Rechercher dans la communauté

http://www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/dining/a5818/montreal-restaurant-scene/ Asked to name the best restaurant city in America—meaning the United States—I offered the only reasonable answer: Montreal, a city with the culture, the cooks, the restaurants, the provisions, and the hospitality. (Also of significance is Canada's nicely diminished dollar, which makes dining a deal.) Such a welcome package was neatly summed up by a Canadian pal, Mike Boone, who worked with me at the Montreal Star in the 1970s. He said, "We're not just nice, we're cheap." Of course, Montreal isn't exactly in the United States, should you be hung up on such details as international borders. (Obviously, I am not.) The city is in the province of Quebec, a part of Canada as long as there has been a Canada. My belief that Montreal is really a lost colony of the United States is strengthened by the indisputable fact that our Continental Army captured and briefly held it in 1775. One need only glance at a map from those days, when the province of Quebec was nestled just north of the 13 colonies, to admire the logic. Allow me to add this: The citizens of Quebec practically exhausted themselves trying to secede from Canada in the latter half of the 20th century, only to fail when a 1995 referendum lost by a few thousand votes. To me Montreal is spiritually a part of the U.S., a kind of New York City in miniature, although it's even more like an independent city-state. OLD MONTREAL AT NIGHT. DENNIS TANGNEY JR./GETTY IMAGES The restaurants of Montreal are the attraction. Their evolution, which started in this century, has been swift. They are modest in size and technically proficient, and they provide a sense of casual fine dining that is embraced more wholeheartedly here than anywhere in the U.S. The dining culture is descended from those of both France and England— thankfully, more from France—leaving Montreal a sort of culinary orphan, free to seek its own path. New York, which was considered the best American dining city in most eras, but no longer, has become ground zero for casual dining. (A restaurant critic for the New York Times recently announced his top dish of the year: a sticky bun.) Montreal has developed an engaging dining personality at the same time that New York has been losing the one it had. Famed Montreal restaurateur David McMillan (Joe Beef, Le Vin Papillon) says, "I'll tell you why Montreal is the best restaurant city, and it's not about the skill of our cooking. We have the most advanced dining public in North America. I serve lamb liver cooked rare to 17-year-old girls. I sell tons of kidneys and sweetbreads. Manhattan is one giant steakhouse. Everybody there wants steak, or red tuna. I don't want to know how much red tuna is sold every day." Chef Normand Laprise, the grand old man of Montreal chefs (even if he is only 54), adds, "I visit pastry shops in the States, and I know Americans are not open- minded customers. It's hard to sell any- thing other than cupcakes and macarons." Montreal has had multiple culinary revolutions in the past 50 years. When I worked for the Star the restaurants primarily served French cuisine, albeit not quite what you'd find in Larousse Gastronomique. The Beaver Club at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel featured such fantastical dishes as Le Coeur du Charolais Soufflé aux Splendeurs du Périgord. The top chefs, who came to Canada from France following World War II or stayed in Montreal after working at Expo 67, were a little too fixated on flambéing and melting cheese. After the financial debacle of the 1976 Olympics, which almost bankrupted Quebec, the restaurants declined precipitously. The only noteworthy and enduring establishment was Toqué!, operated by Laprise. In 2001 came Au Pied du Cochon, which was informal and inventive. Chef Martin Picard embraced local products and reinvented old, somewhat primitive dishes such as jellied pig's head and poutine, an ungodly assemblage of french fries, cheese curds, and gravy that arose in rural Quebec in the 1950s. Picard created a regional cuisine and, more important, prized local products as few before him had. ADVERTISEMENT - CONTINUE READING BELOW Joe Beef, the next great restaurant, did away with tablecloths and menus (using blackboards instead). That was followed by Les 400 Coups (in the French tradition) and Lawrence (quite Anglo), establishments embracing either side of the local language divide. They were among the places that made Montreal the best for restaurants in this hemisphere, one where fine dining has been transformed into a modern ideal. No other city does it as well. DAY 1: FARM FRESH MEETS CRAZY GENIUS Daniel Boulud, who has a restaurant in the Ritz-Carlton Montreal, tells me that a visitor can grasp the essence of the dining culture before arriving, simply by looking out an airplane window. "Twenty minutes before you land, you pass over the farms, the greenhouses. This isn't California. Here you have really small farms next to each other, not industrialized." So as I fly in I peer out the window. First I see mountaintops and lakes, then silos and barns. Boulud is right. After we land, my traveling companion and I head to Les 400 Coups for lunch. The room is primarily in shades of charcoal and black, understated. The clientele, like most people in this city, dresses stylishly. The food is auspicious. Our squash soup is not like other squash soups. No bulk. No boredom. It's speckled with drops of olive oil, as though they had floated down from a cloud. The duck croquette is precisely as duck should be: rich, savory, skinless, and easy to eat. If there were such a thing as a wagyu duck burger, this would be it. AN ARRAY OF DISHES FROM LE MOUSSO, WHICH FEATURES A NEW TASTING MENU EVERY DAY. @ONDEJEUNE Les 400 Coups also has a pastry chef, a category of professional disappearing from American restaurants. I don't mean to overdo the compliments, but the desserts are notable as well: delicious and artistic, a little Georges Braque, a little forest tableau; the lemon cream dessert includes sea buckthorn. I would not be surprised if the pastry chef forages when off duty. I feared that our choice for dinner, Le Mousso, an all-tasting-menu restaurant that had just opened, would be like all the tasting-menu joints in America, the chef desperately seeking to express himself. Such food is occasionally brilliant. Too often it's awful. My friend was intrigued, certain it would be different here. She was correct. The restaurant is very Brooklyn, with an array of seating options at tables and counters, plus hanging lightbulbs and a chef, Antonin Mousseau-Rivard, who sports a short beard, a knit cap, tattooed arms, and Adidas shower sandals. He is self-taught, mostly via Instagram, and he says, "I didn't even work at a good restaurant in my life." We are handed a printed menu. It looks weird, but tasting menus always do. We eat seven dishes, all marrying ingredients never previously combined. But the wagyu beef from Quebec accented with slightly salty sturgeon caviar is masterful, as is the cool arctic char nestled in what appears to be a paint box of colors and flavors. Even the desserts are arresting, and desserts prepared by savory chefs are rarely that. The first is labeled sang, which means blood. I'm frightened, as I'm sure the chef means me to be, but it's blood sausage ice cream as Häagen-Dazs might make it, plus Quebec cheddar crumble in an apple-vinegar reduction. (Yes, Quebec has a flourishing cheese industry.) I suggest to Mousseau-Rivard that he might be a crazy genius, and he replies, "I like the word crazy more than genius." DAY 2: LOCAL HEROES A few blocks from the Parc du Mont- Royal, a revered green space designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, sits Beauty's, a luncheonette owned by Hymie Sckolnick, 95. He is always there. Hymie bought the shop in 1942 for $500. He is nice enough not to brag about his investment prowess. BREAKFAST AT BEAUTY'S, A LOCAL FIXTURE SINCE 1942. MICKAEL BANDASSAK Breakfast at Beauty's followed by a park stroll serves two vital purposes: The park provides visitors with an aware- ness of the physical glory of the city, as it's built on the slopes of the multitier hill Mount Royal, and Beauty's remains a notable example of Montreal's enduring (and somewhat inexplicable) fascination with Jewish food, most famously its bagels—smaller, sweeter, and superior to New York's—and its pastrami-like smoked meat. ADVERTISEMENT - CONTINUE READING BELOW At Beauty's, bagels from the St.-Viateur bagel shop (officially La Maison du Bagel) accompany the "famous mishmash," a kind of omelet that would be scorned by French chefs, inasmuch as it is not golden yellow or elegantly contoured. It consists of eggs, scrambled and browned a bit, the way my grandmother made hers, plus hot dog, salami, green pepper, and fried onion. You will sigh. You will burp. Unmatched in Montreal (or anywhere) is Le Vin Papillon, owned by David McMillan. The food is casual, mostly vegetables. The place takes no reservations and for a long time was nearly impossible to get into, although recently it doubled in size and the struggle has subsided. I recommend arriving at 3 p.m., when it opens, although take care not to wait by the wrong door, the permanently closed one, or you'll feel as if you've been locked out. We have celery root ribbons bathed in bagna cauda, a Piedmontese sauce made with garlic and anchovies; charcoal-roasted white turnips with housemade pomegranate molasses; and the best dish of all: a curiously savory hummus of hubbard squash with homemade focaccia. LE VIN PAPILLON'S CHALKBOARD MENU. RANDALL BRODEUR We don't leave until 6 and decide to skip a formal dinner, choosing instead a late smoked meat sandwich at Schwartz's, which seems to be open day and night. Schwartz's never changes, although the ownership has. The original proprietor, a Jewish immigrant from Romania, is long gone, and Schwartz's is now the property of a consortium that includes Céline Dion. I order my smoked meat fatty—most customers request medium or lean—and the waiter says, "Good for you." Maybe the place has changed: That's a long speech for a Schwartz's waiter. The rye bread continues to be tasteless, the smoked meat is still really good, the cole slaw reminds me of North Carolina, and the fries aren't as great as they used to be, but they're not bad. DAY 3: OLD FRENCH, NEW BRITISH Maison Boulud is admirable for who owns it (Daniel Boulud), for where it resides (in the historic Ritz-Carlton), and for its lovely location adjoining a small garden and duck pond (request a table overlooking both). The restaurant is among the last of its kind, a French one (well, mostly French) in a city where French cuisine is vanishing. (This is happening everywhere in North America; it just seems more baffling in Quebec, where more than half the population is French-speaking.) I order a lunch that spins me back in time: housemade pâté of startling freshness and eminent richness, and confit of guinea fowl leg in a miraculously silken foie gras sauce. The kitchen sends out lovely ravioli stuffed with sheep's milk cheese. It doesn't taste French, and shouldn't—the executive chef, Riccardo Bertolino, is from Bologna. THE MAISON BOULUD KITCHEN. Dinner that evening is entirely anglophile, at Maison Publique, an appealing tavern that offers only Canadian wines (and somehow pulls it off) and plates of mostly meaty foods that sound peculiar, as British cuisine almost always does. I never miss a chance to eat here. We order andouille sausage (reddish, dreamy, and fiery) spread on toast, and tender lonza, or salumi, made from free-range piglets raised for the restaurant in the Eastern Townships of Quebec. The main room has an old wooden floor, dark paneling, and mounted deer heads with soccer scarves wrapped around their necks. The menu is a well-lit corkboard to which is pinned a list of food and drink. Folks gather around it to discuss the dinner choices, a sign of changing times. When I lived in Montreal in the 1970s, during the separatist movement, concerned young people gathered in bars and pubs to sing protest songs demanding freedom from Canada. Now they chat about the origins of local meats and vegetables. DAY 4: A POUTINE CHALLENGE We have made no lunch plans, but when desperate I always call the nearest hot dog joint. On Saint Lawrence Boulevard is the Montreal Pool Room, which opened in 1912 in a different location not far from the current one. (Other changes have occurred: no more pool tables.) In case you have trouble finding it, directly across the street is the garish marquee of Café Cléopatre, which features stripteaseuses and danseuses à gogo. ADVERTISEMENT - CONTINUE READING BELOW My friend calls the Pool Room and asks, "Are you open? Are you serving food?" A sweetheart of a counterman replies, "Yes, madame. Hot dog, hamburger, cheeseburger. You come, you eat." She has her first Montreal hot dog. They're famous, even if they're bland compared with New York's. Here they're served correctly: steamed and topped with mustard, relish, and mild chopped onions. She also insists on poutine. I await her disappointment, but she loves it, saying, "It filled my every poutine expectation." If you're from New Jersey and enjoy disco fries, you might love poutine too. Hot dogs followed by poutine can be filling, which makes Hôtel Herman—it's not a hotel and there is no Herman—an excellent option for dinner. It offers small plates that are unusually small. The food is unexpectedly elegant, given the rough-hewn decor (wide plank floors that look as old as Montreal itself, tin ceiling, bare lightbulbs). Little logs of housemade foie gras are brilliantly composed, topped with crumbs and cranberries. The chef, Marc-Alexandre Mercier, bakes his own bread, dark and earthy and easily worth the $2 surcharge. The sweetbreads come with mashed potatoes from a variety called Ozette, grown in Quebec. They are mesmerizing, and it's not just the added buttermilk and cream. Mercier tells me his way with vegetables is a result of childhood trauma: His mother made him eat a bowl of rutabaga so awful it made him cry. DAY 5: GENTRIFICATION FLAMBEE Lawrence, among the most Anglo of the Anglo establishments, is blessed with big windows that allow in an abundance of light, a major reason I love to have lunch there. The staff is sweet, the wine list just right, the crockery seemingly from a church basement sale, and the menu filled with dishes you might never have eaten before. Fried endive topped with snowy crab, an unlikely concoction, is crunchy and juicy, impeccably fresh. The desserts are simple but superlative, the "burnt" chocolate pudding much like an all chocolate crème brûlée, and the warm ginger cake is topped with a crème anglaise that I'm tempted to drink. In the evening we set out to see two new restaurants with unusual appeal. Both feature wood-burning ovens, which are unusual in Montreal, and both are in newly gentrified sections of the city. A TRAY OF OYSTERS AT HOOGAN & BEAUFORT. ALISON SLATTERY PHOTOGRAPHY Hoogan & Beaufort is in a former industrial park in Rosemont where the Canadian Pacific Railway once built locomotives. An excellent consequence: It has stunningly high ceilings. William Saulnier, one of the partners, says that in the restaurant's opening days many of the calls they received started out, "Where are you?" Foxy is in a neighborhood once largely populated by Irish immigrants. Both of these spots are following an established American trend, moving away from midtown to more remote locations where rents are cheaper and space more generous. We weren't able to eat at Hoogan & Beaufort, only peek in, because we were dining with Lesley Chesterman, a friend who is the restaurant critic for the Montreal Gazette, and she was reviewing Foxy. She seemed to like my theory that Montreal belonged to the U.S. She said, "Montreal has never felt less Canadian to me." I leave the analysis of Foxy to Chesterman, enthusiastic about everything except the two dishes prepared in the wood- burning oven. About my favorite she wrote, "I loved the flatbread we ordered. Covered in melted raclette cheese, red onions, potatoes, and house-smoked ham, it was reminiscent of an Alsatian tarte flambée. We scarfed it back in minutes, the only problem being that one of the pieces of ham popped off my slice and, as I discovered the next morning, fell into my purse under the table." DAY 6: END ON A SWEET NOTE For me, departure days begin with a trip to the St.-Viateur bagel shop, where I buy a few dozen to take home. The price these days is 80 cents each. Hymie Sckolnick told me they used to cost two cents. When I complain to the counterman, he laughs and tosses in a few extra. Hymie's is a good name to drop in Montreal. PATRICE DEMERS WORKS HIS MAGIC AT PATRICE PÂTISSIER. MARC KANDALAFT Our getaway meal is lunch at Toqué!, which is run by Laprise, that most essential of Montreal chefs. His new establishment is a member of Relais & Châteaux, and his kitchen is a marvel, overflowing with cooks. The food isn't what I think of as new Montreal cuisine—it's too precise and luxurious—but it's up there with the best haute cuisine in North America. An appetizer of arctic char is creamy and silky, tasting of smoke and lemon. My Montreal Star pal Boone, joining us, calls it "the cotton candy of fish." Chicken, prepared sous-vide, is so moist there's beading on the breast. My friend has what the waitress calls "a perfect egg," cooked slowly, with a sauce made from a long-simmering duck reduction. Dessert is so ethereal—mostly honey, jelly, and cream—that on the way to the airport we stop at Patrice Pâtissier so I can pick up a few stuffed-on-the-spot chocolate-banana cream puffs. Patrice Demers, the owner of this new shop on Notre Dame West, was the first pastry chef at Les 400 Coups and thus is a hero of mine. But then, so many Montreal chefs are. Alan Richman is a 16-time winner of the James Beard Award for food writing.

Audio Monocle - The Menu

Pastas interdites dans un resto italien ! SOPHIE DUROCHER Le Buona Notte est un resto jet set du boulevard St–Laurent fréquenté par de nombreuses vedettes. Mais la prochaine fois que Patrick Bruel ou un joueur des Canadiens ira manger là, il ne pourra pas commander des pastas. L’Office québécois de la langue française reproche au restaurant italien d’avoir un menu contenant trop de mots…italiens. BASTA LA PASTA Hier, le proprio du resto Massimo Lecas n’en revenait pas *encore! Il venait de recevoir la lettre de l’OQLF le *réprimandant pour avoir utilisé le mot pasta au lieu de pâtes. Il se fait taper sur les doigts pour avoir utilisé le mot polpette au lieu de boulettes. Pourtant, explique-t-il, la description des mets est en français. Seul le nom des plats est in italiano. Mais il semble que ces quelques mots dans la langue de Sophia Loren soient trop durs à avaler. L’Office lui reproche aussi d’utiliser le mot bottiglia au lieu de bouteille pour sa liste de vins. «Le lendemain de l’élection du Parti québécois, j’ai reçu une visite d’un inspecteur qui me disait qu’il y avait eu une plainte concernant mon menu», raconte Massimo Lecas. «J’étais surpris, franchement. Qui s’offusque de voir le mot pasta dans un resto italien? On m’a dit qu’on allait étudier mon dossier. Et cinq mois plus tard, je reçois une lettre avec une photocopie de mon menu et les mots “fautifs” entourés.» (Heureusement pour lui, le mot pizza n’est pas entouré. Faut dire qu’une traduction française du mot pizza, bonne chance pour trouver ça dans le dictionnaire…) Depuis qu’il a pris une photo Instagram de la lettre de l’OQLF et mis cette information sur Twitter et Facebook, Massimo Lecas est inondé de commentaires. «Les gens trouvent ça ridicule. Est-ce qu’on ne devrait pas s’occuper des vrais problèmes avec la langue plutôt que de «capoter» sur le mot pasta?» Quelle est la prochaine étape pour Massimo Lecas? «C’est entre les mains de mes avocats, m’a-t-il répondu. Jusqu’ici, ça m’a déjà coûté 4500 $ de frais. Le Buona Notte existe depuis 22 ans et c’est la première fois qu’on se fait dire que *notre menu est trop «italien». Il y a quelques années, l’OQLF avait essayé de remplacer le mot hamburger par hambourgeois. Ça n’a jamais fonctionné. Aujourd’hui, demande Massimo Lecas, est-ce que le mot pasta est devenu le nouveau hamburger? PASTA OU HAMBURGER ? J’ai parlé à Martin Bergeron, le porte-parole de l’OQLF. Chaque dossier est confidentiel, il ne commentera donc pas le dossier du Buona Notte. Mais il a tenu à préciser : «Le menu peut être en italien, en anglais, en portugais, mais la Charte de la langue française stipule qu’aucune autre langue ne doit l’emporter sur le français.» Est-ce qu’on compte les mots, ai-je demandé à Mr Bergeron? «Ce n’est pas une question du nombre de mots, mais de TAILLE DE CARACTÈRE.» Un conseil aux autres restos italiens : Écrivez donc le mot pasta en tout petit. Comme ça, vous ne vous ferez pas taper sur les doigts. http://www.journaldemontreal.com/2013/02/19/pastas-interdites-dans-un-resto-italien

In the Village, off St-Cat west of Papineau and around the corner from Pappas Tapas. Ate there last week. Was already hard to get a reservation for 2 a few days in advance, but with this review it will be even harder. Fine Dining: Mezcla is a wish come true My stellar dinner featured some seriously delicious food, filled with beautiful flavours and diverse textures BY LESLEY CHESTERMAN, GAZETTE FINE-DINING CRITIC OCTOBER 5, 2012 The pork main course at Mezcla, in Montreal on Thursday September 27, 2012. (Allen McInnis/THE GAZETTE) Mezcla Rating: 3 out of 4 $$$ 1251 de Champlain St.(at Ste. Rose St.) Phone: 514-525-9934 Website: http://www.restaurantmezcla.com Open: Tues. to Sat. 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. Licensed: Yes Credit cards: All major Wheelchair access: No Parking: Easy on the street Vegetarian friendly: Not especially Reservations: Essential Price range: Starters: $10-$16; main courses $19-$33; desserts: $6-$9. Five-course tasting menu: $39 For a city to be considered a serious gourmet destination, there must be a good mix of established restaurants along with the new and exciting. Montreal certainly has the former, but seems to have hit a bit of a wall when it comes to the latter. Granted, restaurants like Bouillon Bilk, Van Horne and the fabulous new Park and Hotel Herman have brightened up the scene tremendously over the past few years. Yet there are also many newbies that fall flat with fuzzy cooking, tired concepts and waiters who are trying their best to hock the same ol’ seared scallops and crème brûlées. It’s starting to feel like forever since I heard someone go bonkers with happiness over a restaurant. And then, it happened, and of all places on Facebook, where chef and Journal de Montréal restaurant critic Thierry Daraize posted a wildly enthusiastic endorsement of a restaurant called Mezcla. Mez … what? I had never heard of the place. And as someone who keeps a tab on restaurant matters with an obsession some might consider disturbing, I should have. But kudos to Daraize for discovering the restaurant, which opened in May, though his unbridled enthusiasm has made Mezcla one tough table to book. Once I eventually nabbed a table, I headed down to The Village to see what he calls one of his “grands coups de cœur” of 2012. Located on a side street just off Ste. Catherine, Mezcla is a warm, 50-seat space with high ceilings, an open floor plan, and a bistro-ish vibe. The “chaleureux” ambience is further boosted by low lights, sexy background tunes and an open kitchen in the back of the room. The decor provides few clues about the style of cuisine, which isn’t the usual French bistro but … aahhh … nuevo latino. When I think nuevo latino in Montreal, I immediately picture chef Mario Navarrete Jr.’s restaurant Raza. How nice, I always thought while sipping pisco sours, would it be to have more restaurants playing with these Central and South American, Cuban, Puerto Rican and Spanish-Caribbean ingredients and flavours? And now my wish has come true. I immediately recognized our host and waiter, a handsome Venezuelan by the name of Gerardo Labarca, who last served me years ago at that great tapas restaurant Pintxo. Turns out Labarca is an owner at Mezcla along with Marie-Hélène Barrière. Already that’s great news because the ever-smiling Labarca made my first Pintxo meal so memorable. As for the talent in the kitchen, that belongs to two gentlemen, Marcel Larrea, who trained Cordon Bleu in Peru and worked here at Thai Grill, and Georges-Étienne T. Tremblay, whose Montreal experience includes La Chronique and Les Enfants Terribles. Larrea may have last been cooking Thai, yet his background is Peruvian. Peruvian cuisine is hailed as the next big thing, and whenever I hear that I roll my eyes a little as the Peruvian cuisine I’ve sampled (and I’m no authority by any measure here) hasn’t been what I’d call earth moving. Yet after tasting this kitchen’s take on it, I’m intrigued. These boys are making some seriously delicious food, filled with beautiful flavours and diverse textures. Like Daraize, I gotta say, dinner at Mezcla turned out to be one of my best meals of the year. The wine list is another plus. Spanish heavy, well-priced with a good mix of private imports and SAQ selections, the list also features bottles well suited to this spicy/meaty/seafoody cuisine. The Albarino Condes de Albarei 2011 we enjoyed not only enhanced everything we ate, but at $42, didn’t put a dent on my budget. Nice. Now on to the food, which started with a simple plate of ceviche. Wait, did I say simple? Scratch that, because what started out looking like a pretty mound of raw fish and seafood bathed in a slightly spicy sauce turned into a complex dish when we were given a trio of crispy ingredients to mix in, including fried corn kernels, twisty yucca chips and a tangle of deep-fried carrot strands. Was it ever great, with the soft and silky seafood and salmon chunks mixing in with the crisp bits of chips and the crunch of the corn. Every taste was so clean, so fresh and I loved the surf and turf contrast between the fish and the vegetables. Huge. The next dish was almost as amazing, and consisted of tuna tartare set atop potato croquettes placed alongside mounds of crabmeat with avocado and coriander. Again, what a play of textures — dewy, crispy, creamy, chewy — along with all those fresh and bracing flavours. Really gorgeous. And I saved the best starter, the shrimp, for last. Served wrapped in fried yucca ribbons, the jumbo shrimp were meaty, fresh, resilient and cleverly served with two contrasting sauces: a close-to-fluffy avocado cream and a sweet chicha syrup made with smoky black corn. With every bite I said to myself, this is the best thing I’ve tasted all year, and considering the amount I eat, that’s saying a lot. I can’t wait to come back and try this dish again. There’s more. When I asked for a menu recommendation, Labarca’s face lit up and he said the blood pudding was a must. He’s right, it’s very good. Served on a light corn cake, the round of blood pudding is layered with julienned apple and slices of chorizo. Don’t want to get boring here, but again, the mix of textures won me over, and I also admired that these boys are using organic chorizo from Charlevoix, and finished the dish off with a Calvados-laced beurre blanc. What a pleasure to see updated ethnic cuisine made with the best local ingredients. Now that’s what I call modern cooking! More traditional but just as scrumptious was a simple plate of grilled duck hearts, with papa amarilla (yellow potatoes), choclo (corn cob, in this case, black corn) and gently spiced “panka” sauce made with dried amarillo peppers. I’m big on hearts for their filet mignon-meets liver taste and consistency, and these babies were wolfed back in record time. The size of the starters is larger than tapas, yet I’d still recommend ordering many plates to share. Main courses are more costly (in the $30 range), but the quality of ingredients merits such prices. For instance, the main I enjoyed was a duo of Gaspor pork that included three chops from the rack as well as a melting slice of braised flanc. Add to that chanterelles, carrots, parsnip purée and a light ’n’ herby sauce, and you have yet another reason to race over to Mezcla. As for desserts, I cannot deny I was discouraged to see only three, and three that included that predictable Montreal trio: crème brûlée, molten chocolate cake and pouding chômeur. Cue the groans. But wait, not so fast. Just when I thought I’d had my fill of molten chocolate cake, along came one so deeply chocolatey and ideally crusty-melty that I remembered what seduced me about this famous dessert in the first place. And that unemployment pud was also staggeringly good, full of maple flavour, firm yet still unctuous without falling into the dreaded mushy/icky/cloying pouding chômeur trap. To say I had a faultless meal at Mezcla would be an understatement as it was so creative and just downright delicious as well. And I only scratched the surface of this menu. All I want to do now is go back, go back to try the clams with chimichurri, the braised bison, the fish stew, the Cornish hen with yucca fries. Or better yet the five-course $39 tasting menu, which considering the quality of ingredients sounds like the deal of the century. What an orgy of tastes this restaurant has to offer. And at risk of never being able to get a last-minute table here myself, I end this review with just one suggestion: GO. criticsnotebook@gmail.com For more food and wine talk, tune in to Dinner Rush with Lesley Chesterman on Saturdays from 4 to 5 p.m. on News Talk Radio CJAD 800. © Copyright © The Montreal Gazette Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/life/Fine+Dining+Mezcla+wish+come+true/7343470/story.html#ixzz28X00XnVC

Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Celebrity+chef+Jamie+Oliver+partner+with+chef+Derek+Dammann+open+gastropub+Montreal/6948470/story.html#ixzz20vIk4bkO It is nice to see, some well known chefs opening restaurants / going into business with people here in the city.

http://www.journalmetro.com/plus/article/1020439 I still haven't tried out his first restaurant, seeing it is complicated to get a reservation. He has an interesting way to do business that is for sure. I bet this place will be as hard to get a reservation, as his previous place Guess I will just stick to trying out the 3 restaurants that were in Enroute top 10 new restaurants in Canada.

Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/Brace+yourself+Change+comes+Wilensky/4525382/story.html#ixzz1I7i2MRCH This is one place I have yet to try

lien video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRHTZ7TnMAA BRANCHEZ-VOUS! est allé manger dans un restaurant d'un tout nouveau genre au centre-ville de Montréal, l'iBurger. À cette occasion, nous avons pu tester leur table techno, qui intègre un écran tactile permettant aux clients de consulter le menu et de passer leur propre commande. Ouvert depuis la fin janvier à Montréal par Alexandre Maher (président), Frank Roche (VP aux opérations) et Jonathan Cyr (chef cuisinier), l'iBurger se distingue par la présence d'une surface tactile animée par un Mac Mini sur le dessus de chaque table. Le véritable défi des fondateurs de l'iBurger est de rentabiliser leur projet notamment en vendant des franchises, car chaque table coûte environ 3 200$. Pour l'instant, des personnes basées au Canada et au Maroc se sont montrées intéressées par l'achat d'une franchise iBurger. Évidemment, l'expérience du restaurant ne se résume pas uniquement à son aspect technologique. Lors de notre passage à l'iBurger, nous avons mangé un burger d'agneau accompagné d'un verre de vin rouge, proposé sur le menu pour accompagner le plat. Lors d'un deuxième passage au resto, nous avons aussi pu déguster l'assiette de fromage. Nous nous sommes régalés!L'écran est protégé par un verre tactile remplaçable en cas d'usure, mais les fondateurs du restaurant veulent garder leur technologie tactile secrète. L'écran tactile sert principalement à afficher et à détailler le menu ainsi que les différents plats, à l'aide d'images dignes de relever de l'art culinaire. Un petit historique est aussi proposé pour expliquer l'origine de chaque catégorie de plats (burger, hot dog, salade, pizza, etc.). Les usagers peuvent ainsi se laisser tenter par un plat et se le commander eux-mêmes. Les commandes sont directement dirigées vers la cuisine depuis la table, mais les clients peuvent aussi s'adresser directement au serveur. Une excellente utilisation de la surface tactile survient à l'heure de l'assiette de fromage. Grâce à des applications spécifiquement conçues pour contrôler le système à distance depuis un iPhone, les serveurs peuvent afficher le nom et la description des fromages. lien pour l'article: http://www.branchez-vous.com/techno/actualite/2011/03/iburger-montreal-restaurant-branche-mac-mini-table-tactile.html Autre article: http://www.cyberpresse.ca/vivre/cuisine/en-vrac/201103/21/01-4381388-iburger-des-ecrans-tactiles-pour-commander.php site internet: http://iburger.net/

En Norvège, McDonald's a créé un wrap au saumon. En Italie, un burger avec du vrai fromage parmesano reggiano et un autre avec du jambon fumé. En Espagne, McDo a mis de la gaspacho sur son menu. Pour en lire plus...

L'entreprise ontarienne dit avoir obtenu l'approbation finale des tribunaux canadiens relativement au règlement qu'elle a négocié à la suite des multiples poursuites dont elle faisait l'objet. Pour en lire plus...

La venue à Fort McMurray de l'investisseur et du mécène n'est pas passée inaperçue. L'exploitation des ressources et le développement régional étaient au menu de la visite. Pour en lire plus...

These Chefs Believe in Sticking Close to Home Source: New York Time MONTREAL is not just a good eating town, but an opinionated one, too, with deep roots and a culture all its own. There’s always a debate about where to get the best rotisserie chicken or the most authentic poutine, that classic Québécois belly buster of French fries, gravy and squeaky cheese curds. Or whether to go to St.-Viateur Bagel Shop or Fairmount Bagel Bakery for sesame bagels that are baked in wood-burning ovens and put New York City’s fluffy bread bombs to shame. The epicurean partisanship fight extends to the city’s two venerable food markets, Marché Jean-Talon and Marché Atwater. Even when winter has wilted the local supply of fruits and vegetables, the markets are bursting with stinky cheeses, apple cider and all manner of charcuterie: plump links of black blood sausage; fowl and furred game rendered into terrines and galantines; piles of confit frosted in white fat like the snow that blankets the city for a good part of the year. Not that Montreal lacks for proper, sit-down restaurants. L’Express, the reigning bistro king of this officially Francophone city, is as close to Paris as one gets while on the wrong continent. Toqué, run by the chef Norman Laprise, is the city’s standard bearer for haute cuisine. But over the last few years, there has been a surge in quirky restaurants that are extensions of their chefs’ personal tastes and dedication to Montreal’s regional ingredients. At these restaurants, no part of the pig escapes the kitchen knife, whether it’s the ears (sliced and fried in a salad with frisée) or feet (braised, stuffed and roasted). And foie gras abounds, never far from marrowbones, sweetbreads and steaks so big they’d make a cowboy blush. All are dressed down and welcoming: perfect places to come in from the cold. AU PIED DE COCHON These days, you can’t mention food in Montreal without touching on the chef Martin Picard’s unrepentantly Québécois restaurant, Au Pied de Cochon (536 Rue Duluth Est; 514-281-1114; http://www.restaurantaupieddecochon.ca). P.D.C., as the locals call it, was a pizzeria before Mr. Picard got his meaty mitts on it, and a blazing fire in a wood-burning oven greets guests at the door. Beyond it, the restaurant is long and narrow, bright but not too bright, with a mirror running down one side and an open kitchen on the other. The bare wooden tables are crowded with boisterous eaters of every age and description. And the chef — look for the unshaven man with a shock of untamed black hair — frequently works both sides of the bar, talking and drinking with customers and cooks. Mr. Picard put his restaurant on the gastronomic map when he put foie gras on poutine back in 2004, just after the restaurant opened. Many dishes at P.D.C. are conceived with that same wicked sense of humor — who puts foie gras on French fries? — and carry an unspoken threat of a cholesterol-triggered overdose. There’s a even a whole section of the menu dedicated to the fatty livers: foie on a burger, foie on a pizza and, most compellingly, the Plogue à Champlain — a dizzying combination of buckwheat pancakes, bacon, foie gras and maple syrup. But Mr. Picard doesn’t need to rely on fattened blond duck livers to make a dish worth seeking out: My meal started off with a simple plate of leeks — which crowded the local markets when I visited — poached and dressed with a bright vinaigrette. The salt cod fritters (another Montreal staple) were as greaseless and light as could be. But nobody goes to P.D.C. to diet. The restaurant’s namesake dish is a pig’s foot the size of grown man’s forearm that is poached, stuffed and roasted in the wood oven; a lobe of seared foie gras is laid over it sidesaddle before it goes out to a table. Entrees are reliably heavy and frequently come with some kind of surprise, like the dark brown fritters that accompanied a pot au feu for two (or was it four?) The fritters, which were speared on skewers, were crisp and brown. But it wasn’t until I bit into one that I realized what they were: testicles. Lamb’s testicles. And they were good. Dinner, with drinks and tip, about 80 Canadian dollars a person (the Canadian and U.S. dollars are nearly at par). JOE BEEF On my next visit to Montreal, I will put back another couple of dozen oysters at Joe Beef (2491 Rue Notre-Dame Ouest; 514-935-6504; http://www.joebeef.ca), a bistro of sorts that opened in the Petit-Bourgogne neighborhood in 2006. Shucked on the night I was there by John Bil, the restaurant’s champion oyster shucker (he captured the Canadian shucking crown three times), we slurped small, sweet oysters from Prince Edward Island and fat Moonstone oysters from Rhode Island, each shell brimming with oyster liquor like a bathtub with the faucet left on. Named after a 19th-century saloonkeeper, the restaurant has the coziness of a neighborhood pub: a chalkboard menu (that changes daily) covers one wall, wainscoting wraps the room, the light is flatteringly low. The chef Frédéric Morin’s menu has a classic bistro slant, though he’s tweaked each dish to make it his own. He eschews lardons and instead tops his frisée salad with strips of pig’s ears cut into matchstick strips and fried to shattering crispness. Pucks of silky foie gras au torchon are served with buttery brioche toast and pears poached in cinnamon-infused red wine. Entrees change nightly, but there are two menu stalwarts: pasta with lobster, and a massive côte de boeuf for the table. The lobster in the former was slightly overcooked the night I tried it, though it wasn’t hard to grasp the appeal of such a decadent cream-and-butter dish. The steak, served with marrowbones and potatoes, embodied the full-flavored, mineral promise of grass-fed steak. Dinner, with drinks and tip, about 110 Canadian dollars a person. LIVERPOOL HOUSE Joe Beef has a new neighbor. Mr. Morin spent last fall covered in sawdust, building his second restaurant, Liverpool House (2501 Rue Notre-Dame Ouest; 514-313-6049; http://www.liverpoolhouse.ca), just a few doors down from his first. Liverpool House is split into a barroom and a laid-back dining room. The woodwork and wainscoting are painted a warm white. The rest is decorated with an eclectic mix of paintings — oversized modern canvases and tiny impressionistic works — and odd, pig-themed tchotchkes like the porcelain porcine head, affixed to the wall at eye level like an extra diner at my table. Liverpool House is ostensibly Italian, though the restaurant’s cuisine owes more to Mr. Morin’s imagination and whatever is in season. One night, the bar plates were undeniably Italian: perfect sausage-stuffed arancini, a ball of buffalo milk burrata cheese (mozzarella’s creamy cousin) and a plate of salumi cured in the restaurant’s basement. But when I returned two nights later, the menu had been hijacked. I ate poached skate with black trumpet mushrooms in a buttery sauce, the mild ropes of fish an unobtrusive stage to show off those tender, earthy mushrooms. Hard-boiled eggs topped with crab meat sounded like a dreary canapé from the 1950s; instead it was a showcase for a snowdrift of sweet crab meat, piled on a pedestal of egg white anointed with house-made mayonnaise. The rest of the meal continued in the same manner: technically assured cooking that typifies the simplicity of the Italian kitchen (like the vitello tonnato), or lets the hand of the nearby market push it toward riskier directions (like a grilled veal chop served with roasted root vegetables and a sauce fortified with foie gras and sweetbreads). Is Liverpool House Italian? French? Or Québécois? Whatever it is, it’s an excellent place to eat. Dinner, with drinks and tip, about 100 Canadian dollars each. GARDE MANGER Another spot that trades the sanctimonious trappings of fine dining for a looser atmosphere is Garde Manger (408 Rue St.-François-Xavier; 514-678-5044). It is one of the few restaurants with real charm in Vieux Montreal, the oldest part of the city. Tucked into a small building on a side street, the restaurant has dark brick walls and a wildly oversized chandelier that looks as if it could have been pilfered from a merry-go-round at Versailles. The roaring fireplace offers a warm refuge from the blustering winds off the nearby St. Lawrence River. Early in the evening, the loud soundtrack leans toward Neil Young and the Grateful Dead, and the crowd is older, the men in dapper suits and ties. After 9 p.m., the soundtrack shifts to clubbier music and a younger crowd sets in and doesn’t mind standing two deep at the bar. One Montrealer commented to me that Garde Manger is a “bar that happens to serve some food early in the evening.” But at 10 p.m. on the night I was there, every table in the restaurant was full. The restaurant is rightly regarded for its seafood platters, which take a place of prominence on many tables. The largest is 120 Canadian dollars and comes in a giant wooden trough that contains enough raw shellfish to feed a romp of otters. A less expensive option, at 70 dollars, is still impressive: a dozen each of oysters and clams, plus Alaskan crab legs and a half-dozen poached shrimp. And though the kitchen, overseen by the chef Chuck Hughes, offers an appealing and ever-changing blackboard menu with its own signature poutine (with lobster and lobster gravy), I would not pass on the opportunity to order the steak frites again. It’s rare to find a restaurant that takes as much care with such a simple dish: the steak (bavette, or what we call flank steak south of the border) is seasoned with an assured hand and charred to a textbook medium rare; the fries were crisp and fresh and tasted like potatoes. Though we had to shout over the gunshots ringing out in the chorus of M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes,” my dining companions and I were impressed that a place as rollicking as Garde Manger chooses to pay attention to what’s coming out of the kitchen.

By Andrew Weiland , of SBT Published September 14, 2007 Milwaukee-based developer Steve Stewart and restaurateur Jay Supple, chief executive officer of Oshkosh-based Supple Restaurant Group, plan to introduce America to the Montreal Bread Co. restaurant chain. They plan to open the first Montreal Bread Co. location in the United States in the River Renaissance development, a seven-story, 82-unit condominium building under construction southeast of Water and Erie streets in Milwaukee’s Historic Third Ward. Stewart, president of New Vision Development Co., is a partner in the River Renaissance project, which will be complete in November. During the next 10 years, Stewart and Supple plan to open and sell franchises for an additional 50 to 100 Montreal Bread locations across the United States. They will be master franchisors for Montreal Bread in their territory, which so far includes Wisconsin, Illinois and Minnesota. That means they will be able to open or sell franchises for Montreal Bread locations in those states. In addition, Stewart and Supple are negotiating with Montreal Bread to add more states to their territory. “We want to be the master franchisor for the entire U.S.,” Stewart said. Montreal Bread Co. is a chain of European style cafes. Its menu includes sandwiches, soup, salads, desserts, pizza, cheese platters, fruit platters, vegetable platters and retail bread and wine. “It’s an upscale café,” Supple said. “It’s another level above Panera Bread and Atlanta Bread Co. It’s kind of a meet-and-greet place, kind of like Starbucks, but with a much bigger menu. It’s a concept we feel we can take and repeat it throughout the country. That’s what is appealing to us.” Stewart and Supple plan to open six to eight Montreal Bread locations in the Milwaukee area and about 15 total Wisconsin locations during the next 10 years. The concept is flexible and can fit in a 500- to 1,500-square-foot space. “We’re going to have a lot of other Montreal Bread locations throughout Milwaukee, but the locations will be very urban,” Stewart said. The concept will work in suburban locations, but only in high-density communities such as Whitefish Bay in high-traffic areas, Stewart and Supple said. They also plan to do catering and deliveries, so they will be looking for locations near a large number of offices. Rob Weich, chief operating officer of Mequon-based Weich Group Inc., and Alec Karter, a commercial real estate broker with Pewaukee-based Judson & Associates, will help Stewart and Supple find locations and franchisees for Montreal Bread restaurants. “They’ve got some good contacts,” Stewart said. The River Renaissance Montreal Bread location will occupy about 2,800 square feet of space, which will include a 1,500-square-foot training area for franchisees. It will be located on the first floor of the building right at the corner of Water and Erie. The restaurant will also have sidewalk seating for about 40. “This is going to be kind of our model,” Supple said. Supple also plans to open a Fratellos restaurant in an 8,610-square-foot space in River Renaissance, along the Milwaukee River. It will be the fifth location for Fratellos, which has two locations in Appleton, one in Ashwaubenon and one in Oshkosh. Fratellos serves a wide variety of American dishes, including seafood, steaks, sandwiches and pizza. “We try to have something for everybody who comes through the door,” Supple said. Most of the Fratellos locations are located on a waterfront, and the River Renaissance location will feature seating for 100 outside along Milwaukee’s Riverwalk. “The places are beautiful, but you have a menu that is very price sensitive,” Supple said. Supple’s company also owns Wave Bar and Ballroom in Appleton, and he is a franchisee for Golden Corral restaurants in Plover and Oshkosh, a Melting Pot restaurant in Appleton and a Hilton Garden Inn hotel in Oshkosh. “We’re a little bit unique in that we have independent concepts and franchise concepts,” Supple said. The company has been looking to expand into the Milwaukee area, he said. Some in the Milwaukee area are already familiar with Fratellos from taking trips north for Green Bay Packer games or vacations. “This is big for us,” Supple said. “It’s a larger market. We’ve been looking down here for about three years. We love the Third Ward.”

Le Journal de Montréal 05/09/2007 La chaîne américaine Hooters, qui connaît du succès aux États-Unis avec son concept ailes-de-poulet-épicées-serveuses-sexy, s’apprête à faire une percée au Québec dans le marché déjà bien garni des restaurants de fast food. «Nous prévoyons ouvrir quatre restaurants d’ici à cinq ans dans la grande région de Montréal», souligne Sam Meghani, responsable du développement de la chaîne au Québec. L’investissement pourrait atteindre 5 M$, avec une moyenne de 1,2 M$ par restaurant. Il a acquis de Hooters - une chaîne de 435 restaurants basée à Atlanta - les droits commerciaux pour développer le marché québécois. Mais pourquoi le Québec? «C’était le seul territoire (province) disponible. Au Canada, toutes les provinces sont quadrillées de Hooters», répond Sam Meghani. Concept original Cet Américain d’origine pakistanaise vient tout juste de déménager au Québec pour voir à ce que le «concept Hooters», pour le moins original, soit respecté à la lettre. Dans les restaurants de la chaîne, les «filles» ont de 18 à 25 ans et sont vêtues d’un «uniforme» suggestif qui semble plaire à la clientèle masculine. Pourtant, Hooters s’affiche comme un restaurant familial qui propose à ses clients affamés des hamburgers gigantesques et des gâteaux au fromage au caramel fondant. «Nos filles n’ont pas nécessairement de grosses poitrines. Elles portent simplement des vêtements à l’image de la chaîne. Il ne se passe rien de dégradant dans nos restos», dit Sam Meghani, qui ne s’offusque pas de voir ses «filles» servir la clientèle vêtues d’une camisole et d’un short moulants. La publicité vante même «le mariage de la bonne nourriture et de la bonne bière froide servies (!) par une belle fille de Hooters». La chaîne ne manque pas d’imagination: elle propose à ses clients d’acheter le calendrier Hooters où apparaissent en tenue très légère ses employées modèles du mois. «Le calendrier Hooters: la seule façon de sortir avec l’une d’elles!», peut-on lire à l’envers du menu. Par ailleurs, les investisseurs intéressés par ce menu à la sauce américaine doivent avoir les poches bien profondes. Sur son site Internet, Hooters rappelle qu’un investisseur doit pouvoir ouvrir de trois à cinq restaurants sur son «territoire» et avoir des liquidités de 2 M$ US. Une franchise se vend 75 000 $ US, et l’investissement pour chaque restaurant varie de 800 000 $ US à 1,5 M$ US. √ Un premier restaurant de 210 places ouvrira ses portes le 17 septembre à Greenfield Park, sur la Rive-Sud.