brownie dessert with fresh fruit. Desserts are a hit at Le Millen.

Between courses, we were served a palate-cleansing sorbet that was acidic, icy and in desperate need of a little TLC.

I was getting more than a bit discouraged when along came dessert. First, the aforementioned pistachio crème brûlée, which was perfectly creamy and utterly delicious. Don’t miss out on that one. Then there is a brownie-like cake that’s really more like a block of fudge, which didn’t stop us from devouring it. And I quite liked the lemon pie verrine, whose lemon curd centre was far less acrid than the previous sorbet.

I’m scratching my head a bit as to whether I’d recommend this restaurant, as dinner for three came in at a pretty steep $255 with tip. Service was excellent and the ambience was calm, yet not overly so (as in dull). Not sure I would drive across town to eat here, but locals should give it a try.

I exited just wishing the chef would play the dishes more simple. A little paring down would do a world of good. But that’s just my suggestion. As with a restaurant recommendation, it’s up to the others to make the final decision.    

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.

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Ristorante Da Vinci
★★ (two out of four stars)
$$$$

1180 Bishop St. (near Ste. Catherine St. W.)

Phone: 514-874-2001

Website: www.davinci.ca

Open: Mon.- Fri. 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.; Sat. 5 p.m.-11 p.m.

Wheelchair access: No

Reservations: Recommended

Vegetarian friendly: Yes

Parking: On the street with meters, difficult on hockey nights.

Cards: All major

Price range: Starters $11-$25; pasta and risotto $22-$43; main courses $29-$49; desserts $8.50-$11.50.

Toronto food writer Amy Rosen recently came to Montreal to write about our upscale, and by now old-school, Szechuan restaurants. According to Rosen, restaurants like L’Orchidée de Chine and Piment 2 (the remake of the old Piment Rouge) are unique in Canada and have become a category onto their own. It never occurred to me such establishments weren’t omnipresent in all big cities, which made me wonder about old-school restaurants overall.

Since Le Mas des Olivier closed, you would be hard-pressed to find a classic French restaurant in Montreal. And as for Italian, consider how many have closed over the past decade — among them, La Cantina, Casa Napoli, Le Muscadin, Le Piémontais and La Sila, as well as those two power houses, Le Latini and Il Mulino.

With a push in one direction toward authenticity and another toward creativity, Italian food has taken on renewed appeal in our city, especially when enjoyed in less formal surroundings at more reasonable prices.

And yet, the older Italian restaurants still seem to be drawing in crowds, proof being a dining room full of happy diners at a recent meal at one of downtown’s most famous old-school Italian restaurants, Da Vinci.

First reviewed in these pages 17 years ago, DaVinci had been operating since 1960 at the time under the Mazzaferro family. The menu, southern in spirit, offered a repertory of popular dishes from various regions of Italy.

Olive oil is poured on the tomato and mozzarella appetizer.

Waiters were tuxedoed, tables were clothed and towering pepper mills descended the moment appetizers hit the table. Top quality Tuscan olive oil was set on every table, a bowl of walnuts was served before dessert and homemade amaretti cookies arrived with coffee. All great.

Save for the high wine markups (a given, alas, with many of the city’s Italian restaurants), I loved the whole thing, from the carpaccio made with thinly sliced beef tenderloin, to the silky semifreddo packed with caramelized hazelnuts and chocolate.

There was nothing all that exciting about the food, but the quality of ingredients was excellent and the end result was delicious.

On the way out, the gentlemen waiters would always thank you for coming, you’d pick up your coat at the coat check (when was the last time you even saw a coat check?) and you’d linger for a few minutes in the vestibule checking out the photo display of stars like Céline Dion, Michael Schumacher and Jean Béliveau (Da Vinci is a long standing favourite with the hockey crowd).

When heading back out onto Bishop St., you couldn’t help thinking though a night at Da Vinci didn’t come cheap, it was all so civilized.

Ossobucco is a house specialty at Ristorante Da Vinci.

I returned a few times over the years, the last being in 2008 after the restaurant was bought from the Mazzaferos by an American family. I still recall that perfect Italian meal in the beautiful-as-ever, candlelit dining room. The chef, Renato Ferrante, a veteran of the establishment, earned a three-and-a-half star rating.

Now, eight years later, the restaurant has changed hands again, with Ferrante taking over with a front-of-house partner, Vincenzo Amodeo. I was happy to hear the same chef was in place, and eager to return en famille to see what — if anything — had changed.

Well, sadly, much has changed. There are still many positives to a night at Da Vinci, but it’s not quite the restaurant I remember.

First, the menu seems frozen in time. I can understand staying true to the classics, but I can’t help but wonder how long a chef can keep making arugula and Parmesan salads and seafood fettuccini before going around the bend.

And as for the little details I remember? Long gone. We were presented with a platter of sliced sausage and garlic bread, and then a basket filled with some more (pretty terrible) bread and rock-hard grissini. Not the most auspicious start to the meal, but the waiters were so friendly and welcoming, and the ambience was so pleasantly formal that one of my kids said: “Mom, I’ll make an extra effort to sit up straight tonight.”  

The lamb — “pink and delectable” — is served with risotto and peas.

To begin, we opted for those three Italian restaurant warhorses: caprese salad, fried calamari, and a prosciutto and Parmesan platter.

As we’re not in tomato season, I inquired about the quality of the tomatoes. Not to worry, said our waiter, they were top quality Savoura tomatoes that were nice and “crispy.” Not sure crispy’s a quality you look for in a tomato, but the ones that arrived were firm and delicious. But what scored most was the luscious buffalo mozzarella served alongside that simply made the dish.

As for the calamari, well, it wasn’t as shattering-on-the-outside-and-tender-on-the-inside as the one I last tasted here, but it was still perfectly acceptable. But the prosciutto plate was a bust as it contained six slices of prosciutto and a few tiny bâtonnets of Parmigiano-Reggiano without a drop of the promised “aged balsamic from Modena.” For $19, that sad and stingy plate didn’t cut it.

From the pasta section of the menu we sampled a plate of ricotta gnocchi. The dumplings were nice and light, but poorly enhanced by the accompanying thin and rather sweet tomato sauce.

The farfalle Santa Maria is a house classic which I enjoyed here in the past, made with spaghetti instead of today’s bow-tie pasta. Sautéed with smoked salmon, shrimp, tomatoes and green onion, the pasta was too copious in portion, especially in regards to the smoked salmon, which overwhelmed all the other flavours. I remember liking this dish, but this time half went back untouched.  

Don’t miss the cannoli, Lesley Chesterman writes. “Utterly scarffable.”

The next dishes fared better. First up, risotto enhanced with green peas and topped with succulent little lamb chops. The meat was rosé and delectable, and though the risotto was mushier than I would have liked, my kids lapped it up in seconds. Still, for $35, I expect a made-to-order risotto and this one tasted like it was cooked halfway in advance.

That very same risotto arrived with a dish of ossobuco. Another house specialty, this hulking veal shank wowed because the meat was flavourful, tender, perfectly cooked and loaded with plenty of soft marrow. Yum!

Though missing the traditional gremolata garnish and served with one measly stem of bitter rapini, the dish was one of the highlights of the dinner, especially with the San Felice Chianti 2012 we selected from a wine list filled with old classics unfortunately sold at steep prices. That San Felice retails for $27.20 at the SAQ and sells for $75 here, which, in the end, sets you back $97 with tax and tip. Ouch. 

From the dolci menu, there’s a fine molten chocolate cake and a good — if a little stiff — panna cotta. But if you’re to get one dessert, don’t miss the cannoli, which are crunchy/creamy and utterly scarffable.

I left DaVinci stuffed, but definitely lighter in the pocket. This is an expensive restaurant, and for the price I wish the food was that much sharper. I liked the warm ambience, the formality of the place, the oh-so solicitous service. And I understand there’s a price to pay for old-school fine dining. But having experienced superior food in this very same space prepared by the very same chef, no doubt they could and should do better.

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.

Related

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Leméac
Rating: ★★★ out of ★★★★
$$$

1045 Laurier Ave. W. (near Durocher St.)
Phone: 514-270-0999
Website: restaurantlemeac.com
Open: Monday-Friday, noon to midnight; Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m. to midnight.
Licensed: Yes
Credit cards: All major
Wheelchair access: Yes
Reservations: Essential
Parking: On the street with meters
Price range: Starters $8-$27; main courses $23-$54; desserts $9-$14. After 10 p.m. two-course menu: $27. 

This is the final review of 2016 so I decided to end with the restaurant that I have frequented the most this year and has never let me down: Leméac.

Why re-review a well-known bistro that’s always crowded and serves more or less the same menu as Day 1? Because I feel that, despite its success, this elegant Outremont restaurant is under-appreciated.

I have always enjoyed Leméac, but lately that “like” has turned to love. The bistro is celebrating its 15th anniversary, and I’m convinced it has never been better. 

The elegant bistro on Laurier Ave. is under-appreciated, writes Lesley Chesterman.

This year, I have brunched at Leméac, lunched on occasion, and enjoyed several superb dinners.

I ate on the great terrasse, lay low on one of the two discreet banquettes in the back, grabbed a stool at the crowded bar, and happily sat at a table in the middle of it all soaking up the action.

The room is populated with well-heeled families, couples and people I always imagine to be authors dining with their literary agents.

The patrons are older and more subdued; the room is bustling, but not half as noisy as in the early years. Since then, Leméac has become a real Montreal institution.

Maxime Saine, left, with his father, Emile, owner of Leméac.

Conceived by the late, great architect Luc Laporte, the dining room is supremely handsome. Arched windows face Laurier Ave. and Durocher St., allowing copious amounts of sunlight to permeate the wine-coloured, wood-panelled, stone-floored room by day, and create the illusion of a fashionable fishbowl at night.

On the left side of the restaurant is the famous terrasse, where in summer you’re sure to spot chic patrons nibbling smoked salmon while sipping rosé.

In a city crowded with small eating establishments, it’s nice to dine in such a sweeping space, especially as the night carries on and a new crowd shows up for the after-10 p.m. menu — a steal at $27. 

Related

• More reviews: Da Vinci a stalwart of old-school Italian
• Le Millen not your typical BYOW place
• Accords le Bistro in the Quartier des spectacles is a delicious turnaround story

My mission when I come here is much like when I visit Montreal’s other beloved bistro, L’Express: most often, it’s to enjoy dinner, perhaps made up of favourites or maybe something new, and always with a bottle of wine.

Leméac’s wine list is a treat for oenophiles; the selection includes primarily privately imported bottles from the world over. Prices aren’t cheap, but quality is high and you will find some real gems like the “vin nature” (sulphite-free) Fleurie Beaujolais I enjoyed during a recent visit that paired perfectly with blood pudding, or a German pinot blanc I savoured at brunch, or that Corsican rosé I quaffed in the hot sun on the terrasse.

Cocktail lovers take note: they mix up a nice Aperol spritz, too.

The onglet frites might be the best in town, says Lesley Chesterman.

For those less skilled at selecting the right bottle, rest assured the staff can help you make a choice. Service has been a strength of Leméac’s since Day 1, and never have I been faced with anything less than well-schooled waiters who straddle the line between friendly and efficient in a very busy room. 

As for the food, some may knock the fact the menu hasn’t budged in 15 years, but the dishes conceived by co-owner and chef Richard Bastien and the original chef de cuisine Stelio Perombelon (now chef at M. Mme up the street) remain relevant and delicious in the hands of current chef Maxim Vadnais.

There are several daily specials as well. It’s true Leméac was quite a bit less expensive when it opened, but considering the quality of ingredients, today’s price point is fair. 

Having sampled every dish on the menu, I’ll focus on the ones I’d recommend most. The fish soup is deeply flavoured and has the ideal velvety texture. The hearty minestrone, filled with chunks of sausage, is probably the best I’ve ever tasted. The goat cheese salad has just a bit of frisée lettuce, slices of green apple, walnuts and toasted rounds of not-too-potent goat cheese. Enjoy that with a glass of Sancerre and I guarantee olfactory fireworks.

Other favourite appetizers include the vegetable tian, wrapped in ribbons of zucchini and topped with buttery melted cheddar. And then there is the blood pudding. Served with celery root purée, the boudin has a delicate flavour and requisite devil’s food cake texture.

Blood pudding. The boudin has the requisite devil’s food cake texture.

I’m not always a fan of boudin (some are too dense, too spicy or too bloody) but Leméac’s is a treat. You also can’t go wrong with the tartares. Opt for either the somewhat-spicy beef or fresh-tasting salmon, both are textbook.

The food at Leméac may play it safe, but if the end result is delicious, why not?

The onglet frites might be the best in town; the steak is tender and flavourful and the fries are thin, crisp and impossible to resist.

The herb-crusted calve’s liver, rack of lamb with scalloped potatoes, and duck leg confit are all excellent, as is the heaping portion of mussels and the delicate cod filet served on a mound of fennel and potato purée.

But if I had to chose an absolute favourite dish, it would be the salmon pot au feu. Presented in a large, covered bowl, the generous salmon filet is surrounded by a light broth filled with carrots, potatoes and Brussels sprouts. Topped with a sprinkling of fleur de sel and chives, this juicy fish dish is always a go-to after a week of over-indulgence. 

Salmon pot au feu is presented in a large, covered bowl.

Alas, not all is perfect at Leméac.

Vegetarians can opt for the asparagus and wild mushroom risotto and end up happy, unless they were expecting more in the way of wild mushrooms. The ones used are more often found in the supermarket than the forest.

The mushroom ravioli is also a bit of a letdown; the pasta pockets are on the thick side, and the demi-glace sauce lacks finesse.

And though the half Rock Cornish game hen was crisp-skinned and succulent, the accompanying polenta fries were overcooked and dry. 

But the last course is sure to make you forget any preceding missteps, as dessert is one of the things I love most about a night at Leméac. I have gobbled them all down, and all are recommendable. Don’t miss the elegant profiteroles, the delicate lemon tart and the sticky toffee pudding made with bananas and dates.

Impossible to resist: chocolate tart topped with ginger ice cream.

My best in show dessert goes to the chocolate tart topped with ginger ice cream; even dessert haters will battle it out for the last morsel.

And though it is the epitome of sheer piggyness, the thick slab of French toast topped with milk jam ice cream and surrounded with maple caramel sauce is one of life’s great pleasures. 

Polishing off such desserts in a beautiful, warm room on a chilly night is about as good as it gets in Montreal.

Leméac is open seven days a week and throughout most of the holiday season. I recommend it to those who are up for fresh culinary adventures in the new year. 

Related

• More reviews: Da Vinci a stalwart of old-school Italian
• Le Millen not your typical BYOW place
• Accords le Bistro in the Quartier des spectacles is a delicious turnaround story

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.

Tiradito

*** (three stars)

$$-$$$

1076 Bleury St. (corner Dowd St.)

Phone: 514-866-6776

Website: tiraditomtl.com

Open: Tues.- Sat. 5 p.m. to 11 p.m.

Wheelchair access: No

Reservations: Essential

Vegetarian-friendly: Yes

Parking: On the street with meters.

Cards: All major

Price range: Small plates: $5-$16. Desserts $6-$9.

This is the first review of 2017 and happily it’s a positive one because we all know it could go either way. That’s especially the case in an establishment this trendy, for Tiradito is about as trendy as sriracha, Sunday brunch and Netflix Gilmore Girls binge-fests. 

If you read even one of those food trend reports for 2017, you’re sure to run into terms such as “asian-influenced,” “small-plate cuisine,” “curated cocktails,” as well as my favourite, “re-tooled ethnic” (a decade ago, “re-tooled ethnic” meant “fusion,” but I digress). Tiradito isn’t perfect — which restaurant is? — but what impressed most is how it manages to coast the wave of such trends instead of the usual trend-overkill wipeout. 

Opened last November by partners David Dumay, David Schmidt (the restaurateur behind Thazard and Bar Kabinet) and chef Marcel Olivier Larrea, Tiradito has been rapidly gaining a following. If Larrea’s name reads familiar it’s because his last chef post was at the Peruvian restaurant Mezcla. I swooned over his cuisine back in Mezcla’s heyday and was eager to see where he’d land after leaving last year.

Whereas Mezcla was Peruvian-meets-Québécois, Tiradito is a blend of Peruvian and Japanese cuisine. That mix may sound unusual but not so, as it’s a style of cuisine known as “Nikkei” – based on Peruvian ingredients, prepared with Japanese techniques. 

If chef Marcel Olivier Larrea’s name reads familiar it’s because his last chef post was at the Peruvian restaurant Mezcla.

Dating back over a century to the large influx of Japanese workers in Peru, this fusion of two culinary traditions gained international accolades thanks to several famed chefs, starting with sushi master Nobu Matsuhisa (of Nobu fame). In his early career, he owned a restaurant in Peru. Then came Ferran and Albert Adria; their Barcelona restaurant, Pakta, is Peruvian- and Japanese-themed. And finally, the youngest of the group, Mitsuharu Tsumura, is considered a master of this style. His restaurant, Maido in Lima, ranks no less than No. 13 on the World’s 50 Best list. So how great to welcome this new cuisine to the Montreal landscape at Tiradito, named after a Peruvian dish similar to ceviche, but sliced like sashimi, and covered in a spicy sauce. More on that later. 

It all sounded promising, so with images of newfangled pisco sours dancing in my head, I made my way downtown on a cold night to this hot new restaurant.

The space is unusual in that it’s a high-ceilinged room with a large open kitchen in the centre and sixty seats around the perimeter, most of which are stools. Lights are low and the music is loud but thankfully good, catchy even. You can dine at Tiradito and enjoy a series of tapas-sized plates, like we did, or a cocktail and a few nibblies before heading out into the night like the twentysomethings beside us.

A fun dish to crunch on: fat shrimp brushed with sriracha, baked in ribbons of dough as thin as spring roll wrappers, served with a sweet and sour chicha morada sirop dipping sauce.

We got the ball rolling with a cocktail that was made in front of us by our waitress, who then described the dishes, pointing out her favourites. We ordered a good many of the 18 on offer and prepared to be wowed.

In addition to the pisco- and rum- and tequila-based cocktails, there are a few local beers on tap and a short but sharp wine list that’s a bit pricier than I expected, with only two wines under $50. That said, the food isn’t all that expensive, which means even with four plates per person (averaging $10 each) and a good bottle of wine, you’re still paying less here than at many of the city’s upscale restaurants. 

While sipping a pisco sour (nice but not as bracing as the ones from Montreal’s other renowned Peruvian chef, Mario Navarrete), our first plates arrived: a ceviche made with red snapper and a tiradito made with tuna. Both were magnificent.

Get the ball rolling with a cocktail, perhaps a pisco sour? There are also a few local beers on tap and a short but sharp wine list, a bit pricier than expected.

Laced with aji amarillo chili pepper, a popular ingredient in Peruvian cuisine, the ceviche consisted of delicate chunks of juicy snapper bathed in a citrus sauce with a bit of red onion and thin slices of sweet potato. Not only was it one of the best ceviches I’ve ever enjoyed, it was a welcome change from all the braised dishes we eat this time of year. 

The tiradito was just as scintillating. Here the raw fish (albacore tuna) is sliced thin and blanketed in a sauce made with miso, tamarind, chichi quechua beer and amarillo peppers, and then topped with fat kernels of “choclo” (Peruvian corn). What a luscious mix of flavours and textures it was: fresh, rich, slightly spicy, a tad salty. You simply cannot eat at Tiradito without having a taste of their tiradito.

The dining room at Tiradito is unusual, with an open kitchen in the centre and sixty seats around the perimeter, most of which are stools.

And the dishes kept coming. Fat shrimp brushed with sriracha were baked in ribbons of dough as thin as spring roll wrappers and served with a sweet and sour chicha morada sirop dipping sauce. What fun to crunch into those mummified crustaceans, shattering through that shell to hit the soft flesh within.

There was also the “papa rellena,” a fried ball of potatoes filled with ground beef and served on a spicy chili mayonnaise. Our waitress described it as a sort of Peruvian shepherd’s pie and she wasn’t far off.

Another potato dish, simply described as Peruvian potatoes, included crisp potato nuggets topped with a sauce enhanced with a fresh cheese and yellow peppers. I loved this dish, especially as you could taste the sunny yellow peppers in the sauce, but why so much of it? Judging by Larrea’s dishes, Peruvians seem to love their sauce.

The deep-fried octopus anticucho: set in a pool of dark sauce, around quenelles of avocado purée and mayonnaise-like dollops, the dish is a triumph of hot and cold, crisp and soft, spicy and buttery flavours.

Alas, all wasn’t perfect. I won’t bore you with the details of a dreary dish of watery Chinese broccoli covered in a sort of hoisin sauce, or what sounded like a promising dish of duck dumplings, which were doused in a cloying sauce that tasted only of butter. But after those plates were cleared, we finished with two of my favourites: octopus “anticucho” and a barbecue duck sandwich.

Octopus is served in one Montreal restaurant too many of late, but this “pieuvre” was just amazing. Flavoured with togarashi (a Japanese mix of chili peppers) and Peruvian panca pepper, the deep-fried octopus pieces where placed on a pool of dark sauce, covered in a spoonful of a mayonnaise-like sauce, and set around quenelles of avocado purée. What was great about this dish, again, was the play between elements: hot and cold, crisp and soft, spicy and buttery. Gorgeous! And as for the duck sandwich, think tender chunks of barbecue duck meat, soft steamed buns and just enough greenery and salsa to add crunch and character. Yum!

The red snapper ceviche at Tiradito is a knockout: chunks of juicy snapper bathed in a citrus sauce with a bit of red onion and thin sweet potato slices.

For dessert, there are two choices, starting with the“alfajores,” Peruvian shortbread cookies sandwiched with dulce de leche and served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. It’s a treat and my first choice over a dessert cocktail that contains dulce de leche, pecans, a scoop of coffee ice cream and a mix of liqueurs that fell flat. My advice: stick to the cookies.

I enjoyed the food at Tiradito for its originality, freshness of ingredients and all-round scrumptiousness. Service, provided at first by our waitress, a sommelier, and then a series of cooks from the kitchen (including Larrea himself), was exemplary. Yet I do have one complaint: the seating. Two hours sitting on a stool and I walked away with one sore coccyx. I rarely complain about uncomfortable seating but next time I eat here, I’ll request a seat at the communal table in the back. I also felt the room’s design allotted too much space to the kitchen, leaving us diners stuck around the perimeter of the room, which is a bit of an ambience killer.

But besides a sore backside and lack of good people-watching vantage points, I left Tiradito happy and optimistic. Here’s to more such exciting dining in 2017.

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.

QUEBEC — The province’s finance minister is feeling the heat over the Montreal casino’s decision to hire a French chef over one from Quebec.

But a flabbergasted Carlos Leitão said if the politics of dining are the biggest problem on his plate as minister, hand him a fork and he’ll dig right in.

“This is a problem? That a chef with a planetary reputation is promoting Quebec’s gastronomy in foreign lands? My God! If these are the only problems we have to manage here, bring them on.”

Leitão made the comments as the two opposition parties hurled pots and pans across the legislature floor during question period over the casino’s decision to hire French chef Joël Robuchon rather than a local chef.

“It’s like saying to you, Quebec chefs, you are not hot enough to bring Quebec to another level at the Montreal casino,” said the Coalition Avenir Québec MNA for Granby François Bonnardel.

Worse, added Parti Québécois MNA Sylvain Pagé, the details of Robuchon’s contract — reportedly worth $11 million — are being kept secret. Quebec chefs didn’t even get a chance to bid in the tendering process, he said.

“Quebecers have the right to know what is hidden behind this agreement,” said Pagé, the MNA for Labelle.

Pagé insisted Montreal hardly needs to boost its culinary image given the fact Town and Country Magazine declared the city the food capital of North America in 2016.

“The reaction of columnists and citizens is unanimous,” Pagé said. “Everyone is saying it’s an insult, even contempt for the great Quebec chefs. Will the minister say this agreement makes no sense and defend Quebec’s savoir faire?”

Montreal Gazette restaurant reviewer Lesley Chesterman has also criticized the contract between Loto-Québec, which runs the casino, and Robuchon, arguing that pouring money into the casino restaurant is undermining taxpaying restaurateurs.

But Leitão did not waver, noting Montreal’s Institut d’hotellerie et tourisme du Québec (ITHQ) Tuesday signed its own agreement with the casino, which means young Quebec chefs will have access to Robuchon’s wealth of knowledge and experience.

“We are attracting to Montreal a major player from planet gastronomy,” Leitão said. “It is excellent for Quebec and it is excellent for Quebec and Montreal’s gastronomy so I am delighted with this contract.

“It will put Montreal on the same level as London, Paris, Tokyo and New York. That’s what they (in the opposition) don’t understand.”

On a more practical level, Leitão — who is responsible for Loto-Québec — said the government has no plans to meddle in decisions made by Loto-Québec because as a Crown corporation it is independent.

That also explains why Loto-Québec is entitled to keep the agreement with Robuchon confidential.

“It is not the government which negotiated such an agreement,” Leitão said. “It is the Crown corporation and it has all the administrative latitude it needs to sign such agreements.”

pauthier@postmedia.com

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Listening to Finance Minister Carlos Leitão at the National Assembly this week trying to defend the Casino de Montréal’s decision to spend millions on a luxury restaurant has been an eye-opener: Who would have suspected the minister has such little regard for Quebec chefs?

When questioned by Parti Québécois member André Villeneuve about the move to bankroll the 56-seat L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon, Leitão called the question “déplacée” (unwarranted) and went on to reduce the pricey project — a luxury concept imported from France — to a marketing decision. 

“Robuchon’s restaurant,” said Leitão, who is also responsible for Loto-Québec, “showcases a chef famous the world over and will help with the marketing of the casino to draw in players from Europe and the States, to eat at the restaurant and perhaps gamble at the casino afterwards.”

So to paraphrase: We’re betting millions in public funds on the idea that the Robuchon brand will draw in more foreign customers who we’re hoping might have a turn at the roulette tables when they are done polishing off their $175 tasting menus. 

A few days after Leitão’s initial explanation, the PQ questioned him again. This time, Leitão added fuel to the fire by saying: “Young Quebecers will now have access to a chef with a worldwide reputation to help keep Montreal on the map.”

Because young Quebecers didn’t have access to excellent chefs before, Mr. Leitão?

It’s also news to me that our restaurant scene is at risk of falling off that oft-cited culinary map. Wasn’t that David McMillan and Fred Morin featured in the latest cover story in Saveur magazine?

What about Garde Manger chef Chuck Hughes? He’s hip, he’s hot, he’s young, and has a huge following, here and around the world. Bonus: He’s bilingual! What about him, Mr. Leitão?

Mayor Denis Coderre has also endorsed the Robuchon project. “Should we question the fact that we have a chef from outside with an international reputation that will make Montreal shine?” he asked. “You have to look at this as well is terms of investment.”

Why, Mr. Coderre? Because top Montreal chefs like Normand Laprise, Derek Dammann, Patrice Demers, Daniel Vézina, Antonio Park, Fisun Ercan, Martin Juneau, Marie-Fleur St-Pierre and countless others have been such lousy culinary ambassadors for our city?

What about Martin Picard (or as Leitão referred to him, “Martin Ricard”)?

Last time I dined at Picard’s famous Plateau restaurant, Au Pied de Cochon, customers at surrounding tables were from the U.S. and most everyone knew of him thanks to Montreal restaurant scene lover Anthony Bourdain. Now there’s a culinary ambassador for our city — and one who doesn’t cost us a dime. 

The lack of confidence and pride in our world-class restaurant scene expressed by our politicians is palpable, and the ignorance this government shows toward Quebec chefs is disturbing.

When news emerged the casino project was costing some $11 million in public funds — that amount has yet to be confirmed by Leitão, as the contract with Robuchon remains confidential — the project took on a whole new dimension for debate, and rightly so.

When the $40,000 rumoured to have been spent on chinaware imported from France exceeds the $30,000 Normand Laprise invested in opening Toqué!, it’s entirely fitting for opposition parties to ask questions.

Adding insult to injury, Leitão claimed the idea of hiring a local chef for the casino restaurant was proof opposition members were “renfermés sur eux-mêmes” (insular) and that, hey, our chefs are welcome to go sell their concepts elsewhere.

In other words, we’re rolling the red carpet for the Grand Poobah of French gastronomy. Quebec chefs, step aside.

No doubt the Robuchon brand will draw customers, though time will tell if it’s to the extent Loto-Québec is banking on. As of Thursday afternoon, there were prime time tables open at the Robuchon restaurant, whereas there’s an eight-week wait to dine at Joe Beef on a Thursday.

Will this hyper-luxurious restaurant even be profitable? High-end establishments are not money-makers, especially those that feature costly foodstuffs like caviar, foie gras and truffles. The kitchen staff counts more than 10 cooks (for only 56 seats), and salaries are higher than at any other top Montreal restaurant. 

Perhaps the deeper issue is the complete lack of interest in using the deep-pocketed casino venue to promote Québécois cuisine. The casino’s former gastronomic restaurant, Nuances, open from 1996 to 2011, won accolades and numerous AAA diamond ratings, with a Québécois chef and an emphasis on local products. And yet, stuck in a corner with stodgy decor and a view obliterated by support beams, it never really had a chance.

Just for fun, let’s imagine the casino bigwigs had looked around at what is working in the city’s best eating establishments.

Imagine a restaurant headed by one or several of our top chefs, conceived by designers like Bruno Braën, Jean-Paul Viau or Zébulon Perron, filled with Québécois art, outfitted with tableware produced by local artisans, and a wine list showcasing Canadian wines — a restaurant that reflects who we are, our terroir.

If you’re going to invest millions, why not come up with something that fickle foreign foodies and locals alike could not find elsewhere — something cool, like our city?

Leitão says this contract will put Montreal on the same level as “London, Paris, Tokyo and New York.” Yet those are culinary capitals not because of the arrival of an Atelier Robuchon franchise, but for three main reasons: the hard work of local chefs who developed their distinct cuisines; a deep-pocketed population; and a strong tourist scene.

Leitão may not be aware that we already have the first. But it’s up to governments to help develop the rest. Montreal is not London, Paris, Tokyo, New York or even Toronto. We are not a rich city, but we do have a rich gastronomic scene.

I do not agree that Robuchon’s restaurant will boost our gastronomic cred. But government funding to promote our restaurant scene overseas just might.

Let’s bring our chefs out to the world. Loto-Québec seems to have millions to devote to gastronomy. How about, when folks there are through being star-struck, they consider spending those public funds on promoting our own?

Les 400 Coups

★★ 1/2 (two and a half stars)

$$$

Address: 400 Notre-Dame St.E. (corner Bonsecours St.)

Phone: 514-985-0400 

Open: Thurs. and Fri. lunch: 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.; dinner Tues. and Wed. 5:30 p.m. to 10 p.m.; Thurs.-Sat. 5:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m.

Website: les400coups.ca

Wheelchair access: Yes

Reservations: Recommended

Cards: Major cards

Vegetarian-friendly: Yes

Parking: On surrounding streets with meters

Price range: Small plates: $6-$18; larger plates $21-$32; desserts $13. Tasting menu: $75 (add $45 for wine pairings).

Chef Jonathan Rassi of Les 400 Coups gets an A for effort. He finds innovative ways to exploit the best local ingredients for his dishes.

Montreal restaurants open and close, but what’s more interesting is when a new chef takes over the kitchen of an already successful restaurant. This happens often, and the results are understandably hit and miss.

Imagine having to take over a part in a play written for another actor. How does a dancer feel slipping on the tutu of the ballerina who made the role famous?  

I thought about this when dining at Les 400 Coups in Old Montreal last week. This gem of a restaurant was an immediate hit when it opened in 2011 with chef Marc-André Jetté behind the stoves, chef Patrice Demers at the pastry station and sommelier Marie-Josée Beaudoin on wine and dining room duty. The food was fresh and edgy, and the wine list was superb.

Then, in 2014, news came that Jetté was leaving (to later open Hoogan and Beaufort), along with Demers and Beaudoin (who married and opened Patrice Pâtissier).

The departures were disappointing, yet the duo who took their place — chef Guillaume Cantin and pastry chef Brian Verstraten — did a bang up job of keeping the excellent reviews coming. And these boys didn’t succeed by playing it safe. Cantin made big efforts to feature authentic Québécois cuisine made with often obscure ingredients from around the province. I loved it. 

Last spring, news arrived that Cantin and Verstraten were leaving, and the new chef would be Jonathan Rassi — a veteran of Montreal restaurants Kitchen Galerie, Garde Manger, Park and Quartier Général. He also staged at top Napa Valley restaurant Meadowood, and participated in Seasons 3 and 5 of Radio-Canada’s culinary competition Les Chefs.

It’s clear Rassi knows a thing or two about not only haute cuisine, but exploiting the best local products. At Les 400 Coups, that’s his agenda.

I arrived at the restaurant to a half-full dining room on a cold Tuesday, slipped into one of the cushy window-side banquettes and re-admired this room with its high ceilings, handsome bar and huge pictures of Blvd. St-Germain in Paris.

A parsnip is taken to new heights, with the shell hollowed out then filled with a micro salad made of 14 Arpents cheese, apple, celery and kohlrabi. It comes with instructions to mash it all up before eating.

Coats were taken, menus were offered, cocktails were chosen. There was a bit of a lull before orders were taken, but menu descriptions were knowledgeable and our waiter and the sommelier, though not the most confident of servers, were doing their best. 

I cannot deny that though I find the devotion to producing a strictly local cuisine commendable, there’s an element of Babette’s Feast before the feast that makes me question whether this is the best approach this time of year. Fresh local produce isn’t coming anytime before the end of May. I love a good root, but by late March, I’m all rooted out.

I’ll give it to Rassi, though: He really works hard at making carrots, parsnips and turnips sing — with varying success, mind you, but he still gets an A for effort.

As the dishes arrived we all oohed and aahed, even more so when we learned many of the ceramic plates and bowls on which the food is served were made by Rassi himself (he later told us he fires all his pots in a kiln in his apartment).

It was immediately apparent that this chef has a rare talent for artistic plate presentations. His imagination runs deep. Not all the food won me over, but what did really did. As for the plates that didn’t, heck — they still looked terrific. 

There’s a lot going on here — a big mix of flavours and textures — with extremes on either end. A good example was the parsnip plate, or make that a parsnip shell, hollowed out and filled with a micro salad made with 14 Arpents cheese, apple, celery and kohlrabi. Rassi served this plate in person, instructing us to mash it all together. I liked the flavours and the ideas, but the stem part of the parsnip was thick and hard to eat without fear of splitting a molar.

Another dish featuring endive with a sort of hummus made with sunflower seeds, honey and savoury was equally gorgeous, with two-toned endive fanned out in a small bowl. I was kind of expecting a salad, but I enjoyed this creation with my delectable bourbon and apple cocktail.   

Across the table came two more plates: sashimi of sea bream with plums, labneh, cucumber and juniper, as well as a turnip dish with king mushrooms, mactre de Stimpson clams and beurre blanc. The sashimi was rolled up alongside the other ingredients and assembled on buckwheat crackers, which we munched through with pleasure.

The turnip dish was less successful. Everything was cut into shreds like pasta, with no strong flavours coming to the fore. All four of us at the table gave it a taste, but even after going around the table a few times the dish wasn’t finished.

A pleasure to munch through: sashimi of sea bream with plums, labneh, cucumber and juniper, assembled on buckwheat crackers.

I far preferred the smoked venison, pickles, dahlia root and horseradish, which Rassi divided into four portions, giving us each a little deer dumpling served in a potent sauce which we lapped up with the Hof Kelsten rye bread. Nice.

As for the larger plates, the veal gravlax — mixed with Bleu d’Elizabeth cheese, meringue shards, walnuts, shallots, and mustard greens — was not only the dish of the night, but one of the best I’ve tasted this year. It was visually stunning, but what impressed me most was the layers of flavour, with slices of veal beautifully enhanced with the blue cheese and bitter greens, and the bits of meringue adding crunch. Fantastic.

I also enjoyed a main course featuring beef loin with marinated carrot, and a quenelle of black apple and garlic purée. The only problem with this plate is that the vinegary carrots annihilated our wine — a lovely, bio-dynamic Marcel Richaud Côtes-du-Rhône. 

Alas, the next two dishes — one with cod, the other with sweetbreads — fell flat. The cod dish suffered from too many mushy textures and an overwhelming miso foam. The sweetbread plate, too, had mushy textures and mismatched flavours.

Dare I say it, after that veal masterpiece, the rest of our dinner seemed pretty dull. 

Of the three desserts on offer, my favourite was the most traditional — chocolate cake with concord grape sorbet, white chocolate cream and chocolate tuiles sprinkled with caraway.

The squash with goat’s cheese dish and Rassi’s take on key lime pie, made with apples and verjus, were pretty and interesting, but nothing I yearn to eat again.

Tradition with a twist: the chocolate cake comes with concord grape sorbet, white chocolate cream and chocolate tuiles sprinkled with caraway.

As much as I admire Rassi’s obvious talent for innovation, I felt he went that much too far, favouring experimental flavours over satisfying ones. I’m all for a little fun with my food, but chefs should incorporate more familiar flavours to avoid alienating paying customers who in the end are in a restaurant to eat, not to feel like participants in an experiment.

As I departed mumbling about whether or not I enjoyed my dinner, two people at my table spoke up in the chef’s defence: my parents, ages 82 and 79. They loved it. Their only caveat was that perhaps the setting and the style of food were not in synch, and I agree.

It goes to show open-mindedness has no age.  

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.

criticsnotebook@gmail.com 

twitter.com/LesleyChestrman 

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